Not Your Traditional New Democrat

Earlier today, over 30 “high profile” New Democrats sent an open letter to Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP) Leader Andrea Horwath criticizing her populist policies and her opposition to the Liberals’ budget.[1] While I have had my reservations about Andrea Horwath – specifically her lack of proper communication on certain issues – to warrant her changes as a reason to give up on the NDP is taking things too far. For this blog post, I would like to describe how I ended up supporting the NDP and why Horwath’s new style is not as unorthodox as it appears.

Me with the late Jack Layton - May 1, 2011

A Quick Guide to Political Campaigns

At one point or another, you may have considered getting more involved in politics, but may not know where to start. 

While I have followed politics since my teenage years, it wasn't until February 2012 when I became seriously involved. At the time, I was fairly new to Toronto proper and the NDP was holding a leadership race to replace the late Jack Layton. I was curious to meet my elected officials and it turned out the MP for my riding, Peggy Nash, was a leadership candidate. 

Political Health in Action

At the beginning of the month, I outlined the three principles of political health, those being citizen participation, social justice, and institutional integrity. Of these three, citizen participation is by far the most important, yet the most neglected.

Too many people in Western society tend to believe our opinions do not matter and/or we do not have much time to be informed of current affairs, let alone take action. These beliefs could not be further from the truth, and I will briefly describe some examples and a few action items on what you can do to improve your political health.