“The Best Prime Minister Canada Never Had.” Why Change?

For some 30 years, a few of us were secretly warmed by the unique glory of having worked for Robert Lorne Stanfield: the man thoughtful Canadians came to recognize as “The Best Prime Minister Canada Never Had.”  

A harmless little gift that happens rarely in any ruthless business.

Canada carried on united. Stanfield’s special recognition costs taxpayers nothing and, being permanently hypothetical, can never disappoint. It affirmed the tolerance of Liberals for losers, and it didn’t influence the fate of his Progressive Conservative Party or dim the luminous stature of the word “Trudeau” — the name of the prime minister who beat RLS three times.

Recently, however, this enduring conceit became a cloud: a prize that floats around according to the whim of op-ed writers in Canada’s paper of settlement: The Globe and Mail. John Duffy seized ample space this summer to invite former one-term premier of Ontario and interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada Bob Rae to “lay claim to the status of The Best Prime Minister Canada Never Had.”

Treacherous waters, John.

No respected voice in the Liberal Party — Canada’s most successful closet conservative institution — should steal our hard-earned prize and, then, offer it airily to one of his own.

Counterfactual histories, as you must know, only cause trouble for winners.Your Party won’t restore its dominion by tormenting vanquished Tories or by sideswiping other coast-to-coast failures, including New Democrat leaders: Tommy Douglas and Jack Layton.

Besides, Robert Stanfield never laid claim to this meager prize and would have been annoyed if one of his high-profile admirers had taken up space in the Globe to make the case. He would have much preferred that he or she had done a better job of singing his praises before his last election, rather than after he lost.

Seriously.

Unless an equitable, regionally sensitive, transparent process is put in place to award — or re-award — the title on a regular basis, the fairest thing to do is leave this empty prize with Stanfield. Please.

After all, unlike Bob Rae and other promising losers, Bob Stanfield actually won four majorities as premier of Nova Scotia, then won a national leadership convention, and, thereby, was the official leader of the opposition when he was defeated time and again by the greatest Liberal campaigner of the last 100 years.

Thomas Mulcair’s promising start

It’s ridiculously early to pick a winner in the race for the leadership of the New Democratic Party, but any clean break in the bland stasis of Canadian politics deserves appreciation.

Thomas Mulcair — the temperamental Liberal switcher who broke into federal politics in 2007 as Quebec’s only elected New Democrat and now effectively leads 59 members of Parliament from Quebec, — looks as good in action as he looks on paper.

Lawrence Martin, national columnist and obsessive headhunter for a progressive alternative to Stephen Harper, wisely dismissed the whisper about Mulcair’s manners and advised timid New Democrats to not frustrate his chances in favor of a more affable, reputedly, shrewd insider:

“Mr. Mulcair wants the leadership, but there is a good chance that he won’t run. The anti-Mulcair forces want a quick leadership convention, perhaps as early as January, to stop him. ‘If we precipitate this,’ says Mr. Mulcair speaking of the convention timetable, ‘we would be hobbled. The process is going to be a determining factor in our decision.’

“For the party to hobble the most highly qualified candidate would make no sense. The New Democrats are in the big leagues now and if they want to stay there they need a big leaguer – whether they like him or not.”

Click on: www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/lawrence-martin/firebrand-mulcair-is-the-best-bet-to-take-on-harper/article2152485/

What’s most exciting about Mulcair’s emergence is his obvious willingness to play hardball within his own party.

He’s clearly confident that if the party executive gives him the time, he’ll do well selling memberships and winning votes outside Quebec. Rather than meekly lobby the party executive for more time, however, he went public last week and made it clear that he won’t run if he isn’t granted more time. This Friday, they will likely bow to his terms. He’ll come out of the gate with the same detractors — but with enough time to win.

Mulcair was born into a Liberal family, studied law at McGill, worked for the Quebec Government and got his start in Liberal politics. Jack Layton was raised in a prominent Progressive Conservative family, but studied politics at York University, became a fulltime community activist, and worked his way to the top of the New Democrats.  The former reluctantly abandoned his family’s politics; the later never accepted his. Only Jack biked to work. 

