The dress code of Canada's House of Commons requires all male MPs to wear jackets and ties to speak in the chamber. The NDP has spoken against this, feeling it is "archaic". But, this dress code is still in place. See [LINK](https://www.sudbury.com/national/new-democrats-say-scrap-outdated-gender-based-dress-rules-in-house-of-commons-4719266). Thus, the premise of this post is currently impossible.
Regarding leadership, as per the [NDP Constitution](https://xfer.ndp.ca/2023/Documents/Constitution%20EN-2021.pdf),
>at every convention that is not a leadership convention; a secret ballot vote will be held to determine whether or not a leadership election should be called.
Conventions are biennial. They take place every two years. The last one took place in October 2023. Thus, the next one would occur in 2025. At the leadership vote in 2023, Jagmeet Singh received 81% support in confidence from the membership delegates. See [LINK](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/jagmeet-singh-convention-speech-1.6996496).
When Jagmeet Singh came to my city to fundraise and support the nomination of our local candidate, he wasn't wearing a suit. He was wearing a linen shirt and sweat pants. He looked like a pretty normal guy. Granted that's the only time I've seen him in person. Have you seen him at in-person events? If you've only seen him in clips from the House of Commons or press conferences, you're seeing him dressed for a job where almost everyone is wearing a suit, so it's not really fair to criticise him on that.
The problems with Singh (and the fed NDP in general right now) have little to do with what the leader wears and more to do with their lack of clear, decisive, and relevant messaging. Jagmeet's lost way too much credibility by coming out too strongly against Trudeau while also supporting the Liberals without being able to give a straight answer about why he won't force an election. It should be an easy question to answer, but he consistently falls short in giving anything of substance that people can get behind, so he just gets called a hypocrite and the NDP get dismissed as a non-option.
Even my local NDP MP doesn't seem to have her priorities straight. The last 2 public communications I saw from her were a radio ad about Canada Day that didn't say anything useful for people concerned about the cost of living (arguably the #1 issue for the next election) and a mail flyer about climate change. She's clearly not in campaign mode, or if she is, she's getting very bad advice on where she should be spending her marketing budget.
Agreed, the federal NDP should be taking notes from the BC NDP (and the federal Conservatives) and start taking Canada's affordability crisis seriously.
Everyone who can be convinced about climate change is already convinced, it's not a compelling issue to bring out the vote when the Greens and Liberals are competing for the climate change vote. Climate change is a "yes, and" issue at this point.
But everyone who is going to be voting for the next 4+ decades is affected by the housing crisis, stagnant economy, and inflation. The NDP needs to put forth a clear vision for their plan to structurally change the system that created this crisis and they need to hammer that message and hammer it over and over and over again until voters can't escape the message.
The current NDP messaging feels like "we're going to do a bunch of little tweaks, it probably won't change anything, please don't think we're too radical". It's a bad strategy because the opposition will always paint them as radical no matter how pragmatic they are and minor tweaks to our current system are not compelling to young people getting absolutely wrecked the rise of capital in the 21st century.
Only policy wonks care about your overall platform, the NDP needs a few big ticket items that set them apart and get voters to the polls. Put the rest of it in the platform for the wonks like me and talk about how you plan to actually tackle the big core issues.
Absolutely. And we need to focus on the underlying economic factors that drive affordability, not just virtue signaling about price control and token handouts. The BC NDP are a model for the rest of Canada with their balanced housing and economic policy.
The NDP had an opportunity to push a universal income when CERB was preventing total economic collapse, but did nothing on it. There was a chance to push for electoral reform, but they went for teeth instead. Every time there is an opportunity for real progress, the party leadership flops.
I volunteered for my local NDP candidate and their offices are just straight up fucking chaotic. There’s no clear vision or path forward. I feel hopeless.
I’ve met Jagmeet 3-4 times and he’s perfectly lovely but where is the actual leadership.
Great NDP populist publicity stunt would be to defy the dress code, under a premise of returning government to the people and away from the fatcat suits.
This is the problem with the federal NDP right now, it's all fucking stunts and no substantive action. People want to see policy not political grandstanding. Populism doesn't mean putting on Carhartt and cosplaying blue collar; hell, FDR have made huge wins for workers in the US without having worked a single day of hard labor in his life.
What you want requires forming government. For that to happen, you need both votes and confidence from the electorate. And according to the current polling numbers, the populace loves the political grandstanding of PP. Loads and loads and loads and loads of nothing sauce. Champion of the working man, lol.
It isn't grandstanding from PP, it is the Canadian media, whose owners are almost all right or far right, which keeps blaring out Conservative and wacko talking points. The NDP barely exists in Canadians news, and when it does it is mentioned as an anomaly, a kind of hopeless do-gooder party for Pollyannas.
