CanadaPolitics

Canadians will not vote for or against the NDP based on their position in the Middle East, he said, but on affordability and health care.

It's true that the current problems in the middle east are probably not going to be top of mind for most of Canada by the time there's an election, but we do want a party that's capable of clearly and accurately stating a reasonable position on this and the hundreds of other issues it would need to deal with as a government, which is much more difficult than constantly emitting well-rehearsed platitudes about health care.

Having that thought reminds me of Bernie Sanders, who did it well in 2015. His campaign set out positions on all manner of things, and those of which I knew something about always seemed about right even if they were not the big priorities everyone was focused on. I remember wishing we had such politicians in Canada.

So it's no surprise to scroll down the page a little and see "Bernie Sanders says Israel is violating international law with blockade on 'open-air prison' in Gaza." People might want him to say something different or something more, but the honesty of what he did say does at least put to shame the recent NDP official statement which said that "all war crimes, by all parties to this conflict, must be prosecuted" without daring to mention specifically which crimes are being committed by whom.