By Arthur Weinreb
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Last week, NDP MP Pat Martin floated the idea of the NDP and the Liberals forming some sort of informal coalition, the latter word being code for "eventual merger".
Martin rejected the notion of the two parties formally merging and said that he would "rather stick pins in his eyes" than become a member of the Liberal Party of Canada. This seems like shades of Joe Clark who was once prime minister of Canada for 10 or 15 minutes. Clark chuckled all the way to oblivion by the thought of his beloved Progressive Conservative Party of Canada merging with the Canadian Alliance. On the other hand, when it came to the Liberals, the thought of self mutilation never crossed Joe's mind. He ended up supporting dithering Paul Martin over Scary Stephen Harper during the 2004 election campaign and we haven't heard from him since.
Pat Martin was undoubtedly moved to his position, as all politicians are moved these days, by the polls. Recent polls have shown the NDP in free-fall, as a result of the ascendancy of the Green Party and the fact that the Liberals have chosen Stphane Dion as their new leader. The Liberals always at least pretend that they can be found in the middle of the road along with all the other dead animals. But under Dion and his trusty dog Kyoto, they are moving ever leftward, squeezing out the NDP. A recent Decima Poll showed the NDP tied with the never-elected-a-member Green Party at 13 per cent. While the Greens are rising, the NDP are heading towards that 9 to 11 per cent where the number of Canadians that support them will approximate the number of people who think that Elvis is still alive. This is not good.
The Conservative Party is also moving leftward with Stephen Harper spending money like a drunken sailor (or even worse, like a sober Liberal) in an attempt to buy a majority when the country next goes to the polls. And the new Green Steve has jumped on the global warming bandwagon faster than any arctic glacier could ever possibly melt. All of this has reduced poor Jackie Layton to screaming hysterically at the fact that those Canadians who are too lazy to go to their own bank or their own bank's machines to withdraw money, have to pay a couple of bucks to use another bank's ATM. If that fact alone doesn't scream "merger", nothing does.
If former Prime Minister Paul Martin had any success at all during his brief tenure in the office that he inherited by birth and daddy's constantly losing leadership conventions, it was that he convincingly painted Stephen Harper during the 2004 election campaign as being too scary to lead the country. The inept Martin successfully convinced enough voters that Harper would destroy Canada as we know it to hang on with a minority. But if there is anyone now who truly believes that Harper is scary, they are badly out of touch with reality. Harper has put power over principle and has moved further to the left in the same way that the Liberals under Stphane Dion are moving left. Should the Conservatives win a majority, Harper's priorities will not be to impose fiscally and socially conservative principles but to keep left in order to insure a second majority government. The only thing that's scary about Stephen is the fact that he's a politician.
All of this brings us back to the NDP and the Liberals. Any such merger or agreement would keep the Liberals further to the left on the political spectrum from the place that the party normally occupies. This would in turn see the Conservatives remain further to the left while keeping to the right of the Liberals-NDP. The thought of Canada ever being led by a real conservative government, difficult at the best of times, will become virtually impossible.
The sad reality is that when conservative leaders act like conservatives instead of pandering to the undecided voters in the mushy middle, they can become quite successful. Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Mike Harris all come to mind. But the chances of the country ever being led by a principled conservative will become more remote if the Liberals move permanently further to the left.
Other than saving what now appears to be a doomed NDP, nothing good can happen if an informal coalition/merger is formed between the two parties. The NDP should just be allowed to die a natural death.
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