By arthur Weinreb
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Use of the word "panic" may be a tad premature but it can't be much fun being Jack Layton these days. The NDP's major platform, the environment. has not only been usurped by Stephane Dion and his trusty dog, Kyoto, but by a reenergized Green Party under a more high profile leader than the party's had in the past.
The fear of a freefall is no doubt what is behind Taliban Jack's about face concerning the war in afghanistan. Gone is the Layton who boomed that the troops should be brought home NOW because that's what Canadians - you know that vast majority of citizens who never vote NDP - want. Now Layton has announced that the NDP will not be supporting the non-confidence motion that the Bloc has announced it may bring when Parliament resumes concerning Canada's commitment in afghanistan. at a recent news conference, the NDP leader stated that he didn't like the idea of "playing political games with people's lives". It sounded perfectly reasonable when Prime Minister Stephen Harper said pretty much the same thing, but it is blatant hypocrisy when it comes from Jack. Layton didn't seem too concerned about the lives of these "people" when he was demanding that the troops should be brought home so someone, not him of course, could go and talk to the Taliban. What a difference a Dion makes.
This change of heart may have something to do with the latest Ipsos Reid poll that has the NDP down to 13 per cent. While too much cannot be read into a single poll that measures how people feel on a single day, things do not look promising for the N Dippers. Poor Jack; all dressed up and nowhere to go on the political spectrum.
Not to worry. Writing in www.thetyee.ca, columnist and author Murray Dobbin found a use for Layton and the NDP. Dobbin suggests that the NDP refrain from going after Dion and the Liberals, rightly pointing out that when the socialists do that, the result is usually a conservative government. He suggests that the main function of the NDP should be to keep the Liberals "honest" and urges voters to vote for a minority government with the NDP holding the balance of power.
The latter is a strange statement to make. While a sufficient number of like minded Canadians can vote in a majority government, it is virtually impossible to try to elect a minority one. Ontarians went to the polls In September 1990 with a view of slapping down Liberal Premier David Peterson a bit and the rest as they say is history. Instead of teaching Peterson a lesson, the communism that everyone said had just died simply moved to Ontario for five years.
By honest, Dobbin isn't speaking about corruption and the vast array of criminal activity that characterized the much of the Chretien years. There's no need for that if for no other reason than Stephane Dion isn't sufficiently part of the Liberal establishment to make corruption a likely consequence of his leadership. By keeping the Liberals "honest" Dobbin means keeping them from doing what they traditionally do; campaign on the left and govern from the right. He suggests that the NDP go further to the left than the Liberals and attack such things as NaFTa.
Dobbin's suggestions would in all probability finish the NDP off. Despite the fact that Canada is perceived, especially by amercans, of being filled is with rampant socialists who would be completely helpless without their government health care programs, the reality is that Stephane Dion is about as far to the left as most Canadians are comfortable with. If it were any other way, the NDP would have formed a government federally by now.
With the right alignment of the Dion Liberals and the Greens, we could possibly see the total marginalization of the New Democratic Party at the federal level.
and Smilin' Jack would be smilin' no more.
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