78 Replies to ““I favour a merger of the Liberals and the NDP.””
No Kate.
You know that vote splitting elects conservatives like it did Liberals in the 90’s. Cooperation between the NDP and the Liberals is a conservative nightmare.
This reminds me of Foxnews’ status in the US. They’re the most popular but get chipped away at by the ankle-biters.
“Divide and Conquer” is the strategy used by many leftists (because they *feel* they have no power) but it’s ultimately self-defeating.
They end up defeating their own causes.
Some kind of NDP/Liberal coalition is inevitable; there is no difference in kind between them, only in degree.
As I used to say in my salad days, “Voting Liberal is like having sex wearing a condom; what’s the point?”.
POWER…WE…JUST…NEED…POWER for the sake of having power over people’s lives!!!!
It is a good thing, they will both be wiped out with one election.
Steve, you’re right about lefty vote-splitting being a benefit to the Conservatives, but consider also that a merger would also have benefits. Many traditional Liberal voters are centrists who would consider this a hard shift leftward by their party. The truly socialist party, the NDP, never gets more than about one-fifth of the vote for a reason, regardless of how despicably the Liberals behave.
So all conservatives are against the Libs and NDP getting together?….what a misread.
The end of the Liberal Party is something to be celebrated. In addition, much of the blue Liberal wing will peel off because they arent socialists.
“progressive majority”, another meaningless phrase brought to you by the people who came up The Land is Strong.
“Cooperation between the NDP and the Liberals is a conservative nightmare.”
No, it’s a Liberal one.
And though I’m no fan of the Liberals, replacing them with an increasingly moonbat left-oriented party would do nothing for any remaining sense of reality or moderation in Canadian politics.
Stand back and take the long view.
Remember what happened to the conservative reform party, now the regressive conservative party.
With a merger of lib m& ndp there will be some bleed to the right but there will be an even bigger bleed to the left.
You will then have Lizzy May where T Jack now stands.
I think thats enough discusting thought for one day
Would all those “centrist” Liberals, who some think would come to the CPC fold, want to remove Stephen Harper as CPC leader if the Liberal and NDP parties combined?
Would the CPC be dragged further left?
Is this a sign that Rae is on the move? Rae is ideologically NDP; that is, he’s socialist, big government, anti-American. Ignatieff is, when he is himself and not spouting party nonsense, is more of a traditional Liberal.
Rae wants to oust Ignatieff as leader of the Liberal Party. Of course, Rae would also like to move himself back into power. Since it can’t be via the NDP, then, via the Liberal Party.
Is Kinsella moving to align himself with Rae and this movement? As noted, it would lead to significant intra-fighting and dissent both about power and policies.
Maybe this is just what we need – a coalition government of these fools. At least it would bring us to our knees at the speed of light and get the inevitable over with. There would at least be a chance of a recovery if we got it over with …. a good dose of socialist economics right off the get-go.
The way these so-called “conservatives” are doing it is a slow, incremental economic death march with no chance of recovery when the total collapse comes some years down the road.
Maybe it’s in our best interests to saye “bring ‘er on and get ‘er over with.” Nothing to indicate that Harper & co. are going to give the Country the remedy it needs: a massive chopping of government’s size and influence.
Canadian federal electoral politics — as with US federal politics — will always be about the middle.
Once it’s had a chance to stabilize (say, a couple of election cycles), a merged Liberal/NDP will shift — as the new Conservative Party has shifted — to the middle. And eventually, given the generally “centre-left” views of the mainstream Canadian voter, they will knock the Conservatives from power.
Incidentally, the current problem besetting the Conservatives is the same problem besetting the Liberals — leaders who’ve peaked in their voter popularity. Even with Dion and Ignatieff at the Liberal helm, Harper — and let’s face it, the Conservatives are all about Harper these days — still can’t attract enough centrist voters to reach majority numbers.
As the 1 June Angus Reid poll (visioncritical.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/2010.05.31_Politics_CAN.pdf) suggests, with even marginally more popular leadership, a merged Lib/NDP could become instantly competitive against the CP again — tied, in fact, if it’s Rae; in clear majority territory, if it’s Layton.
Nothing about an NDP-Liberal merger will pull them towards the center. The more leftward the Liberals have moved, the weaker they get. It would finish them off, leaving centrists only the Conservatives as an alternative.
Three points:
1. as you call tell by the push in kinsella’s poll – he favours some kind of merger.
2. A merger would mean annihilation at the polls for the merged party – the lurch tonthe left that it would require would see lp members leave tonthe CP in droves. Just think of the policy positions – leave Nato, drastically increase taxes including the GST, give more power to the unions, vastly bugger government. The coalition would not see them get much above 30%, meanwhile the CP would get into the mid to high 40s.
3. Someone should ask a power-hungry joker like WK woulld he forswaer any cooperation/agreement with the BQ if the coalition won fewer seats than the CP but still we had a minority govt. This was and remains a separatist coalition if that’s what it takes to sieze power. WK should be ashamed of himself.
Years ago Barbara Amiel correctly labeled Bob Rae a crypto-communist while he was NDP premier of Ontario.
The NDP today under Taliban Jack Layton are still essentially closet communists.
The same Bob Rae (now a closet Liberal) is busy trying to meld the two parties, the closet communists of Taliban Jack Layton with the socialist Liberals into a solid leftist party to regain power in Canada.
