The NDP Leadership Race is About to Begin Amidst Talks of a ‘Merger’ with the Liberals

FUMING FOR A MERGE

Canadian Auto-Workers Union’s (CAW) President, Ken Lewenza, has appeared in both print and live on Power and Politics declaring his support for a merger. Mostly fuming about the Conservative’s current power, he argues that uniting centre-left politics is the only way to give Harper das boot.

“Reality is simple number and facts,” he says matter-of-factly. “If you can combine into one party there is opportunity to govern.”

Though flouting his obvious allergy to Harper’s Political Right, he admits that the current Conservative Party got to power (albeit seven years later) precisely because of the merge between the ideologically similar Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 2003.

He acknowledges there are fundamental differences between the NDP and the Liberals, such as on views on Canada’s pension plan and on senior-care. But he believes that in “the interest of progressive politics” these differences can be overcome while others reconciled. In the end, he continues, this meeting of the minds would give a huge blow to the Conservatives. “They’d be toast,” he says.

But this seems to be a very isolated feeling shared by very few people inside and outside the caucus. Joan Crockatt, journalist and National Political Commentator, is another of the few supporters, or at least thinks that Ken’s argument is actually perfect for a merger since he is focusing on Jobs. She believes that the Liberals are currently putting more of an emphasis on job-creation, which has traditionally been something the NDP has been atop of.

Nevertheless, Martin and Lewenza seem to be the strongest advocators, and that isn’t intimidating anyone.

UN-FAZED (AND WAITING FOR THE GOOD STUFF)

Tim Murphy, a former politician under Paul Martin’s government, says that he simply doesn’t get why this is even a topic of discussion. Comparing this possible merger with the merger that created the current Conservative Party of Canada is wrong, he thinks, because that was a single party split by inner members, and this does not apply to the NDP.

Rob Silver – lawyer, entrepreneur, consultant and staunch liberal supporter – also mocks Ken’s suggestions, claiming the man has no influence at all over the liberal party, even though CAW has traditionally been very active in backroom NDP politics. Even so, Silver asserts that Liberals “actually believe in things… [that] are not represented by the NDP,” and that no self-respecting Liberal was going to change their mind on the subject after hearing Lewenza’s rant.

He also said that Brian Topp, Robert Chisholm, Megan Leslie and Peter Julian – all NDP-iers – told him they too were against it.

Bob Rae, the Liberals Interim leader, has also expressed his rejection of the idea, fearing a possible take-over by the NDP at this crucial juncture in the Liberal’s life-time or even a suffocating deadlock between leaders.

In a National Post article written two days after Layton’s passing, Scott Stinson looked into his Crystal Ball and foresaw that “[t]he party could split along centrist and leftist lines. It could divide along Quebec nationalist and federalist lines, or along Liberal-merger and anti-merger lines.”

It doesn’t seem likely that the proposal will go forward, and in all honesty my stomach turned when I heard the news; I was as surprised as Tim Murphy was – it almost felt like I had eaten a bad bag of ‘shrooms. With only a few days to go until the official rules for the race are set, us junkies can load on Lewenza’s pleads for “progressive politics” or Martin’s silver (and amusing) tongue, at least until the good stuff arrives.

ARB Team
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