Mulcair is a gambler and a clearheaded son of a bitch. This is a rare and generally a good thing in politics, particularly in organizations that dream long-term and usually settle for moral victories. Pierre Trudeau was called a son of a bitch on the floor of his Liberal leadership convention in 1968.

Thomas Mulcair is not another sunny spirit like Jack Layton. But then again neither were ruthless, often brutal progressives like Pierre Trudeau, David Lewis, and Jean Chretien.

There is only one thing the New Democrats must do, for now, if they want to lead the left into power: stay well ahead of the Liberals. Mulcair looks like the ticket.

Canadian icon industry overheating

English-speaking Canadians almost never give their votes to extraordinary politicians. Probably, it’s an early northern survival thing. They tend to pass on the high-spirited in politics and make it up in high praise, when they die.

The promises of these characters are generally skipped over in elections. Consequently, their vision is safely beyond dispute when they’re dead.

The public mourning, the testimonials, the notes from total strangers, the tears and flowers, and the much-anticipated state funeral for Official Opposition Leader Jack Layton wholly live up to this cautious, rather stingy contract amongst the living.

Also, Canadians are often told to turn prominent individuals into “icons.” This secular blessing makes it a little easier to skip over the recipient’s interesting faults and, so, makes their virtues a little less interesting as well. In the political arena, the icon machine usually waits until after the recipients are dead, leaving people free to vote for or against putative icons when they are still humbly asking for votes.

This restraint was thrown out the window this morning. Political columnist Tim Harper wrote a column on the New Democrat’s post-funeral task of finding a replacement for Jack Layton. He said this about the political potential of his wife and Member of Parliament, Olivia chow:

“Olivia Chow’s display of grace and courage at a time of such a personal tragedy has only burnished her already sparkling reputation in the party and will give her iconic status.

“It may be irresistible to think she could continue her husband’s unfinished work, but it is more likely her public or private endorsement of someone to pick up Layton’s legacy could seal a deal with party members.”

Click on: www.thestar.com/article/1045007--tim-harper-who-can-carry-the-layton-torch

One admirable thing about social democrats has been their reluctance to be pushed in any direction by grief. Icons, even one’s identified by the Toronto Star, will not likely call the shots at their upcoming leadership convention.  

Praising Jack Layton and branding his successor

Included in this morning’s Globe and Mail coverage of the death of Jack Layton, room was found for four character sketches of his most likely successor, Deputy New Democrat Leader Thomas Mulcair. Here’s the word from Canada’s national newspaper and guardian of good character and rectitude in Canadian politics:

“Mr. Mulcair is well respected and fluently bilingual. And his work to make the NDP a viable option for Quebeckers may be rewarded by the Party’s membership. But he also is renowned for his mercurial temper.”

—Gloria Galloway, p. A5

“The task may fall to Thomas Mulcair—an impressive mind, but irascible at times—or Vancouver MP Libby Davies—to the left on the NDP’s spectrum.”

—John Ibbitson, p. A5

“Thomas Mulcair, the deputy leader and a Quebec MP, will almost certainly run to replace Mr. Layton, but he is not nearly as well known, lacks at least at first glance the former leader’s sunny ways, and remains unproven as a political commodity in Quebec, let alone elsewhere in Canada.”

—Jeffry Simpson, p. A 9

“Quebec MP Thomas Mulcair is talented, but his emotional volatility worries many.”

—Lawrence Martin, p. A 13

Click on: www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/laytons-death-a-devastating-blow-to-the-left/article2137958/

 

Can’t say we haven’t been told.

The thematic consistency of these four hurried sketches is impressive. But let’s wait for a few telling details—even concrete gossip, along with studying Mulcair’s  performance over  the next few months will help.

We do know that Mulcair was Quebec’s Minister of Sustainable Development and Parks for three years, securing the unanimous support of the Quebec Assembly for Quebec’s Sustainable Development Plan, including amendments to Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights. Of course, he did quit the Liberal Government of Jean Charest and had the audacity to try to make something out of the flimsy New Democrats of Quebec. 

