Nobody is giving up on this issue. MP Justin Trudeau did not lay the issue to rest in his address to Liberals and supporters in his speech from Toronto last week. NDP leader Thomas Mulcair cannot brush the issue aside. The decision belongs to the parties; not the leaders. The rationale of these parties working together is too persuasive to go away. We have to find a way for the Liberals and NDP to cooperate going into the 2015 federal election. It is simple as that and as complex as that.
We are not talking about anything that might be novel or new. It has been done before and it works.
As recently as 2003, the Canadian Alliance (the former Reform Party) merged with the Progressive Conservative Party and became the Conservative Party of Canada. The difference was that these parties were losers. The Reform Party was a Western rump unable to make inroads in the east and the Progressive Conservatives had hit a low of just two seats in Parliament after the 1993 election. And the Canadian Alliance experiment was short lived. It was these losers who united the right.
Why cannot a strong left create a more vibrant party, a progressive party and a winning party to better serve Canadians?
It is not as though our respective leaders of the left would let their ego’s interfere with the needs of Canadian voters? Would they?
It is certainly time for the merger. Canadians want to get rid of the Harper Conservatives. They want to be proud of their country again. They need a government that can restore their pride.
The New Democrats are obviously moving to the right, away from their socialist origins. The Liberals are far more conscious today of the social needs of Canadians that the Conservatives have been ignoring. Both Liberals and the NDP are moving into the space of social democracy. Their combined objectives can create a better future for Canadians.
In the next year the new Liberal leader and the New Democrat leader will be directing their parties to develop and endorse election platforms that will say very much the same things. The same needs have to be met. The same voters have to be served.
If these parties intend to fight each other in the coming election, they will be helping the Conservatives defeat them both. When you come together with strength, when you work together with pride, you are building a future for all. Think about it.
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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
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