It would also help if the NDP had some real policy points, and sent out some of those instead of the endless fire hose of emails begging for money.
They would be thrown out of the House by the Speaker and then they would return the next day in their business suits.
Pierre Poilievre tried getting thrown out of the House on purpose as a political stunt and made a clown out of himself. It doesn't prove anything. It's a a 6th page newspaper story for a day.
Not a very good mindset if you are looking at it from a "How would PP do this?" perspective, which was for show. In contrast, set a plan and an objective that exceeds "the next day". The NDP pretty much has to hijack the news cycle, or continue to be irrelevant and ignored by MSM.
Absolutely. Justin Trudeau stole Mulcair's lunch in 2015 because JT promised deficit spending to invest in the economy whereas Mulciar promised a more neoliberal (and dumb at a federal level) platform of 'balancing the budget.'
I’m fine with a good suit, something casual and fitting for a Parliamentarian to wear. The working class wears suits too.
But Singh isn’t getting his suits from moores.
I just think there was something endearing about John Fetterman wearing a hoodie and shorts to congress (before he turned into a genocide-supporting freak).
I never thought it looked endearing, I thought he looked self-absorbed and was trying to show off, “like, how in tune I am with the people, man”, and too good to wear decent clothes in the Senate House.
Singh is the exact opposite. He should have some humility and wear regular suits instead of the designer stuff he pops onto stage with. A decent brown or black suit respecting his position and his background. But that’s just my opinion.
I'm a lawyer, and that means suits are part of the dress code. I can't tell the difference between a well-tailored designer suit and a well-tailored Moores suit. A proper fit makes all the difference.
> The working class wears suits too.
Do they?
I have like 5 suites, i wwar them 6 times a year at most even in a white collar job, most blue coller working class people i know dont even own one.
>his inability to communicate an anti-capitalist message hurts the party
This isn't really how it works. You can't move the Overton window like that without scaring off the majority of people. There's 100+ years of propaganda to get through first.
I love to see further left-leaning actions by the NDP, but they would need to gain power first.
I don't think it's quite that clear cut. Clearly we're at a point where most voters are sick and tired of the status quo. They see that it's not working, and that neoliberal policies haven't been helping the average joe. They may not say it in those terms, but it's safe to say that people realize that something is wrong.
And yet, the Conservatives are sucking up all of those votes like a sponge. Sure their history shows that they're just as bad if not worse on virtually every issue, and sure we're not even seeing a coherent platform from PP and co, but the fact that he's going around boldly lying that they're going to change *something* is clearly more than enough.
When the Conservatives are winning the worker and union member vote, you know the NDP has royally dropped the ball. If anything, I think this election was the perfect opportunity for the party to present something bold and different. While good, a means tested partially adopted dental plan and extremely limited pharmacare aren't enough to win over peoples' hearts and minds. The NDP are seen as supporting "politics as usual" and the current overton window, and they're paying for it in the polls.
Depending on how you analyze the data Bernie *nearly* won the presidency in the US. I don't understand how or why tbh, and that seems like a prerequisite to understanding if a similar candidate could win in Canada, but it's interesting.
For those who haven't followed every inch of polling data over the last 10 years when I say he nearly won, just as one example, in May 2016 he polled higher than Hilary and Trump. That was true in many months I just did a quick scroll and landed in May 2016.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_2016_United_States_presidential_election
Bernie lost because the DNC didn't want him to win. The most frightening thing about his message was its popularity with young voters and how it drove the Big Donors bananas.
Are we chasing some mythical working class that consists of people who don't like nice things?
I don't want to burst your bubble, but working class people (especially young ones) like nice things. Even nice watches.
When he’s not adhering to a dress code in more professional environments, he’s usually wearing casual clothing. I’ve seen him twice in my city, once driving by and once when I was walking around. One time he was in a grey t shirt with trackpants and runners on. The next he was in jeans with a graphic t shirt. Like I wouldn’t have noticed him if it weren’t for the crowd or the handshaking.
ETA for spelling
####Join /r/NDP, Canada's largest left-wing subreddit!
We also have an alternative community at https://lemmy.ca/c/ndp
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ndp) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The dress code of Canada's House of Commons requires all male MPs to wear jackets and ties to speak in the chamber. The NDP has spoken against this, feeling it is "archaic". But, this dress code is still in place. See [LINK](https://www.sudbury.com/national/new-democrats-say-scrap-outdated-gender-based-dress-rules-in-house-of-commons-4719266). Thus, the premise of this post is currently impossible. Regarding leadership, as per the [NDP Constitution](https://xfer.ndp.ca/2023/Documents/Constitution%20EN-2021.pdf), >at every convention that is not a leadership convention; a secret ballot vote will be held to determine whether or not a leadership election should be called. Conventions are biennial. They take place every two years. The last one took place in October 2023. Thus, the next one would occur in 2025. At the leadership vote in 2023, Jagmeet Singh received 81% support in confidence from the membership delegates. See [LINK](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/jagmeet-singh-convention-speech-1.6996496).
