If you're wondering where most of Stephen Harper's big political ideas come from, look no further than Alberta.
And so it is with this holiday season's Conservative-NDP détente, which is whipping the federal Liberals into a froth of self-righteous frustration. The prime minister has torn this particular page right out of the Ralph Klein playbook.
As premier of Alberta, Klein was always careful to ensure that the Alberta NDP, if it didn't exactly prosper, at least would live long. That way, to the intense frustration of those who imagine social democratic voters in Alberta would all happily vote for a "united alternative" led by the Liberals, the NDP could always bleed off the Liberal vote in the generally more progressive Edmonton region come election time.
Thus after the general elections of 1997 and 2001 under Klein's premiership, Alberta's victorious Conservatives granted the provincial New Democrats official party status and the cash and perks that went with it despite the fact they failed to win the four seats required.
Klein's successor, Conservative Premier Ed Stelmach, continued this tradition in 2008 in the same circumstances, for the same reasons and with much the same results.
Politics being the art of the possible, this small Conservative kindness has made plenty of sense from both the Conservative and NDP perspectives. From the Conservative point of view, it minimized any threat that might be presented by the Alberta Liberals from time to time. From the New Democrats' viewpoint, it helped keep the social democratic option alive in Alberta and the NDP in the game.
So why shouldn't two political parties in such circumstances help one another? It's not as if the Alberta Liberals were offering policies identical to the New Democrats' in most years. On the contrary, historically in Alberta as at the national level, Liberal policies trend closer those of the Conservatives than those of the NDP.
Alberta New Democrats never felt they owed it to the Alberta Liberals to commit suicide just because the Liberals were ever so slightly to the left of the Conservatives, and why should they have?
If someday soon the Conservatives are replaced by the Wildrose Alliance as the government of Alberta, it seems likely that this same dynamic will continue to be played out in the Alberta Legislature for the same sensible reasons.
It's hard to feel much sympathy with those Alberta Liberal supporters unhappy with this arrangement because it is, after all, politics as usual. Would the Liberals play it any differently in the same circumstances? Of course not!
All the same arguments for this arrangement apply at the national level, except that the policies of federal Liberals and Conservatives are even closer than are those of the two parties' counterparts here in Alberta. Indeed, if anything, they've drifted even closer together from a policy perspective under the leadership of Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff.
The Liberals will do whatever they can to avoid a national election if it is not to their advantage. Why should they ask NDP Leader Jack Layton and his caucus to do any differently? Certainly -- in Ottawa as in Edmonton -- the New Democrats are under no moral obligation to destroy themselves politically to suit Ignatieff's ambitions.
When the Liberals dismiss the "common ground" between New Democrats and the Conservatives as mere political convenience, they are just whining. It's always a little unseemly when politicians complain that other politicians are playing politics. That's the name of the game! This complaint, after all, is being made by the party that foolishly dropped the idea of a democratic coalition with the NDP the instant Ignatieff saw an opportunity to have it all for himself.
But if the Ignatieff Liberals would prefer this arrangement to be cast as a question of high principle, then that can be done too. That is because, for all the many sins of the minority Conservative government under Harper, Canada is far better served by continuation of the present minority situation with a strong NDP contingent in Parliament than by either a large Harper Conservative or Ignatieff Liberal majority in Parliament.
If by working with the Conservatives, the NDP can hold the government's feet to the fire to achieve sensible and fair policies that help low-income seniors and the unemployed, Canadians will be better off.
If by working with the Conservatives, the NDP can establish the credibility needed to become the Opposition in Parliament, or eventually even the government of Canada, then politics as usual will truly have paid dividends for the Canadian people.
This post also appears on David Climenhaga's blog, Alberta Diary.
I agree with Outwest. In fact, with the Federal NDP vehemently opposing a motion at the 2008 Provincial NDP Convention to consider a variety of options for cooperation with the Alta. Libs and Greens, one wonders if the provincial NDP are under a moral obligation to destroy themselves for the benefit of the Federal NDP.
The motion at the 2008 Provincial NDP Convention to explore possibilities of political cooperation with the AB Libs (and what's left of the AB Greens) was defeated in no small measure because of pressure from the Federal NDP. Jack Layton came to the 2008 Convention and spoke vehemently against the motion to explore cooperation. (Though it appeared that he may have been speaking with incomplete information because he spoke to the motion, incorrectly, as if its purpose was to pursue a merger with the AB Libs.) At the 2009 Convention, a similar motion was defeated for much the same reason.
Keeping the door open for a possible post-electoral/parliamentary coalition, presumably with the Liberals, makes sense for the Canadian NDP. In Alberta, things are different! For the Alberta NDP, it makes sense to get the door wide open, run outside and openly and forthrightly pursue a temporary, strategic alliance with the AB Libs, AB Green and the Alberta Party.
An Alberta pre-electoral, temporary strategic alliance of this sort needn't hurt the prospects for the Federal NDP with a little bit of forethought. Ditto for the future prospects of the Alberta NDP.
See: http://www.drproject.ca/
Your initial analysis of how this split arrangement beautifully suits the Alberta Conservatives and, at least, the paid factions/leadership of the Alberta ND, is dead on, David. But I heartily disagree with your underlying assumption that it serves general Alberta progressive voters well (including and especially those who vote for the ND) as it results in perpetually split and laughably weak oppositions, election after election, with voters cutting off their own noses to spite their faces.
The weak flank in your argument is your wrong-headed contention that the policies of the Alberta Liberals are closer to the Alberta Conservatives than to the ND when a review of ND and Liberal policies show closer alignment than division, especially now, with David Swann as Liberal leader.
Under these peculiar conditions in Alberta at this time, I find the "my-party-is-the-only-one" philosophy indefensible and I'd venture that if opinion makers, labour, and party elites continue the fracturing, we'll see progressive voters eventually move en masse to a new movement, perhaps with the Alberta Party at the helm. While the AP is currently nebulous in its policies, like the Wildrose it could gain speed and massive progressive voter support simply because it looks like, finally, a movement with new energy and heft, and, if so, the remaining centre-left parties in Alberta will deserve their losses in hearty measure.
Letting Klein's divide and conquer tactics run roughshod over an intelligent and thoughtful cooperative election strategy is as dumb-headed as can be, and it's possible that even the most partisan progressive voters will catch on.