Modeling Journey

Macleans has an interesting collection of articles by Stephen Harper (and others). One in particular caught my attention: in it Harper speaks of the need for the conservative parties (Reform and the Progressive Conservatives) to reach some form of political accommodation in order to become the government.

His argument is interesting, and there are some rather rough parallels with today's political contours, in which the Liberals and Tories seem locked into a stately dance, with each party unable to break out and gain majority support, while the NDP dances on its own with its minority support, and the Bloc tries to keep the support of the majority of Quebeckers.

Harper set his article in the context of the three sisters, an image he arrived at as follows:

"ALONG THE TRANS-CANADA HIGHWAY FROM CALGARY TO BANFF lies a prominent mountain called The Three Sisters. Legend has it that an Indian chief placed each of his three daughters on a separate peak to keep them away from unworthy suitors. The strategy succeeded so well that the three daughters died up there. Canadian conservatism is also a family of three sisters fated to perish in isolation unless they descend from their mountain tops and embrace more realistic expectations."

So I've taken Harper's advice in his article Stephen Harper: A Benign Dictatorship, and amended it a little to reflect the roughly mirror image problem faced by the LPC and NDP (the two centre-left parties). I've substituted the LPC for the Progressive Conservative party and the NDP for the Reform party in his article.

Now, do his 'revised' recommendations make sense to Liberals and Dippers?

Here goes:

"In more prosaic language, the central question for the Liberals is this: Can Canada ever have a broadly based, centre-left party committed to a moderate but definite and consistent liberal philosophy, and able to govern? The prospect for uniting the three sisters is bleak at the moment. The Bloc, though it attracts many conservatively minded voters, is a nationalist movement, not a conservative party. The central-left or progressivism of the Liberal party simmers on some back burner as its current leadership advertises itself as a B Team for the governing Conservatives. And the NDP party seems content to confine itself to the populist tradition.

A merger between the NDP and the LPC, though still discussed, seems to us out of the question. Too many careers would be at stake. Political parties almost never merge in the true sense of the term, and the gap between today's opposition factions is simply too great.

After the next federal election, Canadian progressives may begin to encourage limited cooperation between NDP and the LPC, leading to a system of sister parties. Outside the United States and the United Kingdom, such alliances are actually the norm in the democratic world, three examples being the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU) in Germany, the Liberal-National coalition in Australia and various centre-right alliances in France.

But this enumeration raises the question of the electoral system. Each of these countries uses something other than first-past-the-post voting…

First-past-the-post voting encourages parties to engage in a war of attrition. Yet there is an exception to its Darwinian voting logic -- territorial concentration -- which has allowed smaller parties to survive in Canada despite the electoral system. In effect, territorial concentration has produced several regional two-party systems instead of a national two-party system. Both the NDP party and the Bloc, or even the Conservatives, could go on for decades without ever becoming national parties; and through their survival as regional parties they could prevent the emergence of a national centre-left, progressive party.

NDP and LPC could cooperate if their supporters, seeing that the war of attrition does not work under Canada's particular conditions, push their leaders against the logic of the electoral system. The two parties could begin by agreeing to advocate electoral reform through the run off, preferential ballot, or mixed-member-proportional system, which would be in the interest of both parties. They might further agree on a territorial split at the national level, with NDP running in certain areas and the LPC in others. Or they might base candidacies on standing in opinion polls or success in the previous election. Or they might hold joint nomination meetings, allocating candidacies riding by riding, depending on the strength of local party organizations. The parties might also agree to common platform items and limited cooperation in Parliament. No doubt other models of cooperation could be designed; the machinery is not a problem if the will to cooperate exists."

Does the hat fit? If so, perhaps we should wear it. If not, then how do we end up with a progressive, centre-left national party which commands a majority in Canada, given the four sisters we now have?

After all, if Harper's advice was sauce for the goose, might it not also be sauce for the gander?