Where's the NDP? That's the real story.

Recently, 3 MPs of the Liberal Party of Canada went to vote for the executive of the parliamentary Canada-Israel Friendship Group. The Conservatives had approximately 60 MPs in attendance and when the votes were counted, all 6 executive positions went to Conservative MPs. Liberal MP Marc Garneau was particularly upset by this, although to me the vote does appear to simply be a function of numbers because the Liberal Party only has 34 MPs at this time, whilst the Conservatives have 166.

I believe Marc Garneau is sincere in wanting to be involved on the executive of the parliamentary Canada-Israel Friendship Group. He is a friend of Israel and indeed, of all democracies. However, whilst the newspapers and other media outlets have noted the inherent numerical disadvantage to his caucus they missed the more damning point. Not a single NDP MP of the 102 members of the loyal opposition chose to attend. With 102 members, should the NDP not have had at least 1 representative at the Canada-Israel Friendship Group meeting? 

My experience from talking to the NDP's national director and an MP about 18 months ago is instructive. When I have asked them why the dictat from “on high” gives no ability to reason about their party's support for theocratic, misogynistic, homophobic and tyrannical forces of Hamas and Hezbollah striving to eliminate a vibrant democracy with rights for all, their only response is that "it is a little confusing they support groups that don’t share their vision". Seriously. This is representative of my encounters with the NDP and they are stuck with a rigid ideological bigotry dictated from their head office on all matters. In addition, when one sees the historically ignorant Libby Davies remain a possible “kingmaker” in the NDP's leadership race, and she has (let’s be generous to her) has veered very close to outright anti-Semitism in her utterances, then one can easily ascertain what the NDP stands for in the Middle East.

 

I had very reasonable discussions on all issues in the past with BQ, Liberals and Conservatives, and disagreed amicably at times. Marc Garneau in particular was a pleasure to talk to, but that may be because I wanted to be an astronaut growing up.Unfortunately, I find the NDP representatives impossible to engage in discussion and stuck in pure "group-think", largely based on absolute ignorance. The NDP members are told that a stance is "left-wing" and therefore they must follow it, even if it includes support for totalitarian ideologies.