Opposition Follies

This weekend will see the election of a leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition when the NDP elects a leader to replace the late Jack Layton. This will be a welcome development.

At this point in time, the opposition benches consist of 142 Members of Parliament consisting of 103 NDP members, 34 Liberals, 4 members of the Bloc Quebecois and a single member of the Green Party.

Of these 4 opposition parties the only permanent leader of a party sitting in the Commons is Green Party Leader Elizabeth May who presides over a caucus of one.

The two leading parties are both the subject of leadership squabbles.

In the case of the NDP, it is a formal leadership contest. The establishment has supported a backroom organizer named Brian Topp while the grassroots seems to be supporting Quebec Liberal turned NDP MP Thomas Mulcair. The election of Topp would endanger the half of the NDP caucus that was elected in Quebec...or so we are told. The election of Mulcair would prevent the NDP from making gains in the rest of Canada which would be necessary to form a government. Besides we are told that Tom Mulcair is not a very nice man. People seem to have forgotten that Jack Layton was not always "smiling Jack." (When he ran for mayor of Toronto against June Rowlands, he came across like an angry, bitter person attacking an old woman. He lost.)

The Liberal leadership question carries far more historical baggage. For a couple of generations the Liberal party has actually been two parties that cooperate only during elections. The left leaning wing of the party had Pierre Trudeau who begat Jean Chretien who begat Bob Rae. The right wing had Lester Pearson who begat John Turner who begat Paul Martin who begat Michael Ignatieff. Liberal leadership squabbles are nothing new. New Leader John Turner was perpetually pulling knives out of his back with Chretien's finger prints on them. Even electoral success was no salve for this constant squabbling. Chretien won three consecutive majorities but the Martin camp dispatched him in a bloodless coup.

When Stephane Dion inspired the grassroots to elect him over the choice of both camps....the knives were out from both establishment camps. He didn't have a chance. Looking back one wonders if the earnest, professorial Dion might not have done better in a rematch against Prime Minister Harper....he could hardly have done worse.

Reading the tea leaves, it seems that the Liberal establishment will leave Bob Rae in charge and make him the permanent leader. After all, it is the Trudeau-Chretien wing's turn. It also means that Rae will follow Ignatieff as the second consecutive leader who was acclaimed rather than elected. Ignatieff was savaged by the Conservatives for running for Prime Minister of a country in which he had not lived for most of his adult life. The Conservatives will surely say something similar about a life long Socialist who switched parties in a grab at power.

The only place in which polls have moved significantly since the last election is Quebec. The Bloc has recovered some of their support and it seems to be a 4 way race in Quebec. However the Conservatives can lose all 6 of their Quebec seats and still have a majority government. A resurgent Bloc combined with a fading NDP might actually result in more Conservative MP's due to vote splitting.

Taking this all into account, it is hard to see any party challenging the Conservative majority in 3 years time. Rookie leaders often have difficulties...Paul Martin, Steven Harper, Ignatieff and Dion are all good examples.

Harper will win by default....and that will be very bad for Canadian Democracy. Politicians of every stripe get increasingly arrogant and corrupt as they hold onto power longer. Without an effective opposition holding the government's feet to the fire, I fear that bad government will result.

The robo call scandal appears to be a tempest in a teapot. At this point, it appears that this "scandal" affects a few hundred voters in one riding that the Tories lost. It doesn't appear (at this point) to have been a coordinated attempt at voter suppression. That the opposition parties can do more than make a big ruckus about his while tweeting public records of a Minister's acrimonious divorce shows how ineffective the opposition is. Perhaps they might try attacking government policies?

Canada is in a period of one party rule due to an opposition in disarray. This was not a good thing when Chretien was in power and it is not a good thing now. Despite my Conservative leanings, I do hope that the opposition gets their act together. I am not optimistic.