But there’s another line of thinking, which suggests a Mulcair victory would suit Prime Minister Stephen Harper just fine. It gets back to Harper’s lifelong dream of destroying the Liberal party. Mulcair, it is believed by those who’ve seen him work in Quebec, has the capacity to wipe out or absorb the Liberals. A Liberal-Democratic Party would necessarily position itself left of where the Liberals stood in their small-c-conservative period in the late 1990s. And that would at last leave the economic centre unobstructed, which is precisely what Harper wants.
Consider first the emerging endgame in the NDP leadership contest. The “anybody but Mulcair” candidate was to have been Brian Topp. Party insiders say that a series of halting debate performances have made that a non-starter. “In terms of being able to capture and continue to grow his [Topp’s] vote, I don’t see it… ” said one. “The Brian Topp campaign has no momentum right now. If anything he’s in reverse.”
Three are believed to be nipping at Mulcair’s heels: Peggy Nash, Paul Dewar and, most interestingly, Nathan Cullen. Nash’s solid union support, steady debate performances and the fact she’s the only serious female candidate in the race (Niki Ashton being too young and too wooden) have made her a contender. Dewar, despite his poor French, has benefited from good organization. And Cullen, widely dismissed as an also-ran at the outset, has surged on the strength of his likeable onstage persona.
If anyone still has a shot at becoming the “anybody but Mulcair,” compromise candidate, it may be Nash. More likely though, observers say, is that Mulcair wins either on the first or second ballot. Cullen’s supporters are deemed likely to go to Mulcair as a second choice. Martin Singh’s supporters, we now know, have been asked to do likewise. (Keep in mind, much of this will have been decided before the convention March 23-24, since most of the party’s 125,000-plus registered members will have voted in advance.)
But let’s assume, for the sake of discussion, that the smart money is correct, and Mulcair wins. And let’s further assume he names Cullen, a fellow centrist and a popular British Columbia MP, as his deputy in English Canada, perhaps with a strong female Quebec MP – foreign affairs critic and former diplomat Helene Laverdiere has been mentioned – as Quebec deputy. What then?
Mulcair has taken great pains to avoid open comparisons with former British prime minister Tony Blair, who held power in the U.K. from 1997 to 2007, after jettisoning the most impossible of the British Labour Party’s socialist policies. But the parallels are clear. A couple of weeks ago I asked Mulcair about the NDP’s reputation as a party that doesn’t understand kitchen-table economics. “To concede the point,” he said, “we’ve always been very conscious of the fact that a majority of Canadians share most of our goals and values. It’s been difficult in the past to convince them that we can provide good, competent, confident public administration.”
His solution, he said, would be to demonstrate while in Opposition that “we’re capable of running a G7 country.” Reading between the lines, in my judgment, that means he intends to pull a Blair. In doing so, logically, he will draw off what remains of Liberal support, perhaps permanently. The result would be a two-party system, which Conservatives believe would favour them – because most Canadians, though socially moderate, are economic conservatives.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Michael Den Tandt
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