The NDP has a rather funny government report card on their site. Strangely, no minister gets an acceptable grade, which seems rational from the NDP perspective. Day after day, we hear Layton in the House of Commons berating the Conservatives on every issue, from budget cuts to Afghanistan. Angry and indignant, Layton rises to defend the little guy against the mean-spirited government. How strange, that the NDP chastizes the government in front of the cameras, and then goes into meetings with the same people to find common ground. To be frank, it is all a hypocritical farce, that is based soley on political consideration.
The NDP consistently claims the moral ground, as the honest worker bees that simply wants to implement policy that help Canadians. There is much in the NDP platform that is attractive and it does represent the best in all of us. A sense of community, a belief that everyone should benefit from prosperity, a progressive ideology that isn't afraid to push the bar. In many ways, historically, the NDP has acted as Canada's conscience in the political realm. However, I would argue that today, the NDP is betraying that well earned reputation through its complicity in finding common ground with, essentially, the enemy. The two parties pull in different directions, so any "compromises" must betray the ideology.
When Bob Rae moved to the Liberals, it was a curious move, but not entirely shocking. Afterall, the Liberals do have a "lefty" contingent, that makes room for people like Rae. In other words, the optics of Rae as Liberal isn't outlandish. Now, what if Bob Rae ran for Harper's job? Exactly.
18 comments:
I think you're wrong. It's always possible for two ideologically diverse interests to come to a compromise or an exchange which pleases both supporters. If the Clean Air Act can be amended in such a way that the NDP gets what it wants while the Conservatives get what they want, I honestly think that Canadians can benefit.
Parties campaign on ideology, but they have to govern by something more. In the end, we all have to live together and work together, and if you think that we can't come to some sort of accord, then you aren't trying hard enough.
I talked about this very possibility a year ago, here.
james
Stephen Harper has "governed" with exactly the same ideology he campaigned on- in fact he brags about it.
IMHO, this should be the NDP's strategy. We need to defeat this government as soon as possible to mitigate the damage they do to Canada. Go look at the Hansard, read Layton and the NDP's scathing criticisms, fear mongering, then reconcile that sentiment with "working together". The rhetoric and the backroom don't jive.
I read your post, and while I see the merit, the basic thesis was that a relationship was mutually beneficial politically. Every single piece I have read on the Harper-Layton dance speaks to self-interest, which makes Layton's demand that people "stop playing politics and get to work" all the less believable.
Believe it or not the NDP and the Tories have a lot in common compared to the Liberals. Especially when compared to the Liberals. That's why NDP-Tory voters like myself exist in the first place. (although right now I'm pissed at Jack - but that's a different story)
The NDP and Tories can cooperate on things like democratic reform, some limited economic things (like Income Trusts, EI, etc..), human rights issues, immigration, etc..
Granted they are miles apart on other issues but they still overlap on some. As well, the NDP supporting the Tories helps both out by establishing the NDP as a real force and not just a 'protest party' and by giving the Tories credibility on social issues and the environment.
From a NDP point of view, their intention is to become the progressive voice of Canada. How better to do that then to prove themselves more rational/pragmatic than the Liberals? Its a fascinating strategy for the dippers but I think they have the wrong leader to do it.
NDP got the Accountability Act passed thru parliament, Libs/Senators kicking and screaming all the way.
That's what Canadians wanted (illustrated by Libs booted to the curb)
Canadians want an EFFECTIVE enviro plan. Layton sending the Clean Air Act to committee with produce just such a plan; likely with the Lib/Senators kicking and screaming all the way.
And that is what Canadians want.
Dippers and Conservatives are the ONLY parties to NOT change their position on the Afghan mission part way thru.
I would suggest Layton campaign on that FACT.
'You don't know what the next Liberal position will be until the 5 new leaders draw straws, and then that can change a day later.'
Chretien, Dion, Iggy, Rae, Kennedy = 5
"Believe it or not the NDP and the Tories have a lot in common compared to the Liberals. Especially when compared to the Liberals."
You're kidding right?
wilson
I love this angle that the Liberals have differing views, because it really shows who reflects Canadians as a whole. Complex issues demand varying points of view, outside of dogmatic ideology. What critics call divison, I see as healthy debate. Canadians are divided on many issues, why shouldn't an elected party reflect varying viewpoints.
Jack hasn't done himself or his party any favours this term, but if he can save the environment act, it might be a bit of saving grace for him. If he can't then the NDP will fall miserably, since a lot of people who "lent" him their votes will want them back next time.
It seems to me that the NDP has fallen into some kind of image politics trap and it's not natural for the Party. We can certainly see it's not natural for Jack. I'd bet that if Party handlers opened the trap and let Jack be Jack, we'd see a stronger Leader, a stronger Party, and a stronger showing in the polls.