Bob Rae is still the same crypto – communist he was when Amiel nailed him years ago.
Merged or coalition ND and Liberal party would be communism as a form of Canadian governance
Beware Canada!
Just think of the policy positions – leave Nato, drastically increase taxes including the GST, give more power to the unions, vastly bugger government.
~Gord Tulk
Count me in for vastly buggering the government.
The buggering’s been going the wrong direction all my life.
Time to be the pitcher instead of the catcher.
“Centrist Liberals will gravitate to the Conservatives”. That is not the best news for those of us who believe that the Tories are moving too far to the left. Remember the post Mulroney era of the Reform Party! We need a viable party to the right of center in this country. The current era of socialism is about to plunge most of the western world into economic chaos.
davenport – if, as you say, Canadian ideology is ‘the middle’ then the name of the governing party is irrelevant, since, for you, that party must always be ‘the middle’. It hardly matters whether it’s called Conservative or Liberal if both must have similar ‘centrist’ policies.
Therefore, I suggest that your outline is incorrect. Certainly, Canadian ideology is ‘centrist’ but it has a slant that cannot be ignored.
Is that slant in favour of limited govt, decentralization of powers, smaller taxes, focus on individual freedoms and responsibilities? I’d say ‘yes’ – and that is the Conservative view. Furthermore, this is the modern Canada, based around the demographic and economic movt away from Old Canada of Quebec-Ontario.
Is that slant in favour of that old Canada with its centralized powers in Quebec-Ontario, and in favour of big welfare statism, higher taxes, limited individual capacity for entrepreneurship, socialism…? That’s the Liberal Party.
What the Liberal Party still doesn’t accept is that the old Canada with its demographic base firmly in Ontario-Quebec no longer exists. The movement is west, and this movement is all about capitalism, freedom, entrepreneurship and limited govt.
What Rae is attempting to do is enable that Old Style Canada to regain power. Rae is an NDP, which means big govt; he’s also part of the old guard focused around Quebec-Ontario. Rae is trying to merge the NDP-Liberals simply to gain power.
Oh, and I think that Harper is probably the best PM Canada has ever had. I don’t know what your problems are with Harper – he’s getting quite the international reputation, and in Canada, remains firmly in the lead as ‘best leader’.
“Nothing about an NDP-Liberal merger will pull them towards the center.”
I disagree — everything about the merger will, in time, pull them towards the centre. If and when the NDP are folded into a broad centre-left tent, there’ll no longer be a reason for the new party’s leadership to shift leftward. The left-wing vote’ll be locked up — the only place to seek a majority is back towards the centre.
Same reason why the Harper Conservatives currently toss an occasional bone to their base but otherwise feel no pressing need to pander to hard-right conservative interests: come election day, where else are you gonna go?
I think you are all missing one vital point that more and more people who normally don’t pay attention to politics are becoming aware of and alarmed by. The destruction of provinces like Ontario, states like California and whole countries like the PIIGS, which is why Cameron is quickly bringing in major changes to the UK, through socialist policies is everywhere.
To survive there must be a sea change away from these socialist policies. It won’t be pretty as we see in Greece but vital to our survival as nations.
If the Liberals merge with ever more leftist parties it will kill them as Canadians on the left are now personally being affected by looming wholesale government cutbacks and future layoffs.
Harper has got us through this recession as the best of the lot of the G20 and is respected by his fellow leaders. Recent studies have shown Canada gained nothing really from this forced stimulus spending by the NDP/Liberal/Bloc and he will use this fact as our recovery progresses.
Once again Conservatives are pulling out their stupid knives to slay the best PM I have ever seen.
Practically every poll conducted shows that overall only about 33% of Canadians are deluded enough to vote for the right wing conservatives. The remaining voters vote for a left leaning party; be it NDP, Liberal, Bloc or Green. Too bad all those voters couldn’t unite and a right wing party would never see the light of day again, let alone hold office. Leave these conservative clowns to their own devices and they’ll destroy themselves.
Aaaack! Kim Sheila site! Why don’t I ever check first. Now I feel so dirty.
Gord Tulk is bang on with this comment “Just think of the policy positions – leave Nato, drastically increase taxes including the GST, give more power to the unions, vastly bugger government”.
Bob Rae is the Marxist Trojan horse in the Liberal party and he would do to Canada what Miller and McGuinty have done in Ontario.
Joe, that was good reminder at 9:38.
Socialists prefer a party system where people have no real choices except shades of socialism.
I like ET’s analysis of what is happening in Canada. There is an economic and politica shift to the west going on in Canada.
ET
I have to agree.
The past 50 years have reflected a demographic shift from rural to urban and large urban blocks influencing things.
With the demographic shift west-ward, the old centerist notion is returning…..a train which the Librano-NDP has missed.
I don’t know what your problems are with Harper – he’s getting quite the international reputation, and in Canada, remains firmly in the lead as ‘best leader’
End quote:———–
I don’t give a tinker’s damn regarding our internationl reputation, most Canadians aren’t that narcissistic or shallow. The mere fact that the twit is spending a billion dollars to host wine and party summits for global leaders is indicative of a PM who’s out of touch with the people he governs. If he’s the best PM we’ve ever had gawd help us in the future, Harper spends our tax dollars with total disregard for fiscal prudence and responsibility and I’m fed up with him.