Upon leaving the Quebec Liberals, it was revealed that he always was a hard man to manage. Sounds promising.

New Democrats are soft on democracy too?

It’s official. It was first volunteered by their leader Jack Layton to the editorial board of The Globe and Mail just before the election and repeated last week by his Justice critic Joe Comartin: the social democrats in Canada’s national Parliament now believe that Quebec’s share of seats in Canada’s only elected legislative assembly must stay the same despite the fact Quebec’s actual share of Canada’s voting age population has gone down significantly.

Joe Comartin was as vehement as he was inventive “. . . any redistribution must ensure that Quebec receives a minimum 25% of the seats in that House, “its traditional share.” Conversely, Ontario, Alberta and BC shares shouldn’t go up even though their populations have grown by millions.

Click on: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/quebec-denounces-western-premiers-praise-plan-to-enlarge-house-of-commons/article2045487/

The Harper government is expected to bring in legislation (for the third time) to catch up with the last national census. To honor even roughly the primary driver of the electoral map—allocating seats according to where people live to ensure each vote is roughly of equal weight—Harper will ask Parliament to allocate some thirty more seats to Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. The NDP opposition, apparently, will ask him to be “flexible.”

Asking a so-called ideologue to be flexible is shrewd but, but on this issue, deceitful.

The New Democrats are not asking that Harper provide safeguards for smaller provinces and minority language, culture and religious rights—they’re already enshrined in the Canadian Constitution.

Quebec is protected as well as respected in the Constitution; it enjoys a minimum of 65 House of Commons seats and the same representation as Ontario in the appointed Senate. In addition, the choice and design of a federal structure of government for Canada was largely driven to protect Quebec’s interests from any future intolerant Canada-wide majority.

The allocation of seats in the House of Commons is guided by the decennial census and can be adjusted slightly within each province to respect practical geographic differences. However, the House of Commons membership historically has been driven by one fundamental principle: each vote should be of equal worth; consequently, the allocation of seats must be regularly adjusted to reflect where people actually live.

There would not have been a liberal union of southern and northern American states or a Canadian union of Tories, Grits, Quebec nationalists and, later, socialists and social-democrat offsprings without agreement on one powerful legislative assembly that would represent all the people, as equals.  That is the rationale, the business, and the constitutional obligation of the House of Commons.

Indeed, to persist much longer in denying the dramatic relative growth of the populations of Ontario and Western Canada is to invite legal redress before the Supreme Court.

Yes, yes, Jack Layton is in a tricky spot; his new political base in Quebec won’t benefit directly by giving faster growing regions more seats. However, Official Opposition leaders, by definition, have many people to please and disappoint. He’s putting himself in a tough spot for an unworthy impulse; some decisions can’t be finessed and are best survived by standing for a principle—in this case, one embedded in the DNA of the left. In this political community, citizens—new and old—are equal.

Can New Democrats be a progressive, Canada-wide alternative?

With the center-left split down the middle, the New Democratic Party will have to look as hard as the Liberals at its clichés and policies if they hope to lead a viable, national alternative to the Conservatives in the next election.

Jack Layton is Leader of the Opposition today largely because he caught on in Quebec. However, that accomplishment will be a will-o-the-wisp for Canada’s oldest protest party, if he fails to define properly his relationship with Quebec. As a Canadian leader, he—along with the Prime Minister—has a dual responsibility to do politics and serve Canadian unity at the same time.

So far, Jack Layton is still acting like an affable lobbyist.

Last week, he confessed that he would respect a referendum on Quebec independence that produced a 50% plus one vote in favor of independence—on a question designed unilaterally by the Assembly of Quebec.

His explanation was sparse: it is “official” party policy – a policy that was adopted by the General Council of the NDP in Sherbrooke, Quebec, in 2005.

“Quebec’s Voice and a Choice for a different Canada” deserves close attention by federalists and those who hope to shape the NDP into a viable alternative national government.