Party members can have differing views, but a 'leader' has to take a stand.
Cons stand firm on the current Afghan mission.
NDP stand firm against the current Afghan mission.
Liberals have NO firm stand.
So if I was a leftie, I wouldn't take a chance that in the end, it would be Iggy making the final decision, AFTER the election.
Fear of the unknown.
Libs got away with the ''campaign like the NDP, govern like the Consevatives'' when in government.
In opposition, the Libs will find they will not have the luxury of fence sitting.
Have Libs replaced Mr. Dithers with Dithers2 ?
Canadians voted for change, and Libs are offering more of the same.
Dion (and his 4 co-leaders) is up against the most decisive PM in a very long time. Good luck with that fence sitting!
There is one point of commonality between the NDP and the CPC; both are ideologically based parties, whereas the Liberals are a more broad based pragmatist party. In other words the Liberals will tend to do what appears to be the most pragmatic decision whereas the CPC and NDP will make their decision first based on how it fits their ideological framework and if it does not then it is not worth doing regardless of whether practical reality demonstrates otherwise. This is the problem with any political party defined first by an ideology instead of a more flexible fundamental platform. It is this trait of the Liberals that is both responsible for they being the majority governing party in Canada's history AND for it being so easy to brand them as a party more interested in power than anything else. It is a two edged sword for them, yet despite this it has cut in their favour far more often than against them, which shows that the average Canadian voter is also more interested in having pragmatic federal government than having an ideologically driven federal government.
The other point of commonality is that currently both parties see the Liberals as their biggest threat/opposition, in the case of Harper's CPC this is certainly understandable, justifiable according to their political ideology and aims, and therefore entirely consistent with that party and leader's goals. For Layton's NDP though the Liberals represent the greater electoral threat in terms of seats but are clearly not the greater threat in terms of fundamental policies and principles. While yes the Liberals move much more slowly than the NDP in the directions NDPers would prefer on social welfare and social justice issues they at least are going in the same direction. The Harper CPC on the other hand is ideologically opposed to these beliefs and fundamental principles. The Harper CPC want to go in the direction opposite to that which the NDP have always stood for, which makes what Layton is doing run against the history of the NDP federally and what is officially the primary mission and goal of the NDP. This cannot be justified by Layton except as crass partisan political gamesmanship contrary to the history of the party he leads and placing the chances of increased electoral gains ahead of fighting for the principles and positions the NDP had always stood solidly for. Which makes Layton's attitude about how he is the only person working for Canadians in pursuit of higher principles/goals than political power ring so hollow it is a wonder we can hear the sound at all.
I don't have a problem with a conservative and socialist parties trying to work together although I see little in common with Stephen Harper and Jack Layton. If we had a more moderate conservative leader, it would make a lot of sense. In Nova Scotia the NDP and Progressive Conservatives worked well together, while in Germany the centre-right CDU/CSU has formed a coalition with the centre left SPD, so it is possible, however Harper is probably too much of an ideologue for it to be doable. For the Liberals though I could see them working with either party since they more of less sit right smack in the middle between the two parties and have elements on the right and elements on the left.
Also as silly as this sounds, there are a faily large number of NDP-Tory switchers in Western Canada, especially in BC and Saskatchewan. I've never understood why, but one only has to look at the electoral histories of those provinces to see this trend. The only time it happened in Ontario was some who voted NDP in 1990 provincial election and Progressive Conservative in 1995, but most of those were traditional liberal supporters anyways who have likely gone back to the Liberals since and simply went NDP in 1990 to try something different and when they didn't like what they saw, they went PC, and then when they didn't like what they saw, came back to the Liberals.
scotian
"There is one point of commonality between the NDP and the CPC; both are ideologically based parties, whereas the Liberals are a more broad based pragmatist party."
Bingo! In a complicated world, with increasingly complex problems, pragmatism is the new buzzword and only sensible way to govern. Ideology based parties are the equivalent to driving with blinders on, because as you say, they fail to recognize the practical. Pragmatism doesn't necessarily equate to a lack of values or tenets, but it lacks the rigidity.
miles
I just watched a roundtable with Don Newman, wherein he flippantly called Harper's government the most conservative in his lifetime. The statement wasn't said with malious, just simple fact. I believe this to be true, which is why I can't see a merging with the NDP in any honorable way. The only avenue available is on the environment, where Harper may actually sellout his philosophy because of voter unrest. Make the NDP look relevant, split the vote on the left and neutralize the issue for the Liberals.
