Now Everyone Try and Act Surprised…

The first Quebec NDP MP has gone running for the hills!

71 year old first time NDP MP Lise St-Denis has announced while flanked by Bob Rae and Denis Coderre that she was leaving the NDP and joining the Liberal Party of Canada

Her explanations were colourful:

"I wasn't named a critic and I was sat in the back row because of my last name, which starts with S, so I had lots of time to look and listen to everyone,"

Asked about voters in her riding and whether they voted for the NDP or for her, St-Denis said simply "They voted for Jack Layton, but Jack Layton is dead."

Thanks to CBC for the quotes found here

Let’s be realistic;

The NDP walked into the 2011 election polling at by some estimation (Nanos April 8th) around 13% and they finished with 30% completing one of the most impressive and entertaining rises in political history while the Bloc and Liberals enjoyed one of the most tragic falls in political history.

With all that said;
The “love in” wasn’t going to last forever.

While many on the Liberal side of the fence will argue that Ms. St-Denis is 71 and this is about a genuine desire to join a renewed party and has nothing to do with her seeking re-election at the age of 75, the reality is that we just spent the last two weeks fighting over if Irwin Cotler who is also 71 years old was a fair target to assume would retire before the end of his mandate, so its not that unreasonable to assume she may very well be seeking re-election and even if not I would be interested to see where she lands afterward in terms of position.

The NDP by some estimation has fallen around 15% from their peak within Quebec, and the Bloc seems to be rapidly filling that vacuum, there just isn’t a lot of positive news if you are an NDP MP in Quebec.

We knew sooner or later one of them was going to cross, it wasn’t a matter of if but simply when, the NDP rose too quickly and was bound to come down a little bit within Quebec sooner or later, I assumed the first MP to jump would have come a lot later maybe after the NDP lost its lead in Quebec however while the timing may be a surprise the fact that it happened shouldn’t be.

For the Conservatives;
This is simply Christmas coming a few weeks late.

The NDP nominated a no-one to go toe to toe with a potential Liberal Party rockstar in the Toronto-Danforth by-election and now a New Democrat has crossed the floor to join the Liberals (What I suspect will not be the last)

I expect blows to come between both opposition parties for the next few weeks, and a battle of public relations fought in the media over who is truly the party to “stop” Harper.

With the loss of Ms. St-Denis and the Toronto-Danforth By-Election coming it could very much cause some panic within the ranks of the NDP which could very well shake a few more MP’s loose.

However it’s all gravy for the CPC.

A civil war on the left is exactly what is needed for the CPC to enjoy the same sort of unfiltered ease of electability the Liberals enjoyed when the right was turned in on itself from 1993 – 2004.

Who is talking about the Conservative Senators who just further stacked the Senate in the Conservatives favor for years to come?

No one.

The NDP and Liberals are going to be clubbing each other over the head for weeks over this floor cross, and then I suspect for the month after over the Toronto-Danforth by-election.

I have to wonder how big the smile on Stephen Harper’s face was this morning when he heard the news?

When will we hold the NDP to a higher Standard?

I am glutton for outragous-ness.
From time to time I get a rise out of reading the CBC comments section within their news articles.

As I am sure most readers know;
Our friend NDP MP Pat Martin dropped the "F-Bomb" on a twitter poster pertaining to the Government

He stated:
“This is a f—ing disgrace … closure again. And on the Budget! There’s not a democracy in the world that would tolerate this jackboot s—,”

This is from a Member of Parliament who was elected in 1997, and has been collected a paycheque from the taxpayer for roughly 14 years.

I am not offended by swearing, I do so daily.
However I once again find this situation as the Canadian media not holding the NDP to the same level of scrutiny as the Conservatives or Liberals.

Had John MacKay or Peter Van Loan made similar comments there would be cries from the NDP that they should resign or publicly apologize.

However with the NDP the most common response I get is "Its Pat Martin, what do you expect, he is a spirited guy"

Stockwell Day was a "spirited guy" and I don't think we would have given him the same "meh" reaction had he dropped an F bomb in regards to the Liberals passing legislation in the same manner when they had a majority government.

