To the NDP and You Dippers. Thanks But No Thanks.

The holiday spirits seem to have finally cleared our collective bloodstream and it's back to the old nonsense.  Stuff like pathetic pleas from Dippers who can't think of anything else but for the Libs to admit they're whipped, fold their tent and submit themselves to their new masters, the New Democrats.

They may or may not believe it themselves but they argue that their modest 2nd place victory last year justifies Canada becoming a two-party state, the better to take down the Awful Harper.

Bollocks.

Now I know how riled up you Dippers can get if someone says anything honest critical about your late Saint Jack but that's just too bad.   Don't use the Awful Harper line when it was Jack who possibly did more than anyone else to get Harper into power, to keep him in power and to finally hand him his blessed majority.  You'll say that's blasphemy.  I don't care, it's true.

Jack knew everything he needed to about the Awful Harper well before the last election and, unless Jack was as dumb as horse dung, he also knew the danger a Harper majority would pose to Canada.

To Dippers, Jack is the Moses who led them out of the desert.  To me, Jack is the jackal who smelled the scent of decay coming off the last Liberal leader, saw his opportunity, and pounced on the Libs to take their spot even if it meant a Harper majority.  I know you don't like to hear that.   I don't care.   Not a bit.

Your problem is that your Prophet made it out of the desert only to die just as he reached the oasis.   The last election was Jack Layton's victory far more than it was the NDP's.    A lot of people voted NDP for two reasons - they were fed up and they were impressed enough by Jack's leadership in a miserable leadership vacuum.

Another problem, just one of several, is that the NDP's second-place finish was based on the transformation of the party into a Quebec-dominated caucus.   Your party achieved a breakthrough in Quebec where voters can be notoriously fickle.   You've got a long way to go before you can claim those seats will remain yours in the next election which, I suspect, is why you're focusing on siphoning off Liberal supporters today.

As Rick Salutin recently noted, the Left in Canada is dead.   The NDP has become the very thing they once reviled, a party of the centre.   They despised the Liberals so much they couldn't wait to become a liberal party the moment they got a faint whiff of power.   You not only gave Harper the leg up he needed to snatch his majority, you've also been immeasurably helpful in his prime quest to shift the political centre of Canada far to the Right.   The Liberals and the NDP, hand in hand, directly helped Harper move Canada to a place where the forces of corporatism run far more freely than ever.

Yet another problem is your party's underwhelming performance over the past six months.  I spoke with an old Prog-Conservative buddy at Christmas, a veteran Ottawa backroom insider.   He's not particularly fond of Harper but he said the Awful Harper is acting like there's no opposition because there is none.   The Official Opposition, he noted, is a hopelessly amateurish farce.   From everything I've seen, he's totally right on that score.

So I'm sorry Dippers.   This time that scent of decay is coming off you and far faster than I would have imagined.   Does that mean I'm going back to the Libs?  Hardly.   They've got a long way to go before I'll vote for them again.   What it means, for me, is that opposing the Awful Harper is something much too important to entrust to the opposition parties.   Harper is effectively unopposed within Parliament and that's not going to change for another four and a half years thanks to Jack.

Harper doesn't fear the opposition but he does fear the Canadian public and he does fear his own caucus should he run afoul of the voting public.   Harper doesn't govern by consensus, not even within his cabinet.   He governs like Julius Caesar and that creates as many enemies within as without.   But it's the enemies within that usually prove by far more dangerous.

So I'm not going to take the silly way out, the NDP "default option."  It's an empty vessel, meaningless.  I'll be content to do what I can to change as many minds as possible.  If I succeed and that leads them to choose the NDP that's their business and if the Liberals choose to let that happen, well that's on them.

Merger? Why?

If the future of the Liberal Party was to be the party that it was under its last two leaders then maybe it would be time to throw in the towel and pack it in.   The right and part of the centre wing of the Libs could gravitate to Harper.   The left and some of the centre might more or less willingly sign on to the new NDP ship of state.  A number of Libs might just wish a pox on both their houses and withdraw from politics or go Green.

But the rationale I most often hear for merger assumes that one election, the last, foretells the future and that's just silly.   Weak Liberal leadership, strong NDP leadership and wiley and deftly manipulative Conservative leadership all played a big role in the last election outcome.   As far as the Libs were concerned, the vote was a referendum on a leader and leadership that's now safely gone.   Is there a Lib who thinks his or her party gave it their all, gave Canadians their best in that election?   If so, please join the merger line.

Something else that hasn't been resolved is just what the LPC would merge with?   This comes down to the heart and soul of the New Democrats - socialism.   Jack Layton, to his credit, very skilfully smothered the issue of whether the NDP, in opposition and with hopes to form a government, would expunge the party's historic commitment to socialism.    Mr. Layton knew that was a powerfully divisive threat if he let it come to the fore.   But, even if New Democrats are willing to let that sleeping dog lie, Liberals tossing about the idea of merger need to know the answer before they go ahead.  Will they be merging into a party that's avowedly socialist?

If the Liberal Democratic Party is to be openly socialist that is going to weigh heavily on the numbers of Liberals, centre-right Libs who will be interested in signing on.   A number of them will migrate, even if begrudgingly, to the Conservatives.   That will greatly weaken the Libs bargaining position in merger talks.   Look what happened to the Progressive Conservatives when they stepped into Harper's lion's den.

If the Liberal Democrats are not to be socialist but choose the path of centrism instead then there are going to be plenty of NDP faithful who won't want any part of it.   After all, some of them have spent generations denouncing the Liberal Party.   Why would they want their own party to take on that mantle?  What about everything they've so proudly stood for all these generations?

As a centre-left Liberal, I should be the least troubled by the idea of merger but it still concerns me deeply.  What's the rush?   If there is to be a merger, it's going to take time and effort and a lot of compromise if we're to get it right.   We can't risk getting it wrong.   That goes for both sides.  We have to measure our compatibility, our commonality of interests and in that identify our differences and weigh each side's ability to overcome them.  Who gives?  What?  How much?

We still need to consult the public and the best way to discern their opinion is at the polls.  We need another election, probably two, before we can safely gauge public support for a merged party.  The whole idea could backfire with the electorate.

I have always associated the New Democratic Party as a party of lofty ideals and fiercely held principles.  I have always valued the immeasurable role the NDP has played as the conscience of Parliament.   But if the NDP want to pursue the path to Sussex Drive, they'll have to embrace pragmatism and compromise.   Their future progressivism will have to be sharply muted from what it was in the past.

If the NDP believes it can campaign its way into government on a socialist platform then it should reject the Liberals.  They'll only drag you down.   If, however, the NDP believes it should become a latter day centre-left liberal movement, then it should come to that decision openly and democratically.  Its lifelong, dedicated members deserve nothing less.

No, merger initiatives at this point smack of desperation and are riddled with potential pitfalls.  The NDP needs to consolidate its organization in the wake of Mr. Layton's horribly untimely death.  The Libs need to rehabilitate their own tattered organization.   Neither side is currently ready for merger.