As for the coalition of leftards, yawn who cares eventually their over inflated egos will cause them to eata their own.
rose – could you provide some evidence that the security for the G20 is about ‘wine and cheese’ and also, that Harper ‘spends our tax dollars with total disregard for fiscal prudence and responsibility’. Thanks for the data in advance.
Oh, and since when is being a responsible and principled member of the international community an act of ‘narcissism’ or ‘shallowness’? Could you also explain that?
Let us not forget, if we get Bob Rae, we get Maurice Strong and George Soros.
Kulak:
Shades of socialism is what Europe has and our ancestors fled.
Kinsella apparently still subscribes to the European definitions of left-right where the National Socialist Workers Party is considered right-wing. It’s not that tough to spot in the comments section.
Whatever they call themselves … marxist, socialist, progressive … it’s all the same thing — a means of control over a populace they consider to be stupider than them and in need of their guidance.
The ‘progressive’ side always needs some kind of enemy to fight against. Unfortunately for them, their ultimate nemesis is people who value individual freedom. It seems they need to blame somebody else for their inadequacies.
As far as them being smarter … I will testify right here that anybody would have a hard time convincing me that Jack Layton is more qualified to spend my money better than I can.
It’s quite possible Layton has a higher IQ, but intelligence is a much different measure than wisdom, an attribute many progressives seem to lack.
As for the merger idea I say there’s no need to stop talking about it, Warren.
I doubt that a progressive coalition will work. A Lib-NDP coalition, a stated above, will lose the the fiscally conservative liberals. Meanwhile, the radical leftists will not tolerate watered-down versions of socialist policies – they will rebel and form another party. So the progressive coalition will have votes stripped away on the right and left.
The unification of the right was a reunion not an artificial grafting. It is like the difference between the unification Germany compared to the formation of the EU. The conservatives had a history of working together so the reconciliation was easy. The progressives do not have this shared past to help them smooth over differences.
The only way a coalition would work is if they can scheme their way into power and then immediately make major changes to the voting structure – proportional representation and guaranteed percentage of votes for Quebec regardless of their population. This will negate the shift of power to the west and guarantee that only coalitions will govern. Since the right has no natural coalition partners, they will become the permanent opposition. Of course the unintended consequences, western alienation, will surely follow.
How nany times have i stated this!
The only reason Rae accepted the invitation to join the Liberals is, He very well knows if he stayed a a dipper the best he could achieve is Dipper Party Leader, and as leader he would Never get grasp of the keys to the PM’s office. As a Liberal he improves his odds, So if you cant beat them join them. In fact i have been saying this for sometime now there are many dippers that have flipped to their distant cousins.
Would their be a eventual joining at the hips of the two parties, Yes i believe so. However if & when that ever happens you will see the true dyed in the wool Liberals jump ship to the conservatives.
Therefore then the conservatives would achieve their goal a Majority.
bryanr:
Yeah, we get it.
Bob Rae is a Trojan Horse progressive.
I’ll take none from column eh and none from column B.
Any kind of merger would’t benefit western Canada unless there are political structure changes. Economic power without political power is worthless. We need something where everyone everywhere is equal; otherwise we’re condemning ourselves to death by socialism.
ET: “Furthermore, this is the modern Canada, based around the demographic and economic movt away from Old Canada of Quebec-Ontario.”
Sasquatch: “With the demographic shift west-ward…”
What demographic shift? Despite Alberta’s high provincial growth rate, the fact remains that two-thirds of the country live in Ontario and Quebec, and 80% live in BC, Central Canada, and Eastern Canada. And according to StatCan’s latest population projections, released just last week (26 May, if you want to check for yourselves), that distribution is likely to remain fairly stable even out to 2036.
As for an economic shift, certainly the Western provinces are experiencing gains in recent years — a good thing, don’t get me wrong; the more evenly distributed the national economic engine is, the better off Canada will be — but again, Ontario/Quebec still account for 60% of national GDP. And as long as population distributions remain relatively the same, relative provincial contributions to total GDP won’t change much either.
ET: “if, as you say, Canadian ideology is ‘the middle’…”
No, I never said “Canadian ideology” is “the middle”; I said federal electoral politics is about battling for the hearts and minds (that is to say, votes) of the middle.
In fact, I said that Canadian ideology — to the extent that such a complex thing could be boiled down to a one-dimensional character trait — is generally centre-left (certainly on social issues, more middle-ground on economic issues). As evidence, I point to strong public support for, e.g., publicly-funded health care, public education, abortion (whether under all or some circumstances), and same-sex marriage, as well as generally more favourable views of the Conservatives whenever they move towards the centre vs. whenever they move towards the right. So, I agree with your statement that “Canadian ideology is ‘centrist’ but it has a slant that cannot be ignored”; we just disagree on the direction of the slant.
“Of course the unintended consequences, western alienation, will surely follow.”
Are you really sure that’s ‘unintended’?
Warren’s response to my comment at http://warrenkinsella.com/2010/06/coalition-poll-vote-now/#comment-3735
“Warren says:
June 3, 2010 at 11:26 am
Thanks, Mr. Anderson. I’m guessing you aren’t sending me a Christmas card again this year.
Anyone who wants to send Burnaby’s Mr. Anderson their very best wishes can do so at michael.emspace@gmail.com. And his webby address is 154.5.174.21.
Let’s send him love, people! Sounds like he needs it.
And a home address would be helpful, for those who want to extend their best wishes the old fashioned way!”
