Apolitical Staples

Agreed.

The NDP made sense in the 50’s when Unions made sense. After WWII many were still moving off the farm to urban industrial jobs and there were inequities and labour was still dealing with some Charles Dickens type issues. My father was an active union member and an active NDPer, we had Tommy Douglas pictures up where the Quebec Catholics put the cross.

Unions and the NDP once had a compelling role. But now, in the US, (Canada has similar stats) unions over the last couple of decades have declined from 36% of the workforce to 12%. That 12% is mostly government jobs (ahhh.. unions that don’t believe in the secret ballot need to protect people from their government?). There are now 36% “knowledge workers” in the USA, which essentially means that even if they work for a big corporation, they are mobile and see themselves as de facto self-employed entrepreneurs selling their services for the best contract. Unions are only for the executives that run them.

There is no role for the NDP that the Greens and Liberals don’t represent. They all need to go into the wilderness for 13 years and merge .. Conservatives will be too cocky by the time they get back and they can kick us out.

You don’t know enough New Democrats to make this claim. I do, and you’re wrong. The NDP survived almost losing official party status and never seriously thought about disbanding then. It sure ain’t gonna happen now.

What I do see as possible, though—though by no means certain—is a softening of the hardline animosity between the Liberals and the New Democrats, so at the point when the people start realizing that coalition governments are inevitable, people will be less horrified by the very idea. Here’s hoping.

Given Dion’s socialist like moves, perhaps he’s trying to force the unification.

A bad move I’d say. IP’s right in that the NDP won’t just go quietly into the night, and in the process, centrast voters will not like the new version.

Giving up the meaty portion of the bell curve is never a good idea. Dion’s done that in the last two months.

Watch the Liberal slide.

It’s science.

With respect, Greg, you don’t know what you’re talking about. The NDP is a federation of provincial parties and, as such, any such mergers would have to occur at the provincial level. Let me know when the Sask, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia parties feel it necessary to merge with the weak Liberal parties there. For that matter, do you expect Howard Hampton to find himself happy to join McGuinty and Sorbara and the rest?

Under the current electoral system, all it would take would be a genuine three-party race in Ontario, and you’d see the federal party winning a lot more seats. I don’t know if that’ll happen, and I agree it would take a different leader than Layton, but you really ought not to take the superficial scribblings of a Sun columnist as meaning much.

For example: The federal NDP has become too comfortable with the role of being the “conscience” of Canadians, a sparring partner against the Conservatives or Liberals, but never a real contender in the main event.

Keeping in mind that it’s only been in the past two elections that the party has recovered to pre-1993 levels (i.e., pre-Rae), I imagine Jamey Heath among others might not agree.

Nomdenet,

You may be thinking of just the US unionization rate, Canada’s actually still stands at 32%: http://www.ourtimes.ca/organizing/organizing_1.html

It had some decline, though generally the unionization rate remains at 30% or so. I would agree with IP. The NDP has been at lower points before in 1993 and still opted to continue.

I think it argues more for electoral reform than for merger. What I don’t want is a two party system (and I just don’t see it happening frankly). Angelo Persichilli has never been friendly toward the NDP, so I am not surprised he is pushing this line.

I don’t see the Dippers going away, although I see them (as always) marginalized; if the party drifts too close to the centre, becoming Liberal-lite a new waffle group will emerge - possbly fracturing the Party, or simply expelling the “moderates” which will have the same effect.

I get a kick out of Persichilli, though: he assert with great authority that people vote for who they are - he might cast his mind back to who actually WON in the contest of Kennedy (who they want to be) versus Nixon (who they are). In the Canadian context, who would honestly say that Pierre Trudeau represented “who they are” more accurately than Bob Stanfield? Who won? I think he has it exactly backwards - to a certain extent, voting is an aspirational, rather than identifying, act.

Last election the NDP enjoyed a little success when a perfect storm brewed for them. A corrupt Liberal party, the Conservative barbarian hordes banging at the gates and Mr. Layton asking voters to “lend me your votes” and promising that sending more NDP MP’s to Ottawa would fix all of the problems.

The next election should be interesting when voters realize he didn’t do Jack with all of the borrowed votes and their owners seek to reclaim them….

I have thought the opposite of late. The NDP will never be in power because Layton, a man widely considered a buffoon, runs the team. If they could find a man of integrity and honour to represent them, and if they could figure out that their core base is the working man and not small interest group immigrant concerns, and if they could…

Wll, we all know that won’t happen.

I would trivially agree that federal politics in Canada will not sustain a viable five-party split (Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Bloq, Green). If the Greens continue to grow into a significant presence in Parliament, there will be pressure for them to be absorbed into either the Liberal or NDP Parties, changing the nature (and name) of them. I’d expect the regional distribution of any Green MPs to determine into which Party their policies are absorbed.

The pressure directly on the NDP to morph into a Party which could form government, however, is muted by their ability to directly influence government policy in the previous and current minorities. Their raw ambition for power is constrained by their commitment to their principles (versus migrating their policies to accomodate populism).

And since we are likely to see minority governments into the foreseeable future, I would suggest a longer timeline (15-20 years) for such a change as you propose.

Unfortunately I see no Ed Broadbents in NDP’s future. The only principled leader now and on the horizon is Steven Harper. Until all parties are led by principled leaders who sincerely have Canada’s interests as their prime motivation for governance, we’ll be mired in the political games that the Liberals subject us to.

I hear that Apple is about to go bankrupt and BSD is dying as well…

;-)

Lets not pretend its always been the Libs and Conservatives either. We’ve had the Progressives, the Progressive Conservatives, the United Farmers, the CCF, the Social Credit and many others. They have all had their varying degrees of success.

Never say never.

And let’s not forget the Liberal Conservatives, now there were some confused folks. They didn’t know whether to tax it or spend it. ;)

I don’t care whether we ever get an NDP prime minister. The important thing is that the party continues to exist to give a voice to the left - and to force the Liberals to pay attention to the left and work to encourage left wing voters to vote for them. So many of the institutions that (most) Canadians are proud of and consider quintessentially Canadian - from universal healthcare to employment insurance to social security - were instituted because they were introduced by the CCF/NDP and they leveraged minority Liberal governments into creating the programs.

Without the NDP, as IP has said before, our Liberals would become like the US Democrats - pushing hard to pick up right wing votes and ignoring the left (as they’re confident the left is forced to vote for them anyway).

Bring on PR, coalition governments, and more parties to reflect all of Canada’s voices. I’d love to see a “Christian Democrat”-type party here - one where the people who are social conservatives yet left-leaning on issues like poverty and healthcare - can happily place their vote.