Consider as well these statements in the Sherbrooke Declaration:

Philosophical roots: “The New Democratic Party, unlike the Liberal or Conservative Parties, believes that society cannot be based solely on the primacy of the individual. We have to rethink the commonalities between a new vision of social democracy and a new vision of federalism. That necessary process has to be based on the principles of common good, collective rights, democracy, social and political involvement, respect for communities of origin, solidarity, co-operation, etc.”

Asymmetrical federalism “We acknowledge that Quebecers’ sense of belonging to Canada is different from that of a majority of Canadians….who see the provinces playing a secondary role.”

Social transfers: “The right to opt out with compensation applies . . . where the federal government intervenes in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction (in particular health and social services, housing, municipal infrastructure etc.) In such cases, no conditions or standards should be applied to Quebec without its consent.”

Quebec self-determination: “It would be up to the Federal Government to determine its own process in the spirit of the Supreme Court ruling and international law, in response to the result of the popular consultation.”

What has happened to the Canadian left’s most outstanding and, yes, noble impulses?

-          What happened to their defense of individual civil rights and their assertion of the equal worth of each individual against abuse by majorities as well as old-line governments?

-          When did the individual and voluntary co-operation stop being the foundations for social-democracy in Canada?

-          When did the other provinces become inferior political arenas for progressive politics?

-          How can one province, and not all the others, get blank checks from Ottawa? Are they somehow less competent and less accountable to their citizens?

-          Exactly what social democratic or constitutional principle constrains the Parliament of Canada from playing an aggressive role in upholding a federal Canada in Quebec?

The Clarity Act—defining Parliament’s direct interests in any conceivable negotiated breakup of the union—has withstood five national elections and three different governments. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms—defining individual political rights that transcend all elected assemblies, including the National Assembly of Quebec—has the support of the vast majority of Quebecers. Neither of these documents graced the seven pages of the Sherbrooke Declaration.

Yes, the whole damn issue is a nuisance; the Sherbrook Declaration only came into existence as ploy for what was a fourth rank federal party.

Nevertheless, a document that enfeebles Canadian federalism, possibly on the eve of another Quebec election, surely can’t stand as the policy of a federalist Official Opposition. Unless, of course, Jack Layton is willing to assign some of his more complicated responsibilities to the interim leader of the Liberal Party, Bob Rae. 

Stephen Harper' campaign: changing circumstances re-make the man

How do you make a conservative economist—whose most treasured possession is competence, whose message is stability, and who can’t be bothered to raise his voice even when he’s called a dictator—into a compelling campaigner? Simple. You put a social democrat in second place.

Yet again, unwittingly, the people of Quebec are causing hearts to race across Canada. The so-called Quebec consensus for more government, according to a sheaf of polls, has pivoted in favour of Jack Layton and the New Democrats. With a little help from British Columbia, in particular, Layton is now literally running second  nationally. Indeed, one survey reported that over the last couple of days the NDP could have elected 100 MPs.

This week, Layton and his crutch will probably sustain intense scrutiny with grace.  However, the attention he’ll get will likely do magical things for Stephen Harper.

Harper has meticulously girded himself to defend and advance his economic vision. Bristling with weaponry, he has, nevertheless, looked increasingly overdressed, standing awkwardly without a serious adversary.

Michael Ignatieff hasn’t offered drama. You know in your heart he’s not equipped to fight for a new vision for the economy or, for that matter, any fundamental shift in Harper’s perspective on Canada’s federal and external relations.

His rhetoric is hot enough. However, you know, as a Prime Minister, he’d be pulled back into the centre by the Liberal Party and its abiding respect for the latest conventions of technocratic government in Ottawa.

An alternative Layton coalition government, however, would, at the very least, be highly suspenseful.

It’s every instinct would be to dismantle and move to the left of Harper’s five years of stewardship. In addition, its new base in Quebec and its old base in Ontario’s labour movement oppose Harper’s approach to taxation, environmental regulation, western economic expansion, business incentives, health and pension reform, and his overriding foreign policy priority—being the US government’s first and best friend.

Layton’s surging campaign could turn Harper’s business as usual “affordable” platform into the ballot question. In Canada, bland government is winning politics when it’s seen to be at risk.

It could give Harper his majority, and in securing that majority, force his progressive opponents finally to build a united, coherent alternative.