It appears that the public doesn't quite take the NDP seriously yet;
They still get the treatment as though they are the same 3rd opposition party with 19 seats as they were in 2004.

However if the voting public and the media don't hold them to the same standard, and don't take them as seriously as the Tories and Liberals,

Then I have to ask;
Why should the Conservatives?

Will the NDP end up like the Social Credit Party

As I sat back and look over the political landscape that has been born from this election I have to ask myself if history will repeat itself once again.

If political leaders have learnt anything within Canada’s political history it’s simply that balancing the needs of Quebec and the needs of Canada are normally something that results in the destruction of your political legacy.

While pointing at Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives are the easy example, they put themselves in the position to destroy themselves by wading into the Constitution, something the NDP as the official opposition will have little opportunity to do.

However as I look at Jack Layton and his caucus of 44 non-Quebec MP’s and then I watch Thomas Mulcair soak up airtime like he needs to live promoting the 59 MP Quebec caucus, I can’t help but make the comparison…

Is Jack Layton simply the 21st century version of R.N. Thompson, and Mulcair simply his Réal Caouette?

While it’s easy to bask in the success of the NDP’s victories on May 2nd, it also results in us ignoring a few interesting facts,

The NDP caucus was made up of 35 non Quebec MP’s when the election writ was dropped, and on the day of the election the NDP found itself with a non Quebec caucus of 44 an increase of 9 MP’s.

Six of whom all came from Toronto.

What this means is that when we back out Quebec and the 416 we have a three seat increase across the balance of Canada.

Quebec delivered the overwhelming majority of growth at the expense of largely the BQ but the Liberals and Conservatives as well.

However the NDP was largely ineffective against the Conservatives across the country where they need to grow if they want to govern.

The Quebec NDP delivered, the rest of Canada did not.

Much as was the case during the 1963 election.

The Social Credit Party was lead by RN Thompson whose seat was in Red Deer, they found themselves winning 24 seats with 20 of them elected in Quebec.

Within Six Months the Ralliement Créditiste was born and Thompson was left to watch over a handful of Social Credit MP’s while Real Caouette led the balance.
I have to wonder how long Quebec NDP MP’s will take their marching orders from a leader in Toronto.
The Quebec caucus of the NDP could break away from the New Democrats and still be the official opposition expect would not need to compromise in order to placate the balance of NDP MP’s scattered across the country.
If the Bloc finds itself with officially party status, how long before a piece of legislation is tabled that divides the NDP?
It’s going to be an interesting few years.

Canada needs its own “Bob Rae”

As I watch the support of Jack Layton and the NDP rise in Ontario I am reminded that kids born in 1993 are now of voting age, I had a conversation about Bob Rae with a 22 year old the other day and he simply scratched his head and said “Isn’t he the Liberal guy”.

I can’t blame him; he never experienced Rae Day’s or the “Social Contract” he was six years old when Rae was voted out of power and the NDP Provincially became essentially a fringe party for nearly the next two decades.

As I watch the Liberals and the Conservative’s attack Layton for his policies and his platform in the midst of the rising wave and I am reminded about 1990.

Bob Rae is a good politician; I have no issue conceding that.
The problem in 1990 was that the NDP platform was an opposition platform, it appeared that David Peterson may find himself in a minority government, and much like 1985 the NDP prepared itself to prop up a Liberal government while shaking the Liberals down for a few treats for its supporters.

It was not a platform meant for governance; nor were an overwhelming amount of NDP candidates who ran in ridings the NDP never won prior and never won since expecting to become MPP’s.

We found ourselves in a situation with a leader who was never expecting to be Premier of Ontario, and a caucus full of people who were simply not expecting to be MPP’s on September 7th.

As I watch Jack Layton rise in the polls I am not as fearful as many of the other Tories or even Liberals or Bloc supporters.

