A response to a friend

Im a bit lazy, but I may coalesce this into something more organized later

Hey Sean,

A long analysis, and similar to something else I read - it didn't say the roots went that far, but certainly that the Liberal dominated '90's were a bit of a mirage hiding some underlying negative trends. I agree the situation is different and has fed into Harper's intention to shift the country and its politics well to the right; and essential to that is the elimination of the Liberal Party, as he beleives that the public will never vote for an NDP true to its roots. There is a great question; will the NDP jettison its raison d'être? If so, it becomes nothing more than a reincarnation of the Liberal Party, undoubtedly losing its left wing (which would likely reform a leftist party); and really what is lost is just the pedigree; the party and its politics are the same; or it can't get rid of that side, and we are in an fundamentally different era of a Conservative hegemony.

Whither the Liberals completely? Well thats a matter that will only be known on October 19, 2015. True, the Conservatives inroads into immigrant communities is robbing the Liberals of one of their traditional support bases, as well as the overtures to the Jewish community (Ken Dryden went down because of this). And yet..the Liberals have seats in every province except Alberta; and Alberta has a few bellweather seats now...outside of Quebec and Ontario, the Liberals didn't do much worse than last time (although granted last time was atrocious); they lost in Ontario mainly due to vote splitting and is placed to regain seats there; and in Quebec is still the second largest party. The NDP will have a hell of a time with its caucus and the potential for embarrassment is huge and has already started, thanks to the Honourable Member for Las Vegas.

The party is fundamentally undemocratic internally; didn't run on its strengths, and failed to promote its principles (and it does have principles). Yet we now have the time free of both the constraints of propping up a distasteful gov't and even from dealing with being the official opposition while doing a major reboot...granted there's not much silver lining, at all, in being the third party. Right now its the NDP's to lose but the thing is, they have a bit of a rigged deck in their Quebec caucus; even if they were all good members - in some senses they're lucky, because now a western based party has to deal with a much more nationalist wing and it has control of the caucus.

Reading Tom Axworthy today, one thing is clear; the NDP as the third party treated us like their main enemy; and I think we now have to do the same. The Liberals never were and never will be a social democratic party, don't have those ideals, and any merger without the NDP jettisoning these will not be broadly supported. And right now, why would the NDP volunteer to be rid of them? We have to face the fact, that the Conservatives, whatever we do, will have 2, maybe 3 mandates in a row, and concentrate on regaining ground and letting the NDP maintain its principles. Because otherwise, I don't think the NDP will ever be able to defeat the Conservatives (unless of course, it morphs int the Liberals policy wise, and becomes the control freaks that the Tories are, to keep their left wing quiet - a result I'm not sure I'd like, either...