First, I believe a merger(although it won’t happen) is in the best interest of all Canadians. It will define the battle lines and force traditional liberals to isht or get off the pot.
I agree with Kate and most of the commenter’s so I won’t regurgitate their good points.
Davenport, you dun lost your mind.
LC Bennett stole my thunder but makes a very valid point. The Wild Rose Alliance may end-up being a major player when we look back in Canadian history to this time.
What central Canadians do not realize right now is that the Conservatives are Alberta’s ultimatum to Canada.
Message to Canada’s Progressives: “Dorothy, this ain’t Kansas”
WK has a new boss. There’s only one reason to be talking openly about a coalition of the left right now, to kill Iggy and the Libs.
WK wants back into his war room play-pen.
This is the same thing that happened when Dion was leader. WK kept sounding rational and helped crater Dion’s Liberals.
Now it looks like he’s working for the Rae camp and is actively looking to crater Iggy.
If I recall correctly (which I do) WK really didn’t like Iggy before that camp hired/volunteered him.
Why won’t a “merger” happen?
Because it will require the Liberals to cut ties with the “Liberal” name and the tradition that goes along with it. The NDP will not become Liberals for obvious reasons; therefore, stalemate. There is too much invested in name recognition and marketing for either party to give-up their identity. JMO
YIkes, is Warren K. always like that or is he experiencing some sort of breakdown?
When’s the same thing gonna happen in Saskatchewan? (with the provincial parties)
Steve Janke is back! Now troll-free! (at least currently.)
“The mathematical reasoning behind a Liberal-NDP coalition goes something like this[…]”
And it just doesn’t add up.
Looks to me like they’re using the “Grecian Formula”…? Ba-Dump Bump…
Sigh…it just gets better. I offered to visit Warren personally and push his face in for him rather than meet his goons at my front door – tit for tat sort of thing – and he is now offering $500 to anyone who can find me so he can prosecute.
Pushing his buttons is so easy – lovin’ it! To paraphrase Spock, I am, and always have been, a troll killer.
LC Bennet – nice post. Thanks.
davenport – you have to follow demographics as an active not a steady-state process. The post WW population of Canada was about 13 million, with 8 million of that in Ontario and Quebec. This put the political power firmly in the hands of those two provinces. That’s over. Since that time, the population has expanded to 33 million and the area of greatest population and economic expansion has been the West.
Quebec has moved into a steady-state no-growth demographic and an economy with a massive deficit, relying on funds from the ROC to keep its socialist agenda.
Ontario has moved economically into a ‘have-not’ province.
These two areas, which used to be the political and economic and demographic ‘heart’ of Canada have lost this power. The GDP of the West is higher than that of Quebec (and it doesn’t have that massive debt and that socialist infrastructure).
Where would Quebec be, economically, without all those government head offices located so providentially in Montreal, setting up that pension-loaded federal and provincial bureaucracy? All those contracts awarded to Quebec, all those bilingual jobs?
The area of greatest population growth and economic expansion is – the West. This began about two decades ago. Note that BC and Alberta together are equal to the population of Quebec. All of this; that Canadian population moving from 13 million to 33 million; that demographic movement from the east to the west, that economic switch – in less than a generation.
The Liberals are stuck in that old Ontario-Quebec mindset of a paternalistic central government, located in Montreal-Ottawa-Quebec, with socialist infrastructures and a top-down government. That’s over. The Liberals don’t recognize it but that’s their problem.
Of course you said that Canadian ideology is ‘the middle’. What else can a statement of a focus on ‘the middle’ mean, other than an ideology that is neither right nor left but ‘centrist’, i.e., the middle. You slant it as centre-left but as has been pointed out, you ignore the reality of a massive economic and demographic shift to the west which has made the old centrist Liberal paternalistic era out-of-touch with reality.
I disagree that there is strong public support for our current public health care system; we are seeing too many ‘trips to the US’ for care and a great many private clinics opening up, as well as the Supreme Court ruling that ‘all is not well in public health care land’. The criticism that Canadian health care now receives was unheard of ten years ago.
I also disagree with your view that Canadians are pro-abortion; that issue is most certainly not settled and there is a strong division in the country about this. Why don’t you acknowledge this?
Public education? I’ve no idea what you are talking about; every country has public education, and massive powerful teacher’s unions. But more and more in Canada, we are seeing private schools becoming the school of choice for parents who can afford it.
The problem with the Liberals is their isolation in the Old Boys Club of Ontario-Quebec; the NDP are, of course, equally isolated, but in the seminar and coffee rooms with their lattes and their sanctimonious agendas of saving those ‘lesser beings’. Then, we have Rae, and his personal agenda for power..and Strong and even yet, the Desmarais and Power Corp.
Kinsella’s web page at the bottom of the comments section says you must supply an e-mail address to comment and that it wont be published. Then when he doesnt like your comment he publishes your e-mail address for his legion of pansies to abuse you and then resolves your actual street address if he can in order to pay you a home visit.
a consumation devoutly to be wished
Cheer up, a proposed Liberal-NDP coalition is outright admission of Liberal defeat in any foreseeable
election. Desperate Liberals do crazy things.
Kinsella, first and foremost, smells and acts like a PowerCorp operative. I would suggest that Donolo has the same whiff about him.
Remember that PC always has more than one horse in the stable and they often use the same staff to muck the stalls.
