Liberal NDP Merger Possibility?

[Stranger]

Originally Posted by Leon Kennedy

The Reform party received only 2.1% of the national popular vote in the 1988 election, yet they would go on finish just three seats short of official opposition status just five years later.

This is why so many Canadians trust Stephen Harper. People here seem to think that elections come down to who gets the most votes. Nothing could be further from the truth. The voting public, by and large, are sheep who will vote for whomever advertises more. If you don't believe me then look at what Linda McMahon of WWF fame is doing right now.

Harper tried to bankrupt the opposition by removing the money allotted to each party based on their share of the popular vote. If this had happened under Trudeau, it is very doubtful that the Reform party would have been able to get off the ground. Why do you accuse me of "wasting" my vote when I vote Green? They best represent my position on the environment, which is the most important issue to me personally, much more so than taxes, Afghanistan, etc. By voting Green I am doing my small part to (hopefully) grow from being a "fringe" party with 6.78% of the vote to one day a major political force in Canada.

The day the Greens become a major political force in Canada is the day I become an Oiler fan.

[WilsonFourTwo]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

Now this is interesting:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1586238/

In Alberta, Jack Layton may be seen as, as seen in this thread, "a clown". But in many parts of the country he is well respected and as the article states, the most popular federal leader. If Jack were leading the party, I wouldn't be holding my nose when casting my vote. And it would improve the Liberal chances to win seats in Quebec where Jack is quite popular.

I have said many, many, many, many times....Gilles Duceppe is the best party leader in Canada, followed very closely by Jack Layton. They have and do leave guys like Ignatieff, Harper, May (snicker), Dion, Martin in the dust.

The only reason these guys haven't become Prime Minister......the parties that they lead don't happen to represent the average Canadian. I sincerely believe that if one led the Liberals and one led the Conservatives, we'd have a MUCH more productive, balanced and trustworthy Parliament.

[SeeBass]

I don't think that a merger would happen with Iggy running the Libs.

Part of the merger deal would be a new leader and his name is Bob Rae.

Bob Rae would drive a lot of moderate Ontario libs to stay home or vote Cons.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by SeeBass

I don't think that a merger would happen with Iggy running the Libs.

Part of the merger deal would be a new leader and his name is Bob Rae.

Bob Rae would drive a lot of moderate Ontario libs to stay home or vote Cons.

Didn't Bob Rae essentially bankrupt Ontario? I'm not very up to date on my politics....

[WilsonFourTwo]

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

Didn't Bob Rae essentially bankrupt Ontario? I'm not very up to date on my politics....

Remove 'essentially'.

Words cannot express how surprised I am that this guy is even involved in politics still, let alone being seen as some kind of savior.

Bob Rae's time as Premier is exactly why I fear the idea of a Federal NDP Government. Sure, he's a Liberal now, but the Tax & Spend (or realistically, Mortgage and Spend) philosophy undoubtedly remains the same.

Without question - he's (imo) a guy that would gladly sellout the next several generations if it meant he could have personal success (ie: form governments) today. The classic selfish, greedy boomer.

[Pastiche]

Damn, lost my entire polemic on median voter and why this might not be as bad an idea as many are saying in the medium-long run.

[photon]

Somehow this seems appropriate:

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Stranger

The day the Greens become a major political force in Canada is the day I become an Oiler fan.

Green Parties have become a force in Europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_party

The first Green Party to achieve national prominence was the German Green Party, famous for their opposition to nuclear power, as well as an expression of anti-centralist and pacifist values traditional to greens.

They were founded in 1980 and have been in coalition governments at state level for some years. They were in federal government with the Social Democratic Party of Germany in a so-called Red-Green Alliance from 1998 to 2005. In 2001, they reached an agreement to end reliance on nuclear power in Germany, and agreed to remain in coalition and support the German government of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in the 2001 Afghan War. This put them at odds with many Greens worldwide but demonstrated also that they were capable of difficult political tradeoffs.

In Finland, in 1995, the Finnish Green Party was the first European Green party to be part of a national Cabinet. Other Green Parties that have participated in government at national level include the Groen! (formerly Agalev) and Ecolo in Belgium and Les Verts in France. In the Netherlands GroenLinks ("GreenLeft") was founded in 1990 from four small left-wing parties and is now a stable faction in the Dutch parliament. In Ireland, the Green Party represented by 6 members of parliament or TDs, form part of a coalition government. Here they have two Cabinet seats and also two junior ministries.