Miles Lunn:
If the CPC were in truth basically the PCPC then I would agree with you that it would make a lot of sense similar to what we in NS have been watching happen at the Provincial level. However, the CPC is not rooted in traditional Canadian Conservatism nor is it anywhere near as moderate/centrist as the PCPC was. The underlying ideology is pretty much antithetical to that of the NDP despite any points of commonality where a given specific issue is concerned. That is what makes the idea of the NDP working with this CPC government so hard to understand and for many of us impossible to defend as anything other than placing the idea of replacing the Liberals as more important than opposing the CPC ideology. This is the sort of position that the NDP was historically well known and respected for NOT taking, which is why many progressive voters found them a safe place to park a vote when they wanted to send the Liberals a message. That reputation is being undermined to destroyed by the actions of Jack Layton.
Steve V:
Exactly right where pragmatism is concerned, and it is also typical to our political history and way of governing ourselves. After all, our nation's motto is Peace Order and Good Government, which requires pragmatism to happen. Canadians do not support clearly ideological based parties for federal government, they didn't with the NDP nor would they with Reform/CA, which is why Harper had to cloak this nature of the CPC after the 2004 defeat showed that just renaming the party and eliminating the other party option (PCPC) for voters on the right wouldn't be enough. People tend to forget the 2004 election campaign was where the CPC showed its real interests if elected to government, it would be very interesting to compare the 2004 election campaign platform of the CPC to the 2006 one (assuming one can find copies of both unedited/deleted online, since the CPC has according to Paul Wells been doing some editing of the last one recently) to see what got downplayed/ignored in the last campaign that was front and center in 2004.
I love it.
When Jack Layton made the budget deal with Paul Martin in 2005, saving his government in the process, Conservative supporters howled, claiming Mr. Martin had made a deal with the devil.
During the 2006 election campaign if the Conservatives mentioned the NDP at all it was never in positive terms.
Fast forward 10 months, when it is the Conservative government facing serious troubles, and all of a sudden Conservative supporters believe Mr. Layton is a mighty fine fellow and the NDP are a group of fellow travelers with all sorts of things in commen with Conservatives.
The irony is fabulous as is the hypocracy.
The little pantomime we have been witnessing is nothing more than an arrangement of convenience. They need each other for their own political purposes and that is it.
What I am going to find very amusing is what will happen if these two actually come up with a deal. Past history demonstrates that Mr. Layton will try to claim the lion share of the credit for himself and the NDP and it will be very interesting to see the Conservative reaction to that.
I will bet a large sum of money that Mr. Layton will grow horns and a tail once again.
"Fast forward 10 months, when it is the Conservative government facing serious troubles, and all of a sudden Conservative supporters believe Mr. Layton is a mighty fine fellow and the NDP are a group of fellow travelers with all sorts of things in common with Conservatives."
You noticed that too :)
Scotian - I totally agree. I am simply pointing out that a conservative and socialist parties could work together if the Conservative one was moderate, which the current one isn't. The current Conservative Party is without question the most right wing government, at least at the federal level in Canadian history. In fact notwithstanding Bush and maybe John Howard, it is probably the most right wing government in the democratic world at the moment.
I think had Belinda Stronach been Conservative leader or someone like Bernard Lord, then I could see the two parties working together since despite the differences there would be at least a few issues they share in common.
As for the NDP-Tory switchers, I suspect most are centrists, but hate the Liberals with a passion as a party so even though they are ideologically Liberal, they won't vote for them and they cannot make up their mind which party they find more detestable, the NDP or Conservatives. BC and Saskatchewan have a long history with supporting protest parties so it goes back to that I suspect.
Though I think there is some truth to the assertion that the NDP-CPC are proposing to work together out of political self-interest, I also think that Jack Layton has based his decision on the fact that an opportunity to do something good in regards to a very important issue has presented itself and he should take that opportunity.
What has been called Liberal pragmatism can also be seen as duplicity. In the past Liberals have claimed to be the party of national unity, but have expolited regionalism to secure elections. In the past Liberals have claimed to be the party of social justice, but have undermined that social justice through the cancellation of programs and/or reduction of funding. In the past the Liberals have claimed to champion the environment, yet took little action to correct the problems that were so obvious and apparent.
Perhaps Jack Layton has abandoned the long wait for Liberal virtues to be realised in Liberal legislation and does not trust that a future Liberal government will do anything about the environment, so he will make the attempt to do something now, now that the opportunity has presented itself, even if it means "sleeping with the enemy".
