This Week in Me: The New New Democratic Party

Democratic Party / Parti démocratique

Democratic Party / Parti démocratique

Page A2 of today’s Gazette was all me again this week (it’s going to be the case for the next few Mondays as well). Below the usual Monday Calendar is a Bluffer’s Guide to the NDP’s proposed name change (they want to remove the word “New” and become just the “Democratic Party of Canada”), wherein you learn that the previous name for the NDP was, in fact, the New Party.

The NDP is meeting in Halifax this weekend and will debate the name change there.

11 thoughts on “This Week in Me: The New New Democratic Party

  1. Frank

    Someone may want to alert/remind them that in this day of easily-available pr0n via the Net, “DP” will never be thought of as Democratic Party ;)

    Reply
    1. Fagstein Post author

      As the article mentions, there was a French party that tried the same name and quickly changed it for exactly that reason. It’s unclear if the NDP is going to learn from that lesson.

      Reply
  2. Jean Naimard

    P.D., in french is pronounced “pédé”, which is an abbreviation of “pédéraste”, but is simply (mis)used to designate gay men.

    Way to go to increase their popularity in Québec!!!

    The Bloc has a strong future ahead…

    Reply
  3. Julie Bélanger

    … reminds of the name situation during the merger of the Progressive Conservative Party and the Alliance Party. One of the proposed name was the Canadian Reform Alliance Party.

    They managed to see that the acronym would have been full of “crap”. It was the same convention during which their national slogan was “think big”. Quite a nice reference to Elvis Gratton for the Francophones out there.

    Reply
    1. Fagstein Post author

      That’s also in the article. It was the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance that was proposed, and reporters discovered that adding the word “party” to the end created the “CCRAP” acronym. Tory haters began using the acronym from there.

      Reply
      1. Jean Naimard

        Er, no. The Canadian Reform Alliance Party (let’s call it for what it really is) is **NOT** the tories of yesterday; they have bought it outright just to reuse the name (and scrap everything else) in order to fool the electorate.

        Reply
  4. Arron

    Why is it that a party that has no interest in democracy, thinks it’s a good idea to call itself the Democratic Party?

    Reply

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