How not to win new friends in a close election

The leader of the Liberal Party Michael Ignatieff will be humiliated in next Monday’s election if he fails to beat the New Democrats decisively in the popular vote and in the election of MPs. Right now Jack Layton’s New Democrats are surging and so Ignatieff must respond.

In effect, he must play Stephen Harper on the left: urging voters to go with the familiar, the time tested. This is tricky. It’s hard to be interesting—to get Canadians to “rise up”—and settle down at the same time. And Michael Ignatieff does not see himself as boring. Consequently, he reaches for extravagant language:

“People have had a nice time with the NDP, it’s a nice little taxi to get on for while; but you better take a look at how high that meter is going because the price keeps going up and up and up and up and I urge you to go home,” Ignatieff told approximately 300 Liberal supporters in the Prince Edward Island riding of Egmont.

“This is no time for amateur hour here. We could have NDP amateur hour or we can have competent responsible government.”

Click on: http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/04/23/ignatieff-calls-ndp-numbers-purely-science-fiction/

There is no accusation more likely to inflame and re-double the fighting spirit of a New Democrat than being called an amateur by a Liberal.

New Democrats, since their founding fifty years ago this June, swore they’d learn all the tricks of the “old line” parties, keep their principles, and, someday, win. They haven’t won but they’ve certainly mastered modern campaigning and have been generally faithful to a handful of demanding principles.

They’ve governed competently in difficult times and in five provincial settings. Jack Layton is (horrors!) a career politician. He’s served in electoral politics for 26 years, more than half in city council decision-making in Canada’s largest city.

Their platform may not be as precise as Ignatieff’s “Family Pack.”  However, neither one will fly with voters who will vote their economic concerns first. Furthermore, New Democrats have shown, in the crunch, that they’re neither amateurish nor unreliable.

On the persistent--and legitimate--issue of coalition government only Harper and Layton have been straightforward. They, of course, disagree. However, Layton hasn’t hidden behind the “Westminster model” with vague allusions to in camera discussions. He’s reiterated publicly that he would participate in a coalition.

New Democrats haven’t tried to make the “survival of democracy in Canada” a ballot issue. However, when Michael Ignatieff was living from pay cheque to pay cheque in London, they stood alone in the Canadian Parliament against the invocation of the War Measures Act and the suspension of normal civil liberties by a crushingly popular Liberal Prime Minister.

Canada’s English language leader’s debate

A few impressions that still stick in the morning:

—Jack Layton tossed in the meanest sly lines of the evening. Half way through the debate, he offered his crutch to Michael Ignatieff. By the end of the debate, Ignatieff might have appreciated the assist.

—Stephen Harper didn’t seem to be close to losing his temper and, for the first time for many, he was eager to explain himself on past economic, justice and parliamentary issues.

—Harper missed several chances to bring urgency to his theme that the recovery is “fragile” and that the country needs a stable government to create jobs. His government is in the midst of significant trade and border negotiations with Europe and the United States. He didn’t touch on the recent 5% appreciation of the Canadian dollar or the fiscal crisis in the US—they both threaten Canada’s recovery and export competitiveness.

—Ignatieff invested far too much time and goodwill in trying to rattle and upset Harper. And he relied almost entirely on extravagant language. The kind of language Harper doesn’t use and doesn’t seem to even hear.

—Ignatieff can’t stop using the word “cops” when talking about the police and justice issues. He should move on. The term is neither hip nor respectful.

—The most noteworthy unreported exchange was on multiculturalism. The Liberal and Conservative leaders reversed historic roles. While Ignatieff worried that we not “politicize” the question, Harper happily waxed on about the positive value of multiculturalism. Intriguingly, he went out of his way to defend multiculturalism in Quebec. This could loom large in the French Language debate tonight, and make waves elsewhere in the country. 

Canada’s 2011 election bubble

Mr. Harper, your best chance to win Tuesday’s debate and win a majority is to break out of this strange election and connect with the outside world—that’s what’s got our attention. We a not irredeemably bored with you, or your opponents. Forcing this election was bold and real news; holding each other in contempt finally seemed to mean something. Nevertheless, there is too much drama going on in the real world right now for us to cocoon with you, Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton’s.