Syncro
No Kate.
You know that vote splitting elects conservatives like it did Liberals in the 90’s. Cooperation between the NDP and the Liberals is a conservative nightmare.
This reminds me of Foxnews’ status in the US. They’re the most popular but get chipped away at by the ankle-biters.
“Divide and Conquer” is the strategy used by many leftists (because they *feel* they have no power) but it’s ultimately self-defeating.
They end up defeating their own causes.
Some kind of NDP/Liberal coalition is inevitable; there is no difference in kind between them, only in degree.
As I used to say in my salad days, “Voting Liberal is like having sex wearing a condom; what’s the point?”.
POWER…WE…JUST…NEED…POWER for the sake of having power over people’s lives!!!!
It is a good thing, they will both be wiped out with one election.
Steve, you’re right about lefty vote-splitting being a benefit to the Conservatives, but consider also that a merger would also have benefits. Many traditional Liberal voters are centrists who would consider this a hard shift leftward by their party. The truly socialist party, the NDP, never gets more than about one-fifth of the vote for a reason, regardless of how despicably the Liberals behave.
So all conservatives are against the Libs and NDP getting together?….what a misread.
The end of the Liberal Party is something to be celebrated. In addition, much of the blue Liberal wing will peel off because they arent socialists.
“progressive majority”, another meaningless phrase brought to you by the people who came up The Land is Strong.
“Cooperation between the NDP and the Liberals is a conservative nightmare.”
No, it’s a Liberal one.
And though I’m no fan of the Liberals, replacing them with an increasingly moonbat left-oriented party would do nothing for any remaining sense of reality or moderation in Canadian politics.
Stand back and take the long view.
Remember what happened to the conservative reform party, now the regressive conservative party.
With a merger of lib m& ndp there will be some bleed to the right but there will be an even bigger bleed to the left.
You will then have Lizzy May where T Jack now stands.
I think thats enough discusting thought for one day
Would all those “centrist” Liberals, who some think would come to the CPC fold, want to remove Stephen Harper as CPC leader if the Liberal and NDP parties combined?
Would the CPC be dragged further left?
Is this a sign that Rae is on the move? Rae is ideologically NDP; that is, he’s socialist, big government, anti-American. Ignatieff is, when he is himself and not spouting party nonsense, is more of a traditional Liberal.
Rae wants to oust Ignatieff as leader of the Liberal Party. Of course, Rae would also like to move himself back into power. Since it can’t be via the NDP, then, via the Liberal Party.
Is Kinsella moving to align himself with Rae and this movement? As noted, it would lead to significant intra-fighting and dissent both about power and policies.
Maybe this is just what we need – a coalition government of these fools. At least it would bring us to our knees at the speed of light and get the inevitable over with. There would at least be a chance of a recovery if we got it over with …. a good dose of socialist economics right off the get-go.
The way these so-called “conservatives” are doing it is a slow, incremental economic death march with no chance of recovery when the total collapse comes some years down the road.
Maybe it’s in our best interests to saye “bring ‘er on and get ‘er over with.” Nothing to indicate that Harper & co. are going to give the Country the remedy it needs: a massive chopping of government’s size and influence.
Canadian federal electoral politics — as with US federal politics — will always be about the middle.
Once it’s had a chance to stabilize (say, a couple of election cycles), a merged Liberal/NDP will shift — as the new Conservative Party has shifted — to the middle. And eventually, given the generally “centre-left” views of the mainstream Canadian voter, they will knock the Conservatives from power.
Incidentally, the current problem besetting the Conservatives is the same problem besetting the Liberals — leaders who’ve peaked in their voter popularity. Even with Dion and Ignatieff at the Liberal helm, Harper — and let’s face it, the Conservatives are all about Harper these days — still can’t attract enough centrist voters to reach majority numbers.
As the 1 June Angus Reid poll (visioncritical.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/2010.05.31_Politics_CAN.pdf) suggests, with even marginally more popular leadership, a merged Lib/NDP could become instantly competitive against the CP again — tied, in fact, if it’s Rae; in clear majority territory, if it’s Layton.
Nothing about an NDP-Liberal merger will pull them towards the center. The more leftward the Liberals have moved, the weaker they get. It would finish them off, leaving centrists only the Conservatives as an alternative.
Three points:
1. as you call tell by the push in kinsella’s poll – he favours some kind of merger.
2. A merger would mean annihilation at the polls for the merged party – the lurch tonthe left that it would require would see lp members leave tonthe CP in droves. Just think of the policy positions – leave Nato, drastically increase taxes including the GST, give more power to the unions, vastly bugger government. The coalition would not see them get much above 30%, meanwhile the CP would get into the mid to high 40s.
3. Someone should ask a power-hungry joker like WK woulld he forswaer any cooperation/agreement with the BQ if the coalition won fewer seats than the CP but still we had a minority govt. This was and remains a separatist coalition if that’s what it takes to sieze power. WK should be ashamed of himself.
Years ago Barbara Amiel correctly labeled Bob Rae a crypto-communist while he was NDP premier of Ontario.
The NDP today under Taliban Jack Layton are still essentially closet communists.
The same Bob Rae (now a closet Liberal) is busy trying to meld the two parties, the closet communists of Taliban Jack Layton with the socialist Liberals into a solid leftist party to regain power in Canada.
