What is up with Alice Klein (1)? My god is it ever tiresome to hear yet another fellow lefty blame the NDP for the failings of our electoral system--and that is what we're talking about here. The reason no left umbrella left coalition has emerged in recent years has nothing to do with Jack Layton and everything to do with the structural antagonisms built into our first-passed-the-post electoral system. In the absence of proportional representation, parties have little choice but to compete with one another. A viable political entity in this context has to fight, and has to fight to win. It's easy for Elizabeth May and the Greens to prattle on about coalition politics. Such pronouncements issue out of the political amateurism that increasingly defines them as a party. To see the truth in this, one need look no further than the fact that the Green Party's best candidate, May herself, has chosen in the next election to run in a riding she can't possibly win in, Central Nova, now held by Conservative Minister of Defence Peter McKay. But the moment the Greens begin to actually win seats, you can bet your granma's house that May will be singing a different tune.

And even if this weren't the case, Klein's analysis is still way off the mark. I've worked enough campaigns for the NDP to know that the Liberals go after us with every bit of the partisan vehemence that Klein accuses us of. Yet we're supposed to put all of this aside whenever there is the threat of a right wing majority in the offing. The double standard is deplorable. The Liberal Party is to be forgiven of every unprincipled flouting of progressive principles, every right wing policy, every triangulation, while the NDP is held responsible for not just for its own actions, but also for those of the Conservative Party. And on top of that, throughout it all the NDP is portrayed by people like Klein as some kind of almighty kingmaker. Would that the party were so powerful.

I might take Klein's lamentations more seriously when I hear her state publicly that the Liberal Party should not run candidates in ridings where there are sitting NDP MPs. When she proclaims, for instance, that Gerard Kennedy should back away from his plans (to attempt) to unseat the impressive and progressive NDP MP Peggy Nash. Or when Liberal heavyweights take their sights off of the riding of Ottawa Centre, where again, there is already able, progressive representation in the form of Paul Dewar. But you must forgive me for not holding my breath while waiting for her to do this.Ottawa

Notes

1. "Let’s pull it together: A centre-left-green pact is the only way we can rid the world of Harper," http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=161031