Liberals-NDP Merger: Great Idea, Just Not Now

Liberal leader Stephane Dion and NDP leader Jack Layton. Stephen Harper protest. Toronto. Dec 2008

Paul T. Hellyer, former Liberal defense minister makes another compelling case for a merger of the centrist Liberals and left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP). The trouble is: so far the the merger of the two parties has been  prescribed as a panacea for all the shortcomings in our political system.

If we’re serious about enhancing our democracy, we should kill the antiquated first-past-the-post electoral system and introduce the fairer system of proportional representation.

I don’t deny that the merger would give th progressive majority in Canada a single electoral choice needed to defeat the Conservatives at the next election. But my two cents against a hurried merger Liberal-NDP merger are:

First, the last thing Canada needs is a US-style two-party system.

Second, the Liberal Party is in decline, and the NDP currently has the momentum to challenge Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives in four years’ time. The party is now strategically positioned to replace the Liberals as Canada’s brokerage party, uniting progressives, social reformers, labor, blue Liberals and ethnic groups.

Photo credit: John Maclennan. [Creative Commons -BY-SA-2.5, via Wikimedia Commons]