After years of co-operation between the national Green Parties they formed a pan-European alliance that unites most European Green parties. The Greens are a party within the European parliament with 46 seats, as of June 2009. It has a long standing alliance with the European Free Alliance (EFA), an alliance of "stateless nations", such as the Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru and Scottish Nationalist Party. Together European Green Party/EFA have 50 seats and they are the fourth largest party in the European Parliament.

[mykalberta]

I think once they get a good leader then they will be fine.
Once they go merger, they cant go back.

I do think the country is to the left and while merging would remove a few right of centre voters it would allow them to win every election. I dont think a merger with the NDP would ever work in the long run.

[SeeBass]

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

Didn't Bob Rae essentially bankrupt Ontario? I'm not very up to date on my politics....

He sure did.

That is my point he could win a leadership convention and he would be backed by the NDP

I didn't say it would be a good idea.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

The Liberals have managed to have power for much of the last century because they effectively stood for nothing.

Their ability to morph to the left or even the right as the mood of the electorate periodically changed was their greatest strength.

Fixing themselves to an obvious left position, abandoning their traditional flexibility, is just a stupid and ultimately doomed idea for them.

Cowperson

Yeah, that is pretty much the reason why I like them.

I would wait and see how the new looked. The Liberals should have more influence being the more powerful of the parties... in theory anyway.

It probably wouldn't take too long for another left wing splinter group to form though. Far left wing people tend to be more politcally motivated for those things.

I still see Canada as a "centrist country" in general. One or both of the parties will have to move in that direction... but which one?

[RedHot25]

Not so fast?

Senior Liberal MPs are pouring cold water on a report that their party and New Democrats have been holding secret talks about possibly merging their parties to form a new entity to take on the Conservatives.

Bob Rae told reporters ahead of the Liberals' weekly caucus meeting in Ottawa that there was "no substance" to the rumours, and advised the media to "take a deep breath and get a grip.

...

Liberal defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh called the story of coalition talks going on "absolute rubbish," and said the New Democrats can "take out a Liberal membership card" if they want to join forces with a "big tent party."

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/201...#ixzz0qN6idTDY

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Leon Kennedy

Harper tried to bankrupt the opposition by removing the money allotted to each party based on their share of the popular vote. If this had happened under Trudeau, it is very doubtful that the Reform party would have been able to get off the ground.

Oh man... you are so ignorant it isn't even funny.

The vote subsidy was introduced in 2003 (taking effect in 2004) by none other than Jean Chretien. It did not exist when Reform was created. Reform was built off the grassroots and through the donations of individual Canadians.

Don't you find it rather convenient that Chretien chose to place severe limits on individual and union donations, while also introducing the vote subsidy? Who suffers the most from such a donation cap? Why the Conservatives, who can't acitvate their base to nearly the same level, and the NDP, who's union support becomes limited. Who gains the most from the vote subsidy? When this bill became law, the Liberals expected to.

The donation limits and vote subsidy was a callous move by the Liberal government to try and bleed their opposition dry, and removing the subidy was a callous move by the Conservative government to try and bleed their opposition dry. There is little doubt that the CPC was doing a hell of a lot better in terms of donations than the Libs, Bloq or NDP were.

Ultimately, the difference between the two is that the Conservatives expected parties to fund themsleves by appealing directly to Canadians. The Liberals expected Canadians to fund them whether they wanted to or not.

It is notable that the Bloq gets ten times the funding from unwilling Canadians as it does from willing donors. I guess you can thank Chretien for doing his part to tear this country asunder, eh?

http://www.thehilltimes.ca/page/view...ies-03-29-2010

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/...f-7467a887981f

[flamesfever]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

The Liberals have managed to have power for much of the last century because they effectively stood for nothing.

Their ability to morph to the left or even the right as the mood of the electorate periodically changed was their greatest strength.

Fixing themselves to an obvious left position, abandoning their traditional flexibility, is just a stupid and ultimately doomed idea for them.

Cowperson

I think this has much to do with the success of our country to date...moving neither too far to the left or the right. I fear a Liberal NDP merger may change that.

[Slava]

This thread is really a giant train wreck and I'm not even sure why I'm going to post in it...but as usual I can't help myself. I would classify myself as a "blue Liberal" or whatever label you want to attach to me in the vein. Count me as one who would probably vote for the new party and not move to the CPC. I'm not sure that has any real effect at this point in time (I'm not a CPC voter anyway and they still won my riding with an enormous majority).