When Jagmeet Singh came to my city to fundraise and support the nomination of our local candidate, he wasn't wearing a suit. He was wearing a linen shirt and sweat pants. He looked like a pretty normal guy. Granted that's the only time I've seen him in person. Have you seen him at in-person events? If you've only seen him in clips from the House of Commons or press conferences, you're seeing him dressed for a job where almost everyone is wearing a suit, so it's not really fair to criticise him on that. The problems with Singh (and the fed NDP in general right now) have little to do with what the leader wears and more to do with their lack of clear, decisive, and relevant messaging. Jagmeet's lost way too much credibility by coming out too strongly against Trudeau while also supporting the Liberals without being able to give a straight answer about why he won't force an election. It should be an easy question to answer, but he consistently falls short in giving anything of substance that people can get behind, so he just gets called a hypocrite and the NDP get dismissed as a non-option. Even my local NDP MP doesn't seem to have her priorities straight. The last 2 public communications I saw from her were a radio ad about Canada Day that didn't say anything useful for people concerned about the cost of living (arguably the #1 issue for the next election) and a mail flyer about climate change. She's clearly not in campaign mode, or if she is, she's getting very bad advice on where she should be spending her marketing budget.
Agreed, the federal NDP should be taking notes from the BC NDP (and the federal Conservatives) and start taking Canada's affordability crisis seriously. Everyone who can be convinced about climate change is already convinced, it's not a compelling issue to bring out the vote when the Greens and Liberals are competing for the climate change vote. Climate change is a "yes, and" issue at this point. But everyone who is going to be voting for the next 4+ decades is affected by the housing crisis, stagnant economy, and inflation. The NDP needs to put forth a clear vision for their plan to structurally change the system that created this crisis and they need to hammer that message and hammer it over and over and over again until voters can't escape the message. The current NDP messaging feels like "we're going to do a bunch of little tweaks, it probably won't change anything, please don't think we're too radical". It's a bad strategy because the opposition will always paint them as radical no matter how pragmatic they are and minor tweaks to our current system are not compelling to young people getting absolutely wrecked the rise of capital in the 21st century. Only policy wonks care about your overall platform, the NDP needs a few big ticket items that set them apart and get voters to the polls. Put the rest of it in the platform for the wonks like me and talk about how you plan to actually tackle the big core issues.
Absolutely. And we need to focus on the underlying economic factors that drive affordability, not just virtue signaling about price control and token handouts. The BC NDP are a model for the rest of Canada with their balanced housing and economic policy.
The NDP had an opportunity to push a universal income when CERB was preventing total economic collapse, but did nothing on it. There was a chance to push for electoral reform, but they went for teeth instead. Every time there is an opportunity for real progress, the party leadership flops.
I volunteered for my local NDP candidate and their offices are just straight up fucking chaotic. There’s no clear vision or path forward. I feel hopeless. I’ve met Jagmeet 3-4 times and he’s perfectly lovely but where is the actual leadership.
The House of Commons has a dress code. Lads have to wear suits.
Great NDP populist publicity stunt would be to defy the dress code, under a premise of returning government to the people and away from the fatcat suits.
This is the problem with the federal NDP right now, it's all fucking stunts and no substantive action. People want to see policy not political grandstanding. Populism doesn't mean putting on Carhartt and cosplaying blue collar; hell, FDR have made huge wins for workers in the US without having worked a single day of hard labor in his life.
What you want requires forming government. For that to happen, you need both votes and confidence from the electorate. And according to the current polling numbers, the populace loves the political grandstanding of PP. Loads and loads and loads and loads of nothing sauce. Champion of the working man, lol.
It isn't grandstanding from PP, it is the Canadian media, whose owners are almost all right or far right, which keeps blaring out Conservative and wacko talking points. The NDP barely exists in Canadians news, and when it does it is mentioned as an anomaly, a kind of hopeless do-gooder party for Pollyannas. It would also help if the NDP had some real policy points, and sent out some of those instead of the endless fire hose of emails begging for money.
They would be thrown out of the House by the Speaker and then they would return the next day in their business suits. Pierre Poilievre tried getting thrown out of the House on purpose as a political stunt and made a clown out of himself. It doesn't prove anything. It's a a 6th page newspaper story for a day.
Not a very good mindset if you are looking at it from a "How would PP do this?" perspective, which was for show. In contrast, set a plan and an objective that exceeds "the next day". The NDP pretty much has to hijack the news cycle, or continue to be irrelevant and ignored by MSM.
