Hey, no need to be shy, I'll leap on any excuse to talk politics.
This is a pretty good rundown of what happened. Basically, candidates were asked to step down because they'd said vaguely pro-Palestinian things. And by "vaguely pro-Palestinian," I mean, "repeating uncontroversial facts that the UN said."
I think the decision was pragmatic rather than ideological—they don't want it to be an election issue, and among individual party members, the NDP is still the most progressive on Palestine. (And in fairness, the Liberals also purged their pro-Palestinian candidate and the Tories never had any.) I disagree with the decision both strategically and politically; I think the NDP are falling into the same trap as the Democrats and Blairite Labour, which is trying to win votes by making themselves indistinguishable from the ruling party. But at least if the NDP get in, we won't have Canada's government disregarding democratic elections and serenading Benjamin Netanyahu.
Electoral politics is an ugly business, which is why I do other stuff between elections and consider it more important in the long run.
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This is a pretty good rundown of what happened. Basically, candidates were asked to step down because they'd said vaguely pro-Palestinian things. And by "vaguely pro-Palestinian," I mean, "repeating uncontroversial facts that the UN said."
I think the decision was pragmatic rather than ideological—they don't want it to be an election issue, and among individual party members, the NDP is still the most progressive on Palestine. (And in fairness, the Liberals also purged their pro-Palestinian candidate and the Tories never had any.) I disagree with the decision both strategically and politically; I think the NDP are falling into the same trap as the Democrats and Blairite Labour, which is trying to win votes by making themselves indistinguishable from the ruling party. But at least if the NDP get in, we won't have Canada's government disregarding democratic elections and serenading Benjamin Netanyahu.
Electoral politics is an ugly business, which is why I do other stuff between elections and consider it more important in the long run.
Also, hey, welcome to Canada!