Dalestreet:
Assuming you are referring to the cuts in the 1990s with the Liberals cutting programs and spending on social justice issues (Should I assume this would include social welfare programming as well?), if anything that example underscores the best point about Liberal pragmatism. In case you did not know this when the Liberals came to power there was a deficit of around 42 billion dollars and the national debt had more than doubled during the 9 years of Mulroney's Conservative government. At this point we were in serious fiscal hot water internationally as well as nationally. It was so serious that shortly after the Libs came to power the IMF issued a warning that if Canada did not put its fiscal house in order soon (within the next few years since it does take a little time to do so) then the IMF would do it for us.
Why is this important you may be wondering...if so then I suggest you look up the history of how the IMF restructures economies and what happens to social programs. Programs do not get their funding gutted, the get cancelled and in job lots at that. Our health care system would have been defunded and likely forced into a private sector model. Now, given this as the alternative I am much happier with what the Liberals did. Sure they cancelled some good programs and seriously short funded others, but for the most part the basic social safety net exists in this country (although not for much longer if Harper gets his way especially if he gets a majority no matter how slim) and funding was being restored once the deficit was eliminated and significant debt repayment was underway.
General:
This is one of the things that I find most difficult to take from NDPers when they call the Liberals liars and panderers when it comes to this matter. What the Liberals did in the 90s was necessary and prevented far worse damage to our social justice beliefs in this country, and instead of being willing to recognize this I see NDPers routinely use it to claim one cannot trust the Liberals at all on social justice anymore than one can the Conservatives which is clearly patent nonsense IMHO. Oh yes, I should make this point clear, I am not calling Dalestreet an NDPer, I have no idea if that person is or not but the point they were making against the Liberals is one I hear from NDPers in particular and therefore since it reminded me so strongly it prompted this part of this comment.
To have a sustainable long term social justice society requires having economic health and stability. Runaway deficits and heavy debt buildup is not the path towards such stability. I need the health care system Canada has if I want to survive, I cannot afford the premiums private insurance would require of someone with my medical history. It is in my own best interests to want to see this and similar programs stay available and I *KNOW* that if the Liberals had instead kept deficit spending to maintain the funding of the programs at the time it is very probable we would no longer have it by this date since the IMF would have come in and forced us to put our fiscal house in order. I say I know this because while I am not an economics expert one of my best friends is and has thanks to accident of birth excellent access into the higher levels of national and international financing institutions and things really were that bad back then.
If the Liberals had kept the spending at the level Mulroney had left it as it would have in one four year mandate increased the national debt by an additional 25% in that period, and when you consider that at the time the debt to GDP ratio was already in the 50%+ range when the Libs came to power you see how rapidly the snowball effect would have worked if not immediately dealt with as the Libs did. If action was not taken by the end of that term domestically despite the warnings and the clear signs of impending economic catastrophe the international players would have done it for us by either inflicting us with the IMF or stopping any investment into the Canadian economy until we finally did put our fiscal house in order.
Yes, I know this was a long post but this is a touchy issue with me and one of the main reasons I am uncomfortable with the idea of a NDP government federally. Until I see a better understanding of the need to balance between fiscal/economic management and social justice/welfare issues within the NDP leadership federally I am unwilling to trust them with the ability to do significant economic damage by going too far too fast down the social justice path (with the best intentions and motives though, the sincerity of the intent I do not doubt just the competence in execution for long term viability) without making sure there was the economic sustainability to maintain the funding of such additional social justice programming. I also think the Liberals did a very brave thing with their recognition of the need to make fiscal sanity the first priority once they came to power. Yes it was a major broken promising of the Red Book, but if it had not been done and instead the RB was implemented it would have been for a short time only and the pain of fiscal restructuring would have been that much worse when it finally happened.
Scotian:
While I don't doubt that the deficit and the debt were/are an albatross around our collective necks, the point I was trying to make was that, in light of the Liberal Party's proven track record of having principles of convenience, perhaps Jack Layton's decision to attempt to work with the CPC on the environment (no matter how futile it may seem to some and treasonous to others) was born out of a realisation that he may never get another chance to do anything about it and he can't afford to wait and see it the green paint the Liberal Party seems to have applied to itself will stick or wash off.
I also don't disagree that the Liberal governments of the 1990s did a good thing by reducing the deficit, however, I wonder if the same ends could have been achieved, less painfully for the people who elected those governments, if those who financed their campaigns were asked to chip in as well. Though I understand that corporate tax incentives help to stimulate our economy, the outright subsidies that were, and still are, paid to some already highly-profitable industries seem a wee bit too generous (and to the average, distrustful person like me, conspiratorial).
If you are wondering, I'm not a member of the NDP and have voted for all of the big 3 parties in the past. I just find that, increasingly, our governments at the national (and provincial, for that matter) level seem to be more concerned with helping to create an environment where wealth can be concentrated in the hands of the few, instead of governing in the best interests of the society that grants them their power.
Post a Comment