If ever there was an election to be won by the NDP it’s this one.
The platform is 28 pages, many of those pages contain pictures of Jack Layton, and we have already started seeing them acknowledge that some of the promises they made that they may actually be expected to keep were not realistic.

An NDP victory is bad for Canada today; but good for Canada moving forward.

A prepared NDP with a charismatic leader like Jack Layton could fortify the left in a way in which we have never seen in this nation. However we are about to send 40+ NDP candidates from Quebec to Ottawa who didn’t think they had a snowballs chance of winning when this writ was dropped and that is ultimately where the downfall will be, just as it was with Rae.

The Conservative’s biggest folly by miles was continuing to attack Michael Ignatieff and the Liberals when it was clear they were toast.

The last week of this election should have been about a choice;

Bob Rae’s Ontario Vs. Stephen Harper’s Canada.

A man unprepared to govern Vs. that of one who has.

The devil you don’t know Vs. the one you do.

However instead we sit back and watch the NDP creep up in Ontario as a decades worth of voters have no memory of the NDP’s record in Ontario,

We watch history repeat.

I think Jack Layton in the context of a minority government leader is a good thing;
I think a Toronto politician on the national stage harms the left far more then it helps it.

David Miller salted the earth for Joe Pantalone
Bob Rae salted the earth for Howard Hampton

Now perhaps its time for Jack Layton to do the same.

I want Canada to have leader that I can point to for the next 20 years like I have been able to with Rae in Ontario.

Jack Layton appears to be granting me that wish.

Don’t you love the smell of an election in the morning?

Its budget day;
I find myself clicking refresh on any number of different news and political websites hoping to get some new information that will let us know if we will be heading to the polls in May or not.

People keep asking if I think there will be an election, and had you asked me last week I would have chuckled and said not unless the opposition wants to give the Conservatives a majority.

Today I still feel that even at 38% or so, if the double digit lead the Conservatives hold over the Liberals in Ontario is correct that will be enough to generate the seats required for the Tories to pull a 1997 and find themselves with a thin majority.

The question is why would the opposition want to allow this?

The answer I think is pretty simple;
If you are the BQ, there is a very real possibility that your leader who is the only real face of the party will be moving to Provincial pastures within the next 12-18 months and you are better off contesting an election with him, then having a bitter leadership race which may very well result in a leader Quebeckers are generally apathetic to.

Duceppe is a known commodity good for a 45 seat pop.

The balance of the Commons is when it becomes a bit more hazy.

For the Liberals, as I have said for the last two years this is a party that needs four years in opposition to rebuild themselves. They don’t have the leader, support, will, or money to be in this constant state of election campaigning that a minority government provides.

This is a party that’s has problems that do not simply span from who the leader is, but simply a party that lacks direction or any identity. If you took the logos off the 2004, 2006, and 2008 Liberal Platforms someone with no knowledge of Canadian politics would be hard-pressed to assume they came from the same party.

They need direction and they need an end to infighting.
This is something that will not get done in the context of a minority government.

However I think there is just too much pride at stake for that to ever happen.

Yet we find ourselves with the Liberals polling somewhere between 23-27% nationally and a fairly consistent double digit gap between them and the Conservatives in Ontario.

Voting down this budget, or taking down the government on whatever ethical grounds they feel they may be going to the polls over seems more a leap of pride then of any real political strategy.

The Liberals needs to make fairly substantial gains to be anywhere near a position to consider forming a government.

The idea of walking into an election hoping that Canadians will value correct use of letterhead over the recovery of the economy is a stretch, yet its why we seem to find ourselves potentially at the polls.

I think the Liberals have just gone too far this time, its gone past the point of “Mr. Harper your time is up” and the Liberals almost have to go to the polls because abstaining from this budget will kill what’s left of their creditability.

Now we come to the NDP.
A party that wanted four very low cost concessions for their potential support.

A far cry from the billions of dollars they demanded from Paul Martin’s Liberals in 2005.

The Conservatives have countered with agreeing to two of the least left of center and low cost requests.

