Friday, December 04, 2015

We Know It's Going to Get a Bit Ugly Soon. Sooner Than We Might Have Wished.


The Liberals are on top and the opposition parties will very soon come gunning for them. It's called Parliamentary democracy and a new day is upon us.

During the Harper 'Age of Darkness', self-styled Progressives of the 'anything left of Harper Conservative' stripe reached an uncomfortable and often ignored truce to concentrate on toppling Beelzebub. It's only too bad that they didn't do that of their own volition just one election earlier. Harper would never have won his majority absent Layton's determined attack on Ignatieff - all to score, for one term, the cherished spot of Loyal Opposition.

It's good to keep these realities in mind as our former, albeit somewhat frosty, friends turn on the ABC government they still think ought to have been theirs.

I'm a Green but, to you Reds, I say this. In going ahead with your agenda, which so many Canadians embrace, remember you're sailing alone. The biggest challenge will remain from the Conservatives, Canada's neo-Republican party.

It's not them you need to fear, however. It's the New Democrats. If Layton and Mulcair have proven anything, it's that today's NDP will never allow principle to thwart their quest for power.  They've shown that they would do whatever it took for a result even if it meant Harper ruled with a false majority to the sustained and possibly indelible detriment of the country.

They're pissed off. After they abandoned the Left and became indecently center-right, Justin and the Libs reclaimed the center and flooded into the Left. Mulcair was left sitting there with his pecker in his hand as he watched his party's support bleed out.

We may be embarking on a return of old-school Liberalism. The opposition parties are physically wounded and in a vacuum politically. The divisions are no longer in the arc of the center. It's well to the Right of that, exactly where the NDP should not be.

To get decisively left of the Liberals today would be to abandon any aspirations beyond the old NDP of yesteryear. Just at the worst moment, they chose to abandon questing for power from the Left. In many ways that's what we need today more than ever but the NDP chose to follow another direction.

This thing is going to become ugly. The old school Tories will be fighting for the heart and soul of Conservatism. The dominant Reform crowd  were pretty nasty during Harper's reign. I know that Harper intimidated dissent within the PC contingent.

Some of those old school Conservatives voted for Trudeau in the last election. Others gave the polls a pass. Their party understands this. What I've been told is that the Party has heard that some of these former Tory stalwarts won't be back until the PC faction is again in control. And this rift won't impair the Cons as Parliament goes through this term? Wait and see.

A similar keel-righting ordeal awaits the NDP. The Leftist 'heart and soul' of the party had been essentially silenced as first Layton and then Mulcair sought to transform the party into a copy of Blair's Labour. They had before them all the ills that emerged from the Blairification of the Labour Party, but they wanted the NDP to follow suit regardless.

This Parliament may wind up unique in the amount of political energy and capital on the part of both opposition parties expended on in-house jousting. Some senior Tories seem to dread the event, asking that the leadership contest be postponed far into the future. The New Dems also don't seem to have much appetite for scathing self-examination.

Interesting times await just ahead.


12 comments:

Anonymous said...

A bit off subject.
During the Federal election I looked at the slate here in Nanaimo.
I have voted Green for a long time and don't mind Paul Manley the local candidate.
As the protracted build up to the election went on It seemed to me , and others, that Paul could actually win the election.
His signs were everywhere around town plus he wiped the floor at the all candidates meeting.
At the end of the day he came fourth place!
I confess I chickened out, fearing a split that would benefit the Conservatives and voted NDP.
Simply put; are elections rigged?

Toby said...

Anonymous Anonymous said..., "Simply put; are elections rigged?"

I have long wondered but the last election convinced me that, in Canada, elections are safe. If anyone could have rigged the election it would have been Harper and I fully expected him and his loony followers to do so but they didn't.

UU4077 said...

"Simply put; are elections rigged?"

No. But most pre-election polling should be banned.

Anonymous said...

At the end of the day both Liberal and Conservatives are financed by similar groups; the oil industry excluded.

Anonymous said...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/the-top-ten-families-in-canada-who-contribute-to-politicalparties/article26678961/

Scotian said...

Yup.

susansmith said...

I prefer facts rather than opinion. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) rated the parties' platforms on Oct 13.

Who has the most progressive platform? @DavidMacCdn gives out grades: http://ow.ly/TlxQG #cdnpoli #elxn42

The NDP got A
The Liberals got B
The Greens got B-
The Conservatives got F

The media bias and your influence of such shows your partisanship. However, it doesn't stand up scrutiny.

The Mound of Sound said...

Jan.. pot calling 'what' black? Can't be having any partisanship, can we Jan? No. I guess it's only partisan when it doesn't come from a true believin' Dipper, eh?

Seriously, Jan, you're hilarious.

Anonymous said...

The Harper Cons never would have gotten a majority if the ineffective Ignatieff right-wing Libs actually opposed and exposed the Cons, instead of supporting almost everything they did. The Ignatieff Libs sent out a message that the Cons weren't that bad. Right of centre swing voters who were fed up with unstable minority governments took that to heart and voted for the party who was best positioned to defeat the left of centre NDP.

The Mound of Sound said...

That's certainly the preferred narrative of certain Dippers. It conveniently absolves Layton of giving Harper the essential leg up he needed to come to power and achieve his majority by focusing on the Libs during the elections and letting Harper off the hook. It was a completely swinish thing to do to Canada but Layton was questing for power so that didn't matter.

That's why I was quite pleased when your bearded Dorothy went from a comfortable first place straight into the cellar - all by his own hand. That guy will get in bed with anybody. There's a good reason he's staying on. He's got nowhere else to go.

I realize it's tough to be left licking your wounds, especially where you got wounded.

Anonymous said...

Canadian workers will be licking their wounds after four years of pro-corporation, anti-worker Liberal policies. Your contempt for those not rich enough to benefit from those Liberal economic and tax policies is well noted.

The Mound of Sound said...

"well noted" Well that certainly sounds ominous, coming from an Anonymouse punk. I have no contempt for the poor but don't conflate them with Dippers. You're a different creature altogether.