Ever since NDP leader Carole James recruited former NDP MLA Moe Sihota to run for party president, signs abounded that the NDP would rue the day. Why? Moe is a toxic figure and it's evident that he would eventually move the NDP along a road to ruin.
Yesterday's Penticton NDP constituency gathering, which included ousted MLA Bob Simpson and dissident MLA Norm Macdonald re-inforced the schisms within the NDP. Furthermore, more damning revelations have surfaced, which does not bode well for future NDP fortunes.
From the Penticton Western News:
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Perhaps the most dramatic episode of an evening filled with Simpson and MacDonald outlining their criticism and concerns with party and their prescriptions for change was when last-minute attendee NDP MLA Harry Lali took the floor to expose his support for Simpson.
“I was never kicked out of caucus for anything I did, and I was a repeat offender,” said Lali. “Somebody wanted to shut him up from asking the right questions ... and get him the hell out of there. That is why he (was) kicked out.”
After the meeting, Simpson said his fate was sealed once he started asking questions about the ethical nature of Sihota’s activities, especially when it came to decisions regarding withholding money from riding associations and Sihota’s decision to not let the party know he was going to be accepting money from three unions when he ran and won as NDP president.
“Moe Sihota admitted at provincial council that he made a deal with the unions before he even stood for election that he would get paid for the job,” said Simpson.
“When he stood at convention, he never declared that: ‘Here are the grounds that (the party) will elect me as president. I will get paid $74,000 a year so know that (because) that is one of my requirements.’
“So the convention was not told. He was elected, as far as I am concerned, on an unethical premise, because he did not reveal that. We never knew as a caucus. The party executive never knew that he was getting this pay from the unions until 10 months into it.”
Simpson said that once Sihota took over as president Carole James started using bully politics.
“It’s Moe Sihota. One hundred per cent Moe Sihota,” said Simpson after the meeting. “Moe Sihota is the penultimate bully politician.”
Simpson said that a fundamental weakness in James’ personality, buoyed by Sihota, is her inability to embrace others’ strengths.
“A good political leader in my mind needs to sit there and say, ‘OK, I have got (the MLAs) I have got, now what are all their strengths and how can I maximize those strengths,’” he said.
“She is frightened by them. She sees it wrong and I think the yellow scarf campaign this weekend proved that in spades. Instead of embracing all the people that were saying, ‘We are struggling.’ And saying what is the nature of that struggle and how do we fix it. It is, ‘You are struggling, you better do what I damn well tell you to do.’”
Delegates at the meeting in Victoria last Saturday sported yellow scarves and buttons to show their support for James while 13 MLAs in attendance made a point of not wearing a scarf or joining in the ovations for James’ speech that opened the weekend meeting.
“A lot of people described it as cult-like,” said Simpson. “It is clearly insidious and appalling in a party that prides itself on diversity; prides itself on individual rights and freedoms. And if you look at some of the people in the 13 — who does Carole James think she is to call Jenny Kwan a dissident and a complainer?”
Simpson said the yellow scarf episode is an example of what needs to change in the party.
“Moe Sihota is one of a cadre of people who broke the NDP in the 1990s end ended up collapsing (the caucus) down to two people, and now he is back in charge of the NDP again and he is going to do the same thing,” he said.
http://www.bclocalnews.com/okanagan_similkameen/pentictonwesternnews/news/110711569.html
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