I have no idea how to even begin to gauge NDP support.
Polling has them at a support level that may cost them 15-20 seats then the next poll has them adding a couple.

However can the NDP really pass a budget with Corporate Tax Cuts?
I just don’t see it.

What I find all the more puzzling is that it appears that Thomas Mulcair seems to be the one rattling the saber to go to an election (at least by some online reports which we can very well take with a grain of salt)

Mulcair is perhaps the second most known commodity within the party,
And while he may very well be doing wonders within the party, I find it highly unlikely that he will be able to retain Outremont with Martin Cauchon running for the Liberals.

It’s not a slight at Mulcair, it’s simply a political reality of Quebec.

Outremont is a Liberal Stronghold, Mulcair was a Liberal Cabinet Minister in the Provincial Liberal Government, however he has hardly beat anyone of note in either election he has won, and now he faces a real honest to goodness and very personally popular Liberal.

I can see why the NDP may vote down the budget, but I just don’t see why many of them would be smiling while they do.

I guess we will find out shortly.

Sorry Jack, The Trap Wasn’t Meant For You…

Within this very blog I have praised Jack Layton for his leadership of the NDP since 2003. While I may not agree with his policies or stances more often then not I can respect someone who has been so successful within the political arena.

Only the Conservatives and the NDP have seen consistent growth in terms of seats and popular vote since the 2004 election.

The NDP in 2004 was a party of cities, Toronto, Hamilton, Windsor, Halifax, Winnipeg, and Vancouver with a few sprinkles of rural and suburban ridings mixed into the equation. They were a party of 19 seats.

As of the 2008 election the NDP was a party of 37 seats. (36 currently due to the current vacant state of Winnipeg North) Where has this growth come from?

We often hear about the great growth in Ontario and the nearly legendary tale of Thomas Mulcair winning an honest to goodness seat for the NDP in the 514. What we don’t seem to hear about is Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Kapuskasing, Timmins, Northern British Columbia, Newfoundland, Northern Canada.

These are the areas that have vaulted in NDP from a party of 19 seats to one of 37.

Early this week an Ipsos poll was released that showed NDP support had fallen to 12% nationally. I am of the mindset that one poll can be wrong, or that one pollster can have a method of data collection that at some times can show either unrealistic drops or gains to particular parties so I didn’t think much of it.

However today’s EKO’s poll shows there may very well be some reality in that 12% as they have shown the NDP support to be @ 13.5%.

What I find off however is how this is being reported, an implication that the drop in support is due to Jack Layton allowing a free vote among his MP’s as it pertained to the long gun registry and how that somehow alienated urban voters?

I hate to say it;
But when it comes to the long gun registry urban voters don’t really give a poop. I mean they do, any issue where you can stick it to Harper is painted as a life and death struggle to snatch away power from the evil right wing overlord currently running the country…

However, the importance of that struggle only lasts a newscycle.
The Liberals threw a party to celebrate that Micheal Ignatieff was able to whip his MP’s into voting party lines and for once the entire party actually listened, heck they should have thrown a parade.

Yet no one in Urban Canada cares anymore, the vote is over, the registry is saved, and now they can fake outrage over the next “evil” Conservative plot.

However, in rural Canada where this issue actually affects the day to day lives of those Canadians they have had it.

The Conservatives had promised to do something about this long gun registry since 2003, and when they finally got into power in 2006 it only took them about 3 and a half years but FINALLY the time had come to get rid of this utterly useless long gun registry once and for all.

The NDP’s growth in Rural Canada came from a very simple principal from the old CCF, and that is respect your constituents wishes and represent them when you take your seat in Ottawa.

When a series of rural NDP MP’s opted to change their vote as it pertained to getting rid of the long gun registry all it did was reinforce a mentality that the NDP is run by the 416 for the 416.

I don’t envy Jack Layton,

The Conservative’s baited a trap for the Liberals, and sadly it was the NDP that got caught within it.

Should be interesting to see how Mr. Layton will attempt to get out of this one.