We do worry about our kids--and the future--and accept that most politicians do too.  Actually, it’s tiring to hear that all three of you want us to be a little happier, more affluent, safer and better able to provide for our kids,  the ill and our retirement. We can’t imagine anyone of you ever, in your long fortunate lives, wished any less for us.

However, it’s hard to get worked up about which one of you would make the best care-giver. None of you has identified any new money to make a real difference in our lives. Anyway, the provinces run health, education and other vital social services and the biggest ones will be having their own elections shortly. (If your opponents truly want to be “health” or “education” prime ministers they’d be after Dalton McGuinty’s job this October.)

These are not frustrating but alarming times in the real world.

Running alongside our election, an extraordinary drama is unfolding in the United States—the destination of 75 % of our exports and source of millions of Canadian jobs. While the three of you were laying out multi-year election platforms offering better times and no sacrifice, last Friday the US government nearly shut-down. The US was about an hour away from laying off another 800,000 jobs and jamming up the operating machinery of the biggest economy in the world.

It would be tempting for the three of you to crow about the relative maturity of our Parliamentary system. However, that’s not the end of the story.

While you’re in the home stretch of another election, the US Congress will be debating (bribing and blackmailing) whether to increase the statutory ceiling on US federal government borrowing—or precipitate a global financial crisis and another US recession. Furthermore, there is no reliable way to clear the air: neither party nor the President has a mandate to act decisively to protect America’s credit rating, implement a US federal budget for next year or make the tax and spending changes necessary to restore long-term fiscal balance.

(It’s not clear whether your case for a majority government is gaining momentum. Many students of comparative government tell us that minority government and “informal or appropriate” coalitions are more sophisticated. As a suspected continentalist, Mr. Harper, you should be consoled by the idea that Americans would probably like nothing better right now than a working majority in Washington.)

Instead of just debating paper promises and how to behave in Parliament, let’s spend a little more time thinking about how one of you will be leading after May 2nd.  One of you will be facing a series of problems well outside the scripts of this election.

Betting on a spring election in Canada

Expectations ratchet up every weekend as the pundits assemble the scenarios and report the telling details—planes are readied and painted with decals, election dates are pinned on calendars, strategies for each party are offered up and critiqued. Still missing, however, is the reason (a) the government or (b) the entire opposition would decide that now’s the time for another election—the career ending or extending moment for Conservative leader Stephen Harper and Liberal Michael Ignatieff and New Democrat Jack Layton and Bloc Quebecois Gilles Duceppe. Inevitability fills in for motive.

Yet, what would drive the three leaders in opposition to waltz off the stage in perfect harmony?

The latest scenario in the press goes like this: the opposition will force a no-confidence motion before the March 22nd budget. Since the government appears to be impregnable on the economy, it makes sense to make ethics the decisive issue—the excuse for an election. 

Let’s take a look at this scenario from Jack Layton and the NDP’s perspective. The constitution of the man and his party argues against it.

First, ethics isn’t a New Democrat issue—it’s their birth right. For two generations New Democrats have shunned any real chance for political power for the alternative benefits of being morally superior to Liberals and Conservatives. They never distinguished one set of opportunists from another. Will they help Michael Ignatieff make ethics a Liberal issue to use against the Conservatives?

New Democrats thrive in minority Parliaments not because they believe in weak divided government but because they have a measure of political power in them. They can win concessions for working families, seniors and the poor. For five years they’ve claimed to have propped up Stephen Harper in return for tangible benefits for deserving Canadians. . New Democrats believe they excel on economic and on bread and butter issues. Rather than wait to see what they won—or failed to win—in the next budget, will they force an election only days before?

Second, to avoid being fatally weakened by the Liberals, the NDP absolutely must campaign as the growing party of the future, the logical new home for center left voters—the new progressive opposition. After three tries, can Jack Layton now expect to win more votes from the Liberals? Can he create the momentum necessary to double NDP representation in Parliament?