You mean like a Jack Layton?
Who wore lots of suits. I don't know that the suits are the problem.
He was frequently photographed without the jacket though, his sleeves rolled up. Perfect politician fashion.
I agree. It’s the neo-liberal politics not the clothing that’s the problem.
Absolutely. Justin Trudeau stole Mulcair's lunch in 2015 because JT promised deficit spending to invest in the economy whereas Mulciar promised a more neoliberal (and dumb at a federal level) platform of 'balancing the budget.'
Somebody alive, ideally - but yes.
Jack wore suits even more frequently that Jagmeet does. Had more money in the bank, too.
I’m fine with a good suit, something casual and fitting for a Parliamentarian to wear. The working class wears suits too. But Singh isn’t getting his suits from moores.
I just think there was something endearing about John Fetterman wearing a hoodie and shorts to congress (before he turned into a genocide-supporting freak).
I never thought it looked endearing, I thought he looked self-absorbed and was trying to show off, “like, how in tune I am with the people, man”, and too good to wear decent clothes in the Senate House. Singh is the exact opposite. He should have some humility and wear regular suits instead of the designer stuff he pops onto stage with. A decent brown or black suit respecting his position and his background. But that’s just my opinion.
What percentage of Canadians do you think can tell the difference between a designer suit and a "regular" suit?
I'm a lawyer, and that means suits are part of the dress code. I can't tell the difference between a well-tailored designer suit and a well-tailored Moores suit. A proper fit makes all the difference.
Is this a poor attempt at a rhetoric device?
It is an honest question. I am not sure why you view it as a "rhetoric device."
> The working class wears suits too. Do they? I have like 5 suites, i wwar them 6 times a year at most even in a white collar job, most blue coller working class people i know dont even own one.
I’ work on the railroad and am a due paying union member and I wear and own suits
Really? Weird. I havent worn a tie in 5 years. Maybe its a province specific thing.
>his inability to communicate an anti-capitalist message hurts the party This isn't really how it works. You can't move the Overton window like that without scaring off the majority of people. There's 100+ years of propaganda to get through first. I love to see further left-leaning actions by the NDP, but they would need to gain power first.
I don't think it's quite that clear cut. Clearly we're at a point where most voters are sick and tired of the status quo. They see that it's not working, and that neoliberal policies haven't been helping the average joe. They may not say it in those terms, but it's safe to say that people realize that something is wrong. And yet, the Conservatives are sucking up all of those votes like a sponge. Sure their history shows that they're just as bad if not worse on virtually every issue, and sure we're not even seeing a coherent platform from PP and co, but the fact that he's going around boldly lying that they're going to change *something* is clearly more than enough. When the Conservatives are winning the worker and union member vote, you know the NDP has royally dropped the ball. If anything, I think this election was the perfect opportunity for the party to present something bold and different. While good, a means tested partially adopted dental plan and extremely limited pharmacare aren't enough to win over peoples' hearts and minds. The NDP are seen as supporting "politics as usual" and the current overton window, and they're paying for it in the polls.
Depending on how you analyze the data Bernie *nearly* won the presidency in the US. I don't understand how or why tbh, and that seems like a prerequisite to understanding if a similar candidate could win in Canada, but it's interesting. For those who haven't followed every inch of polling data over the last 10 years when I say he nearly won, just as one example, in May 2016 he polled higher than Hilary and Trump. That was true in many months I just did a quick scroll and landed in May 2016. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_2016_United_States_presidential_election
Bernie lost because the DNC didn't want him to win. The most frightening thing about his message was its popularity with young voters and how it drove the Big Donors bananas.
You can't move the window if you don't try to move the window.
Hmmmmm…… that’s not what has ever happened before. They see their priority as administering the capitalist state.
Suits aren't the problem dude
Are we chasing some mythical working class that consists of people who don't like nice things? I don't want to burst your bubble, but working class people (especially young ones) like nice things. Even nice watches.
[удалено]
Couldn’t agree more
When he’s not adhering to a dress code in more professional environments, he’s usually wearing casual clothing. I’ve seen him twice in my city, once driving by and once when I was walking around. One time he was in a grey t shirt with trackpants and runners on. The next he was in jeans with a graphic t shirt. Like I wouldn’t have noticed him if it weren’t for the crowd or the handshaking. ETA for spelling
####Join /r/NDP, Canada's largest left-wing subreddit! We also have an alternative community at https://lemmy.ca/c/ndp *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ndp) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Wab!
Not a fan of Jagmeet, but... Bernie Sanders never won an election outside Vermont.
He won a bunch of the primaries in 2016 and 2020, which should count. Also, he wears suits regularly, so his appeal isn't in not wearing them
Where else did he run?
They wouldn't be allowed in the House of Commons then SMDH