Liberals refused to work with the NDP in 2005 so Liberals forced an election.
They definitely worked together in the spring of 2005 to get concessions in the budget for the NDP. Remember that?
I've never been clear on the details of what went wrong in November. Layton said something about how Martin wouldn't block increased health care privatization - but what, exactly? Do you know?
Liberals refused to work with the NDP in 2008-2009 and defeat Harper.That's a strange generalization. They had a signed coalition deal in December 2008, and they sure as heck looked as if they presented it to the G-G looking to form a government. It was Harper, and the turncoat Michaelle Jean, who nixed that one. Only then did the Liberals revert to their more traditional colours and enable Harper to rule unchallenged for more than two years.
Liberals are to blame for Harper being in power since February 6, 2006, more than 9 long years.That's cool. But if push comes to shove, would you rather blame them for another 4 years of Harper after October, or push them kicking and screaming into some arrangement with the NDP (and others) that will put Harper in the trash?
I was disappointed in Climenhaga's rather dogmatic take on things. I can't recall how he reacted to the 2008 coalition. It would be interesting to see if he analyzed the situation similarly at that time.
OK I'll do a little history survey of how I saw those events, the reasons why and the context they are setting up now
In November the NDP were posturing a bit wanting to negotiate. Martin was annoyed that they had nothing to negotiate with as they did not have the numbers. What Layton was doing was politics -- understandable but those who were aware politically could see it clearly. First Layton made a show of trying to negotiate -- this was designed to get NDP positions in the news. It was a smart play really since it worked. By November the NDP was irrelevant as they had lost the balance of power (2 Liberal defections over the the sponsorship scandal had already sealed the deal for Martin). Everyone knew that Martin was going down it was just a question of when and how as the independents, the BQ and the CPC were going to vote him down. In this situation the Liberals were toxic. So Layton who had a few months earlier been making nice with the Liberals gave them one last chance to postpone the vote (unclear how this could have worked had Martin actually agreed). Martin, wanted to get the vote over with -- it was clear there would be an election and he saw no point in putting it off. The NDP then realized that they were staring down the barrel of an election and all the parties were going to paint the NDP as being Liberal enablers if they did not side with the others. So Layton made a bit of theatre in his non confidence motion -- the purpose was to really drive the point home that the NDP was not supporting Liberal corruption.
We all know what happened after that , Martin blew the election in a shocking way. Liberals since then have employed selective memories, first forgetting that the NDP did not just support the progressive policies of early 2005 -- they had argued for and demanded them, and second the Liberals forget that the NDP had no bearing on the non confidence vote and can only be accused of positioning themselves for an inevitable election. To this day Liberals online regularly lie about the history to blame the NDP for bringing down Kelowna and childcare. The irony is that the Liberals never did blame the parties that held the majority. We know the CPC hates Aboriginal people and childcare equally but the BQ who actually had the balance of power has been let off the hook. The BQ were in a position to allow these to pass.
There is a reason for this -- a couple good ones. First the BQ were incensed at the sponsorship scandal because politically it was aimed at them, very crooked and it hurt Quebec's reputation. All of this would have been central to a BQ response had the Liberals pointed out that the BQ had been in favour of both childcare and Kelowna. The BQ simply decided that the voters must have an option to pronounce on the Liberal sleaze. To this day the Liberals will not go after the BQ because the BQ would respond more harshly than the NDP on this point. And second, even if the BQ would let them away with it -- by making the discussion a Quebec one, the Liberals would be highlighting the real reason for their failure which was the sponsorship scandal in Quebec.
The second group the Liberals refuse to blame (because they want this sorry tale forgotten) are their own MPs who left the party over the sponsorship scandal and declared their intention to vote their own party out of office at the first opportunity. (A third Liberal MP had also become an independent but she opted to support Martin to the end and she did.)
So the real story is that there were four opponents of the Liberals that fall:
1) their break away MPs
2) the BQ
3) the NDP
and 4) the CPC
The CPC were a given. the other three were all supporters of the policies that Martin had been pushed into doing. The first two to declare were the BQ and the independents both of whom had the balance of power. Layton was trying to negotiate an infrastructure deal for municipalities at the last moment and something regarding health care (I don't remember what exactly right now). It was the Liberals who pointed out to Layton that he was asking too much and had no leverage -- it almost seemed as if the NDP before that had not done the math to realize there was no negotiation possible (I figure they had and wanted the show of the negotiation to highlight their policies). Layton woke up to what was said to him -- tried one last attempt to allow for a delay and then distanced himself from the Liberals.
The NDP was guilty of some theatre but certainly not at all responsible for the fate of the Martin government. And let's not pretend that ALL parties do not engage in theatre. The theatre was an attempt to make him and his party appear more relevant to the vote even though the small caucus had lost the balance of power. The NDP is the party always with the least money and Layton was a headline hound as he knew he had to be. I accept this with some understanding even though some of this was a little cringe-worthy.
Another point few talk about is of course the original story behind the sponsorship scandal. This goes back to a period where the Liberals developed a real culture of cheating. This was done so in the context of their party being near bankrupt. Back in 1991 the party was so desperate it could not pay employee taxi chits as I heard (I was caught up in this period and close enough to see some of this even though I was not a Liberal). Chretien knew the party was desperate and he understood this was due to problems with party financing rules. I suspect he also knew about dirty deals although there is no proof of specific knowledge. To his credit Chretien's legacy was the per vote subsidy. I think this was intended to make sure that no party is so desperate that it will feel it has no choice but to play dirty on a field that is so clearly tilted against them. We all know what happened to that and just how tilted the field is today. Ironically, it is not the disadvantaged parties who are cheating but the most advantaged Conservatives keen to double down on every advantage. Still there is little doubt that in the current situation the opposition parties are looking to play as close as they can to the edge of the rules understanding that this is the only way they can stay in the competition.
Unfortunately, the animus between the Liberals and the NDP has made it impossible for them to agree on a common message about the dirty politics the Conservatives have been playing and the severe damage the country is taking when it comes to democratic process. I would have liked the Liberals to bash each other on policies but run joint ads about the unprecedented attacks on Canada's democracy that the CPC have waged. We will know in a few weeks if that decision not to work together in even a limited way could open the door to Harper winning. While a new CPC government may be less than likely, any risk is worrisome because another few years of the CPC controlling the field and Canada could become effectively a one-party state. The degree of advantage they have is so great already that their party has a possible chance of winning even after scandals that would defeat any other government. I think it is safe to say that the CPC have proven they can do every bit as bad as the sponsorship scandal and win anyway. That is a very scary reality in the context of recent history. The Conservatives no longer even pretend to be interested in a fair election. Now we are seeing naked attempt to defeat the other parties by outspending them.We have come to ralize that somewhere close to one in three voters are willing to set aside all ethics in order to further the politics of their greed.
Other voters are rightfully annoyed that the NDP and Liberals, as different as they may be, cannot sopt bashing each other long enough to point this out in a common message.
