Jack Layton on Tout le monde en parle after the election

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Now leader of the opposition Jack Layton made an appearance on Tout le monde en parle yesterday:



Since the majority of the NDP's seats now come from Quebec, we're going to hear a lot less Layton in English from now on. Quebec is notorious for quickly switching loyalties from one party to another, the most recent example being the ADQ. Official opposition one year, reduced to a rump party the next. The NDP has at least four years in its current position though, so they and all the other parties have a lot of time in which to plan their strategy for the next election.

They talk about Loi 101 / Bill 101 a fair amount, and you can read about the NDP's position here. Of course, the NDP does not have the power to threaten to bring down the government anymore so their political power is mostly relegated to public opinion (getting first dibs in Question Period is the opportunity to make nightly news), and committees.

  • 5 minutes in: Ruth Ellen Rousseau and other young candidates.
  • 9 minutes in: how much power they will have in a majority government. He sounds particularly vague here because there really isn't much they can do, and any other party in their place would be in the same situation.
  • 11:45: what will your first actions in parliament be? (here they talk about Loi 101)
  • 12:40: a bit more detail on how he intends to pursue an agenda in a majority parliament - present a bill (in this case on credit cards, interest rates and such things I think) and then appeal to the public in order to force the government to address the issue.

In the meantime, the Liberals are looking for an interim leader and there is still little interest in the position -- they're still in shock. I of course want to see Marc Garneau take the position. Whether he is Prime Minister material is uncertain, but being either the interim or permanent leader of the party can only be good for the discussion of Canada's role in space. He also carries no negative baggage at all, and the Conservatives would not be in any hurry to negatively define him as they did with Ignatieff, since 1) there will not be an election soon and 2) due to reason #1 any negative ads would certainly not resonate well with the public.

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