I would suggest that the idea that the party would be too far left and alienate voters in the middle is just faulty though. If anything it pulls the more leftist voters toward the middle and makes that fringe element of the NDP (which at times appears to be the entire NDP!!) even more fringe.

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

Didn't Bob Rae essentially bankrupt Ontario? I'm not very up to date on my politics....

I think its funny how many people are giving a free pass to Harper for this past crisis because it was a global recession, and yet Bob Rae single handedly caused the strife in Ontario alone in the early 90's. Apparently that real estate recession was a made in Ontario problem and had nothing to do with the US or the ruling PC government federally at that time?

I'm not going to say that Rae has all of the answers here, but frankly Harper has shown me nothing to imply that he is more capable than the Liberals of handling the country financially. What has he done:

A) Spend more money than any government in history leading up to the crisis
B) Proclaim that everything is fine and people should just relax when the financial system and the major figureheads around the globe stare into the abyss, quite literally.
C) Not want to stimulate the economy on one hand and then...
D) Stimulate the economy when he's backed into a corner and could lose power. He fully embraced that stimulation with money for GM and all kinds of CPC pet projects and contracts in CPC held ridings across the country.

Add in there this latest funding fiasco with building fake lakes and cities and repaving sidewalks for millions of dollars and you have the fiscal track record that would make a "tax and spend socialist" recoil that they had gone too far!

Before you bother Resolute I know that you will trot out the tired stats from 2008 that say he was the voters choice to manage the economy. These are accurate for their day and I don't deny that. You do have to wonder how long that will continue though. Surely I can't be the only fiscal conservative who takes a look at this record and shakes his head.

Unfortunately the only thing that they are interested in conserving at this point though is power and their jobs.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

I think we're making different kinds of comparisons here. I'm not talking about infrastructure, I'm talking about culture and polity. In that sense, I spent 11 years in the U.S. and never felt American for a single day--and I wouldn't if I lived there for another 40. I lived in towns and cities, and in three very distinct regions of the country--and it was always the same feeling. Houston might feel a bit like Calgary in some ways, but my guess is that as soon as you start talking to someone you instantly notice that we don't have the same sorts of values and attitudes at all.

Well thats interesting.

I've lived near Spokane for 3 years, and I think southern Alberta has a lot in common with Eastern Washington.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

In the last federal election, the Green Party captured only 6.78% of the popular vote, which is 32.2% less than the 10% that you claimed ("one in ten"). For the record, that 6.78% counted for only 937,613 out of 13,834,294 voters.

In addition to this ridiculously low voter statistic, there is also the incredibly dismal fact that they failed to win a single seat in Parliament. That's actually the good news. The bad news for the Greens was that not only did they not win any seats, but they lost the only seat they had won in the previous election... that belonging to their party leader, Elizabeth May.

Yeah, you're right. They're not a fringe party at all.

Edit: I'm not even going to waste my time trying to explain to you the concept of "your vote" combined with the other 4.2 million votes that were wasted on one of the eighteen fringe parties that ran in the last election.

On top of that, their leader is what makes them a lunatic party.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by PyramidsofMars

Probably a 'Liberal Democrat' minority. The new party wouldn't get a majority, not in the first election anyway. Expect some Liberal seats in Quebec to fall to the Bloc, and expect the Greens to pick up a couple of seats as well. It would be a very good situation IMO.

Personally, as someone who fluctuates between centre and left on most issues, I'd more than welcome this potential merger. I also wouldn't see it as the birth of a two-party system at all. The Bloc are still kicking around and will be more powerful, even, and the Greens are definitely going to pick up a few seats.

I really hope this happens.

Yes, because giving the Bloc, NDP and Greens more power is a good thing.

WTF?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by troutman

Green Parties have become a force in Europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_party

And they're completely out to lunch.

Plus, Canadians are about 10x smarter than Europeans.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by RedHot25

Not so fast?

Senior Liberal MPs are pouring cold water on a report that their party and New Democrats have been holding secret talks about possibly merging their parties to form a new entity to take on the Conservatives.

Bob Rae told reporters ahead of the Liberals' weekly caucus meeting in Ottawa that there was "no substance" to the rumours, and advised the media to "take a deep breath and get a grip.

...

Liberal defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh called the story of coalition talks going on "absolute rubbish," and said the New Democrats can "take out a Liberal membership card" if they want to join forces with a "big tent party."

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/201...#ixzz0qN6idTDY

Which goes hand in hand with the Liberals having a long history of calling the NDPs a fringe party full of lunatics.