Stuck in the Middle

The only way the NDP can make a real difference in federal politics is by staying well away from them.

Dear Mr. Layton,

How to get out of this bind people think you're in?

I've been giving this some thought ever since Michael Ignatieff, if perhaps inadvertently, put our party in a classic squeeze play. Partisanship aside, it’s an interesting political moment, one in which mere tactics threaten to trump strategy, not to mention ideology. That can't be permitted. We're better than that.

I meant what I said in an earlier post about backing off. This is an internal battle within the Librocon party, and the NDP should not get involved. Whether the Blue-Sweater Guy or the American becomes the next Prime Minister, the show will go on as before: no major shifts in either foreign or domestic policy; corporate and U.S. interests duly served; windy and pointless speeches; minor (and occasionally major) scandals; and the comfy pundits giving us their colour commentary on conflicting wardrobes and personalities.

But what does “back off” mean?

Simple – abstain from the confidence vote. Back neither horse.

This wouldn't be a refusal to take sides, because the Harper-Ignatieff team is only one side. At best, the current internal tiff will result in a changing of the guard at some point. The other side – the people's side, if I may – is where our party has always been. The NDP raises issues that the Librocons never want to address: poverty, inequity, the plight of Aboriginal communities on reserves, the environment, and human rights at home and abroad. We've always stood up for working Canadians, and against the corporate machine that chews them up and spits them out.

Stay out of this, Jack. Abstain. And tell voters why.

You can't prop up a government that you have rightly excoriated since it came to power. Everything you've said about them is true. And the importance of employment insurance reform? Come on. EI was never a serious election issue, despite the best efforts of the Red Librocons to make it so, and they quickly dropped it. EI reform resonates only with the unemployed. Most Canadians would like to keep the jobs they have, or, if just entering the job market, find one.

EI would be a poor, shabby excuse to sup with the devil. Your supporters will feel utterly betrayed, I promise you. Overnight the NDP will have become just another party – a Blue Librocon satellite.

But you can't vote with the Red Librocons, either. Iggy got himself into this mess. Don't shore up his folly. Let him fight this battle on his own. Let him explain to the electorate why he wanted to force an election with no defining issue, just as the economy is picking up. Let him fight the losing battle of distinguishing his faction from the Blue Librocons.

In the meantime, put our issues out there. Stand up for them. Define alternatives. Tell the truth.

The voters will not reward you with power in the next election. They're jaded. More and more are staying away from the polls. After all, the electoral system ensures that many who do cast ballots will see them wasted. They're sleepwalkers, inhabiting a system guided by its own inertia.

But even in their slumber, they will remember.

Take the long view. Avoid this elementary trap, and stay true to our founding principles. The nearly one in five Canadians who voted for our party in the last election will be reassured. But, far more important, you'll have demonstrated to voters that we stand apart from the smoke-and-mirrors of current political culture. Because we offer something more than the comic opera-staged combats that currently stupefies them.

There's an opportunity here, Jack. Take the high road.

Sincerely,

John Baglow