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 Editorial Contributor Halifax hosted the national New Democratic Party’s general meeting on August 14th. I had been invited as a supporter and also attended the public session as a contributor to Street Feat. The phone message from Jack Layton said to use the Duke Street ticket office to the World Trade Centre. This turned out to be the VIP entrance. I hardly was going to claim such status. Leonard Preyra, who was standing there suggested there was another entrance just down the hill. The only one I found was a black metal staircase so I walked around the corner to the main entrance on Argyle, opposite city hall, following the crowd of volunteers so eventually found the meeting in the very cool main arena, a place that would have been more familiar in such a cavernous building, had it only been mentioned. Megan Leslie, the outstanding local MP, led off the proceedings at 7:30pm. First, was a memorail list of the dead. There was scattered applause, the loudest was for Lucille Broadbent and Rosemary Brown. Then, there was a pictorial on the life of former national leader Alexa McDonough. Leslie then introduced her as "my personal hero". Alexa is now president of Mount Saint Vincent University. She had been surprised at the material they found showing her life from a baby 65 years ago to national leader. Alexa went on about the lonely times as the only woman in the local legislature in 1981 to the party’s breakthrought in 1998. She mentioned the 250th anniversary of Representative Government in Nova Scotia and how it had taken 223 of those years to get a woman, not to mention a socialist, into the local legislature. She also said the party wasn't about electing women, but about getting women and men who supported the philosophy. She mentioned how the party had elected an immigrant, Leonard Preyra, a political scientist at Saint Mary’s University and about the selection of Irvine Carvery, a Metro Housing manager and former resident of Africville, to the school board chair after the racist, divisive board was scrapped. Alexa went on through three finallys, before she finally succeed in leaving. She was followed to more loud applause by South End representative, Leonard Preyra, who told of the surprise he got when be elected in normally Liberal South End Halifax, a area which had never been held for more than one term by the party. One voter told him,"I will vote for you this time, if you screw up, you'll never get my vote again." He apparently voted for Leonard a second time, when he was reelected, despite the Conservatives pulling out all the stops. Other voters had shown a bit of racism to the foreign born, accent-less intellectual when he was first elected, saying he only got in due to the student vote, but the election was set by the previous government after the main university session was over and most of the students were away. It didn't do them that much good. Leonard also linked the NDP with the election of Barrack Obama, first black president of the United States. Watching those waiting in the wings, the smiling, laughing and enthusiastic Preyra finished quickly. By now, an hour and a half had passed, so I left, not having met many I knew. I missed Denise Patterson- Rafuse, the Minister of Community Affairs, who I'd written about the problems in the senior's manors and their administration, but I did talk to Joe McSweeney, the retired Vice Principal of Saint Patrick's High School, who was an usher. (Look for our current issue.)  |
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Last Updated on 16 - VI - 2008