Bob Rae is still the same crypto – communist he was when Amiel nailed him years ago.
Merged or coalition ND and Liberal party would be communism as a form of Canadian governance
Beware Canada!
Just think of the policy positions – leave Nato, drastically increase taxes including the GST, give more power to the unions, vastly bugger government.
~Gord Tulk
Count me in for vastly buggering the government.
The buggering’s been going the wrong direction all my life.
Time to be the pitcher instead of the catcher.
“Centrist Liberals will gravitate to the Conservatives”. That is not the best news for those of us who believe that the Tories are moving too far to the left. Remember the post Mulroney era of the Reform Party! We need a viable party to the right of center in this country. The current era of socialism is about to plunge most of the western world into economic chaos.
davenport – if, as you say, Canadian ideology is ‘the middle’ then the name of the governing party is irrelevant, since, for you, that party must always be ‘the middle’. It hardly matters whether it’s called Conservative or Liberal if both must have similar ‘centrist’ policies.
Therefore, I suggest that your outline is incorrect. Certainly, Canadian ideology is ‘centrist’ but it has a slant that cannot be ignored.
Is that slant in favour of limited govt, decentralization of powers, smaller taxes, focus on individual freedoms and responsibilities? I’d say ‘yes’ – and that is the Conservative view. Furthermore, this is the modern Canada, based around the demographic and economic movt away from Old Canada of Quebec-Ontario.
Is that slant in favour of that old Canada with its centralized powers in Quebec-Ontario, and in favour of big welfare statism, higher taxes, limited individual capacity for entrepreneurship, socialism…? That’s the Liberal Party.
What the Liberal Party still doesn’t accept is that the old Canada with its demographic base firmly in Ontario-Quebec no longer exists. The movement is west, and this movement is all about capitalism, freedom, entrepreneurship and limited govt.
What Rae is attempting to do is enable that Old Style Canada to regain power. Rae is an NDP, which means big govt; he’s also part of the old guard focused around Quebec-Ontario. Rae is trying to merge the NDP-Liberals simply to gain power.
Oh, and I think that Harper is probably the best PM Canada has ever had. I don’t know what your problems are with Harper – he’s getting quite the international reputation, and in Canada, remains firmly in the lead as ‘best leader’.
“Nothing about an NDP-Liberal merger will pull them towards the center.”
I disagree — everything about the merger will, in time, pull them towards the centre. If and when the NDP are folded into a broad centre-left tent, there’ll no longer be a reason for the new party’s leadership to shift leftward. The left-wing vote’ll be locked up — the only place to seek a majority is back towards the centre.
Same reason why the Harper Conservatives currently toss an occasional bone to their base but otherwise feel no pressing need to pander to hard-right conservative interests: come election day, where else are you gonna go?
I think you are all missing one vital point that more and more people who normally don’t pay attention to politics are becoming aware of and alarmed by. The destruction of provinces like Ontario, states like California and whole countries like the PIIGS, which is why Cameron is quickly bringing in major changes to the UK, through socialist policies is everywhere.
To survive there must be a sea change away from these socialist policies. It won’t be pretty as we see in Greece but vital to our survival as nations.
If the Liberals merge with ever more leftist parties it will kill them as Canadians on the left are now personally being affected by looming wholesale government cutbacks and future layoffs.
Harper has got us through this recession as the best of the lot of the G20 and is respected by his fellow leaders. Recent studies have shown Canada gained nothing really from this forced stimulus spending by the NDP/Liberal/Bloc and he will use this fact as our recovery progresses.
Once again Conservatives are pulling out their stupid knives to slay the best PM I have ever seen.
Practically every poll conducted shows that overall only about 33% of Canadians are deluded enough to vote for the right wing conservatives. The remaining voters vote for a left leaning party; be it NDP, Liberal, Bloc or Green. Too bad all those voters couldn’t unite and a right wing party would never see the light of day again, let alone hold office. Leave these conservative clowns to their own devices and they’ll destroy themselves.
Aaaack! Kim Sheila site! Why don’t I ever check first. Now I feel so dirty.
Gord Tulk is bang on with this comment “Just think of the policy positions – leave Nato, drastically increase taxes including the GST, give more power to the unions, vastly bugger government”.
Bob Rae is the Marxist Trojan horse in the Liberal party and he would do to Canada what Miller and McGuinty have done in Ontario.
Joe, that was good reminder at 9:38.
Socialists prefer a party system where people have no real choices except shades of socialism.
I like ET’s analysis of what is happening in Canada. There is an economic and politica shift to the west going on in Canada.
ET
I have to agree.
The past 50 years have reflected a demographic shift from rural to urban and large urban blocks influencing things.
With the demographic shift west-ward, the old centerist notion is returning…..a train which the Librano-NDP has missed.
I don’t know what your problems are with Harper – he’s getting quite the international reputation, and in Canada, remains firmly in the lead as ‘best leader’
End quote:———–
I don’t give a tinker’s damn regarding our internationl reputation, most Canadians aren’t that narcissistic or shallow. The mere fact that the twit is spending a billion dollars to host wine and party summits for global leaders is indicative of a PM who’s out of touch with the people he governs. If he’s the best PM we’ve ever had gawd help us in the future, Harper spends our tax dollars with total disregard for fiscal prudence and responsibility and I’m fed up with him.
