It is great to see the Liberals and New Democrats beating the drum on a similar issue. It is because both parties have recognized that the harder they fight each other, the harder Stephen Harper laughs. As long as they go after each other, the easier it is for the Conservatives to win. And the more Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau push for electoral reform instead of party reform, the longer Harper will remain prime minister.
Party reform only requires the agreement of the political parties. Voting reform needs the agreement of voters. While both Mulcair and Trudeau have indicated that they think parliament can decide on how Canadians will vote, they need to remember that both British Columbia and Ontario have proposed voting reform that has been turned down by the voters. And saying a change is easy to understand does not make it so.
But a merger of the Liberal Party of Canada and the New Democratic Party is a no-brainer. Call it the Liberal Democrats, the Social Democrats or just the New Party. It would put the Conservative Party of Canada out of office for many years to come.
And what will we tell the few Liberals and New Democrats who say “Hell no, we won’t go.” We could tell them to get stuffed. The point boys and girls is to give Canadians what they want, not what ideologues want. We have had enough ideology from the Conservatives. Have you not noticed that the New Democrats have been dumping ideology like last year’s fashions since before the Jack Layton era? Liberals tend to be reformers but their only ideology has to do with individual rights. Our rights and freedoms seem to be the only concepts that Liberals agree on. New Democrats have no problem with that.
Yet, neither Thomas Mulcair nor Justin Trudeau seems terribly enamoured with this idea. Maybe it is time that they thought more about the needs of Canadians. Frankly we could have a situation in October where the one who steps aside from the leadership is the one that will be remembered as a great Canadian.
Maybe the move to merge will start in electoral districts here and there across Canada. We do not need to accept the dictates of Ottawa based parties you know. We slaves have been freed. Liberals can stand up and say we will meet with New Democrats and decide things for our riding. We might even run a Liberal-New Democratic candidate. Sure the Ottawa people will try to appoint a candidate and then the voters will decide.
It all comes back to the voters. Canada’s Conservatives consider voters an inconvenience but we are still free in this country to choose for ourselves. We should try it.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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