His recent hip surgery is compromising. He will have trouble getting on and off of planes. However, that’s only a temporary disability and, anyway, his face conveys more enthusiasm than his opponents in full stride. However, his long term health prospects are still in question. Jack Layton loves to campaign and wants to be well. But can he assure voters that he could be a vigorous leader of the opposition or co-partner in a minority government?

Voters will not put the NDP in second place out of sympathy or because they can’t keep saying no. And they will not vote for small parties over large ones simply to keep Parliament fractured.

With the wind on no one’s back, forcing an election only makes sense if Stephen Harper is too hateful to face at Question Period every morning. Is Ottawa in such a state of rage?

  

Uniting the left in Canada

Canada’s parliamentary left is becalmed. In fact, on major policy issues and in opinion polls, it’s been sitting still for so long that its paralysis is seldom noted. Strangely, the trouble-makers, the dreamers, in Canadian federal politics are invariably called conservatives.

Jack Layton, the leader of the New Democratic Party, aims to come in second in the next election while his Quebec lieutenant, Thomas Mulcair claims the NDP can work with anyone “asking for a more progressive form of government.” Mulcair suggests progressives parties should put a “little water in their wine.” At the same time, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff sees the Liberal Party as the “big red tent” of those bygone days when there were no third parties to confuse things.

Tents unfurled and watered wine, however, are not the battle cries of confident progressives out to change Canada—a country with enviably means and a long list of reasons to try new directions. A tent is a third rate shelter if you have no plans to move to new markets. And watery wine serves no purpose if the guests are simply bored.

The obstinacy of the left’s divided leadership isn’t the fault of Canada’s political culture. Since responsible government, some 170 years ago, Canadian politicians have been forming alliances to create national parties and governments.  Ideas have mobilized Canadians many times before. Indeed, Harper’s Prime Ministership is damning daily tribute to the success of those political activists who risked their customized political turfs for the larger prize—in their case, uniting as one national party to break the dominance of the Liberal Party and put conservative ideas into office.

Furthermore, without the conceit of today’s parliamentary opposition, they acted without pretending they automatically represented nearly two-thirds of the electorate.

Ignatieff sympathizers in the media shrug: nothing done by the oppostion matters for much because governments defeat themselves. Click on: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/life-cycle-of-an-opposition-leader/article1848365/

 It’s not true, however, that opposition leaders need only stay fit and inoffensive. The last string of Liberal majority governments was mightily assisted by the division of the centre-right into the Progressive Conservative and Reform parties. That Liberal government didn’t survive for long after the conservatives united. Also, an opposition that demonstrates—in its policy choices and in the issues it fights—the characteristics of a winning alternative government can force an incumbent to take fatal risks.

A challenged government and a competent challenger can move the electorate closer to that alarming conclusion: it’s time for a change.

Canada’s third party lives—by a bitter thread

“The [New Democratic Party] has moved a long way from any real critical stance about the present economic system and formal commitment to changing it . . . People say right now, ‘What does the NDP stand for?’ It is hard to distinguish between them and the Liberals and some people are asking why we need two parties.”

However,

“Organizations have their own culture and part of the NDP culture is that they hate the Liberals.”

—James Laxer, former NDP leadership candidate in an interview with John Ivison, National Post, October 8, 2010.

So, there we have it—Canada’s social democrats will hang on. Finally, an honest, albeit, waning explanation.

New Democrat politicians stopped being socialists and started calling themselves social democrats decades ago. They practice brokerage politics and envision change strictly within our charter democracy and mixed economy. In Canada, “godless socialists” are only godless—and then only amongst friends.

Canadians finance a full-blown third national political party and accept the odds of interminable minority governments because NDP campaigners don’t like Liberals and have been patronized, double-crossed, and betrayed by them in the past. That hurts.

But, really, Conservatives have feelings too. Laxer raises the one challenge that Stephen Harper faced uniting a divided right and that Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton, thus far, have ducked on the left.  Beyond pragmatic arrangements amongst professionals in Ottawa, political transformation requires leaders who can persuade foes and close friends to give up old antagonisms and clichés, and share the spoils of future success.