Modeling Journey

Chantal Hebert

Mutually assured destruction (M.A.D.) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender, becoming thus a war that has no victory nor any armistice but only total destruction.

If NDP and Liberal leaders Jack Layton and Michael Ignatieff had taken the advice of their elder statesmen and looked for a way to pool forces earlier this year, the result of their joint efforts would likely be doing better in the polls than their separate parties.

In today's Globe & Mail, Jeffrey Simpson makes a fundamental error by framing the choices facing Liberals as being one in three:

Liberals have three options. They can fight among themselves, as they have been doing. They can dump their leader, Michael Ignatieff, by means not yet identified, on the necessarily unproven assumption that anyone would be better. Or they can shut up and work together, making the best of what they have.

What Liberals cannot do, and would be crazy to contemplate, is a merger with the New Democratic Party.

The Liberal Party changed the political contours of Canada in a drastic way in Sudbury, when it said that it would no longer support a dysfunctional Tory minority government. And despite all the pronouncements by spokespeople for the two smaller opposition parties, by Stephen Harper and Jason Kenny, and by countless journalists and talking heads, the die is cast.

This minority government is going down.

Ms Hébert sums up why this is so:

"Given a choice, Harper sounds like he would rather see his government defeated than depend on the Bloc or the NDP for its survival. And Duceppe and Layton's core supporters really have zero tolerance for a prolonged cooperative spell between their parties and the Conservatives.

Notwithstanding the public assertions of the leaders, the current manoeuvres have more to do with establishing their respective places around the deathbed of the minority Parliament than with significantly extending its life."

So the preparations for the coming election will be stepped up in all five parties, because seasoned political pros know that the death knell of Harper's government has been sounded.

You only have to watch the nervousness of the Kenny's and other Tory MPs on television to see that they know this is true, and are worried stiff. They can sense the tide is coming in, but for the re-energized Liberal Party, not for them. And they know that the early indications can be found in the two latest polls.

Known for her keen insight into Quebec, and her reasoned analysis of the realities of politics, Chantal Herbert now weighs in with an explanation of how a deal between the NDP and the LPC could put Michael Ignatieff into the prime minister's post in the near future:

"For those reasons, the Conservatives may need to do more than win the most seats in the next election to be certain to have a third shot at governing Canada for any length of time.

Coming first seat-wise will likely not do the job if the Liberals turn out to be more competitive than last fall.

In a published interview in Le Devoir earlier this week, Michael Ignatieff once again ruled out another Liberal attempt at crafting a governing coalition with the NDP in the next Parliament. But he also left the door open to other undefined "arrangements."

One obvious possibility would be a two-year governing agreement, copied on the Ontario deal David Peterson struck with Bob Rae's NDP in the mid-1980s. Peterson's Liberals were four seats behind the then-ruling Progressive Conservatives on election night. Negotiating the policy parameters of a Liberal mandate with the NDP allowed them to vault over the official winners and form a government that could count on the daily support of the New Democrat opposition for its survival.
Instead of resigning on election night in 2006, Paul Martin could have made overtures to Layton to try to stay in power. With the guaranteed support of the 29 New Democrats, he could have attempted to run Parliament with 103 Liberal MPs to the Conservatives' 124.

Back then, though, the Bloc would almost certainly have vetoed the arrangement. Quebec had just massively censured the Liberals for the sponsorship scandal. It would have been politically unthinkable for Duceppe to help them cling to power at Harper's expense.

Since then, the Quebec climate has changed for the worse for the Conservatives.

Duceppe's decision to formally support a Liberal-NDP coalition led by Stéphane Dion last fall met with widespread approval in Quebec. The concept remains popular to this day. At this juncture, more than 80 per cent of Quebecers prefer parties other than the Conservatives. Ignatieff is seen as a better potential prime minister by a ratio of 2 to 1 (followed by Layton.)

In the probable scenario of another four-way split in the House of Commons, winning 100 seats in the next election could be enough to put the Liberals within reach of power."

Of course, for this to happen, the Liberals would need to table a motion of no confidence in the Harper government later this year …

Chantal Herbert in The Star sums it up best, when commenting on Ignatieff's lacklustre performance in the debate this weekend:

"A similar performance in an election campaign would have cost the Liberals the leaders' debate. And that reality has the potential to turn a one-time mediocre performance into a defining moment of the leadership contest."

Liberal delegates and voters should think about her comment. The name of the game is power. Harper and his new Tories are stalled, but Harper is a skilled debater.

Do we really want to put up a rookie like Ignatieff against Harper in the next election?