As for the coalition of leftards, yawn who cares eventually their over inflated egos will cause them to eata their own.
rose – could you provide some evidence that the security for the G20 is about ‘wine and cheese’ and also, that Harper ‘spends our tax dollars with total disregard for fiscal prudence and responsibility’. Thanks for the data in advance.
Oh, and since when is being a responsible and principled member of the international community an act of ‘narcissism’ or ‘shallowness’? Could you also explain that?
Let us not forget, if we get Bob Rae, we get Maurice Strong and George Soros.
Kulak:
Shades of socialism is what Europe has and our ancestors fled.
Kinsella apparently still subscribes to the European definitions of left-right where the National Socialist Workers Party is considered right-wing. It’s not that tough to spot in the comments section.
Whatever they call themselves … marxist, socialist, progressive … it’s all the same thing — a means of control over a populace they consider to be stupider than them and in need of their guidance.
The ‘progressive’ side always needs some kind of enemy to fight against. Unfortunately for them, their ultimate nemesis is people who value individual freedom. It seems they need to blame somebody else for their inadequacies.
As far as them being smarter … I will testify right here that anybody would have a hard time convincing me that Jack Layton is more qualified to spend my money better than I can.
It’s quite possible Layton has a higher IQ, but intelligence is a much different measure than wisdom, an attribute many progressives seem to lack.
As for the merger idea I say there’s no need to stop talking about it, Warren.
I doubt that a progressive coalition will work. A Lib-NDP coalition, a stated above, will lose the the fiscally conservative liberals. Meanwhile, the radical leftists will not tolerate watered-down versions of socialist policies – they will rebel and form another party. So the progressive coalition will have votes stripped away on the right and left.
The unification of the right was a reunion not an artificial grafting. It is like the difference between the unification Germany compared to the formation of the EU. The conservatives had a history of working together so the reconciliation was easy. The progressives do not have this shared past to help them smooth over differences.
The only way a coalition would work is if they can scheme their way into power and then immediately make major changes to the voting structure – proportional representation and guaranteed percentage of votes for Quebec regardless of their population. This will negate the shift of power to the west and guarantee that only coalitions will govern. Since the right has no natural coalition partners, they will become the permanent opposition. Of course the unintended consequences, western alienation, will surely follow.
How nany times have i stated this!
The only reason Rae accepted the invitation to join the Liberals is, He very well knows if he stayed a a dipper the best he could achieve is Dipper Party Leader, and as leader he would Never get grasp of the keys to the PM’s office. As a Liberal he improves his odds, So if you cant beat them join them. In fact i have been saying this for sometime now there are many dippers that have flipped to their distant cousins.
Would their be a eventual joining at the hips of the two parties, Yes i believe so. However if & when that ever happens you will see the true dyed in the wool Liberals jump ship to the conservatives.
Therefore then the conservatives would achieve their goal a Majority.
bryanr:
Yeah, we get it.
Bob Rae is a Trojan Horse progressive.
I’ll take none from column eh and none from column B.
Any kind of merger would’t benefit western Canada unless there are political structure changes. Economic power without political power is worthless. We need something where everyone everywhere is equal; otherwise we’re condemning ourselves to death by socialism.
ET: “Furthermore, this is the modern Canada, based around the demographic and economic movt away from Old Canada of Quebec-Ontario.”
Sasquatch: “With the demographic shift west-ward…”
What demographic shift? Despite Alberta’s high provincial growth rate, the fact remains that two-thirds of the country live in Ontario and Quebec, and 80% live in BC, Central Canada, and Eastern Canada. And according to StatCan’s latest population projections, released just last week (26 May, if you want to check for yourselves), that distribution is likely to remain fairly stable even out to 2036.
As for an economic shift, certainly the Western provinces are experiencing gains in recent years — a good thing, don’t get me wrong; the more evenly distributed the national economic engine is, the better off Canada will be — but again, Ontario/Quebec still account for 60% of national GDP. And as long as population distributions remain relatively the same, relative provincial contributions to total GDP won’t change much either.
ET: “if, as you say, Canadian ideology is ‘the middle’…”
No, I never said “Canadian ideology” is “the middle”; I said federal electoral politics is about battling for the hearts and minds (that is to say, votes) of the middle.
In fact, I said that Canadian ideology — to the extent that such a complex thing could be boiled down to a one-dimensional character trait — is generally centre-left (certainly on social issues, more middle-ground on economic issues). As evidence, I point to strong public support for, e.g., publicly-funded health care, public education, abortion (whether under all or some circumstances), and same-sex marriage, as well as generally more favourable views of the Conservatives whenever they move towards the centre vs. whenever they move towards the right. So, I agree with your statement that “Canadian ideology is ‘centrist’ but it has a slant that cannot be ignored”; we just disagree on the direction of the slant.
“Of course the unintended consequences, western alienation, will surely follow.”
Are you really sure that’s ‘unintended’?
Warren’s response to my comment at http://warrenkinsella.com/2010/06/coalition-poll-vote-now/#comment-3735
“Warren says:
June 3, 2010 at 11:26 am
Thanks, Mr. Anderson. I’m guessing you aren’t sending me a Christmas card again this year.
Anyone who wants to send Burnaby’s Mr. Anderson their very best wishes can do so at michael.emspace@gmail.com. And his webby address is 154.5.174.21.
Let’s send him love, people! Sounds like he needs it.
And a home address would be helpful, for those who want to extend their best wishes the old fashioned way!”
First, I believe a merger(although it won’t happen) is in the best interest of all Canadians. It will define the battle lines and force traditional liberals to isht or get off the pot.
I agree with Kate and most of the commenter’s so I won’t regurgitate their good points.
Davenport, you dun lost your mind.
LC Bennett stole my thunder but makes a very valid point. The Wild Rose Alliance may end-up being a major player when we look back in Canadian history to this time.
What central Canadians do not realize right now is that the Conservatives are Alberta’s ultimatum to Canada.
Message to Canada’s Progressives: “Dorothy, this ain’t Kansas”
WK has a new boss. There’s only one reason to be talking openly about a coalition of the left right now, to kill Iggy and the Libs.
WK wants back into his war room play-pen.
This is the same thing that happened when Dion was leader. WK kept sounding rational and helped crater Dion’s Liberals.
Now it looks like he’s working for the Rae camp and is actively looking to crater Iggy.
If I recall correctly (which I do) WK really didn’t like Iggy before that camp hired/volunteered him.
Why won’t a “merger” happen?
Because it will require the Liberals to cut ties with the “Liberal” name and the tradition that goes along with it. The NDP will not become Liberals for obvious reasons; therefore, stalemate. There is too much invested in name recognition and marketing for either party to give-up their identity. JMO
YIkes, is Warren K. always like that or is he experiencing some sort of breakdown?
When’s the same thing gonna happen in Saskatchewan? (with the provincial parties)
Steve Janke is back! Now troll-free! (at least currently.)
“The mathematical reasoning behind a Liberal-NDP coalition goes something like this[…]”
And it just doesn’t add up.
Looks to me like they’re using the “Grecian Formula”…? Ba-Dump Bump…
Sigh…it just gets better. I offered to visit Warren personally and push his face in for him rather than meet his goons at my front door – tit for tat sort of thing – and he is now offering $500 to anyone who can find me so he can prosecute.
Pushing his buttons is so easy – lovin’ it! To paraphrase Spock, I am, and always have been, a troll killer.
LC Bennet – nice post. Thanks.
davenport – you have to follow demographics as an active not a steady-state process. The post WW population of Canada was about 13 million, with 8 million of that in Ontario and Quebec. This put the political power firmly in the hands of those two provinces. That’s over. Since that time, the population has expanded to 33 million and the area of greatest population and economic expansion has been the West.
Quebec has moved into a steady-state no-growth demographic and an economy with a massive deficit, relying on funds from the ROC to keep its socialist agenda.
Ontario has moved economically into a ‘have-not’ province.
These two areas, which used to be the political and economic and demographic ‘heart’ of Canada have lost this power. The GDP of the West is higher than that of Quebec (and it doesn’t have that massive debt and that socialist infrastructure).
Where would Quebec be, economically, without all those government head offices located so providentially in Montreal, setting up that pension-loaded federal and provincial bureaucracy? All those contracts awarded to Quebec, all those bilingual jobs?
The area of greatest population growth and economic expansion is – the West. This began about two decades ago. Note that BC and Alberta together are equal to the population of Quebec. All of this; that Canadian population moving from 13 million to 33 million; that demographic movement from the east to the west, that economic switch – in less than a generation.
The Liberals are stuck in that old Ontario-Quebec mindset of a paternalistic central government, located in Montreal-Ottawa-Quebec, with socialist infrastructures and a top-down government. That’s over. The Liberals don’t recognize it but that’s their problem.
Of course you said that Canadian ideology is ‘the middle’. What else can a statement of a focus on ‘the middle’ mean, other than an ideology that is neither right nor left but ‘centrist’, i.e., the middle. You slant it as centre-left but as has been pointed out, you ignore the reality of a massive economic and demographic shift to the west which has made the old centrist Liberal paternalistic era out-of-touch with reality.
I disagree that there is strong public support for our current public health care system; we are seeing too many ‘trips to the US’ for care and a great many private clinics opening up, as well as the Supreme Court ruling that ‘all is not well in public health care land’. The criticism that Canadian health care now receives was unheard of ten years ago.
I also disagree with your view that Canadians are pro-abortion; that issue is most certainly not settled and there is a strong division in the country about this. Why don’t you acknowledge this?
Public education? I’ve no idea what you are talking about; every country has public education, and massive powerful teacher’s unions. But more and more in Canada, we are seeing private schools becoming the school of choice for parents who can afford it.
The problem with the Liberals is their isolation in the Old Boys Club of Ontario-Quebec; the NDP are, of course, equally isolated, but in the seminar and coffee rooms with their lattes and their sanctimonious agendas of saving those ‘lesser beings’. Then, we have Rae, and his personal agenda for power..and Strong and even yet, the Desmarais and Power Corp.
Kinsella’s web page at the bottom of the comments section says you must supply an e-mail address to comment and that it wont be published. Then when he doesnt like your comment he publishes your e-mail address for his legion of pansies to abuse you and then resolves your actual street address if he can in order to pay you a home visit.
a consumation devoutly to be wished
Cheer up, a proposed Liberal-NDP coalition is outright admission of Liberal defeat in any foreseeable
election. Desperate Liberals do crazy things.
Kinsella, first and foremost, smells and acts like a PowerCorp operative. I would suggest that Donolo has the same whiff about him.
Remember that PC always has more than one horse in the stable and they often use the same staff to muck the stalls.
Syncro