Not sure What to make of the This?

As riding president I am not really sure of what to make of this news Story is true or bull shit? I gues I am Have to go the membership and Ask them?

NDP coalition talk highlights clash between Ignatieff and Rae

Chris Wattie/Reuters
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill on June 1. The Liberal leader is suffering in the polls.


By John Ivison June 1, 2010 – 9:22 pm

It’s no wonder some supporters of Michael Ignatieff are wary of Bob Rae. Mr. Rae may not always have the Liberal leader’s best interests at heart, say Ignatieff supporters, such as the advice he is said to have given last fall, to bring down the government because “you can’t be half pregnant.”

Now, trouble is brewing once more, as Liberal support continues to slide and some of Mr. Rae’s advocates openly agitate for a debate about a coalition with the NDP. One influential supporter said that if the Liberals don’t take the idea seriously, they have no chance of governing the country in the foreseeable future.


However, supporters loyal to Mr. Ignatieff are hitting back, arguing that a deal with the NDP would sacrifice the Liberal party’s history and identity.

Last week, Mr. Rae reminisced on his website about the NDP-Liberal deal he helped broker in Ontario 25 years ago. He is on the record as saying that the Conservatives are only in power because “the forces of the centre-left allowed themselves to be divided and we can’t allow that to happen again.”

Jean Chrétien added to the momentum for collaboration when he said of a coalition with the NDP: “If it’s doable, let’s do it.” Yesterday, it was the turn of the president of the Young Liberals of Canada, Samuel Lavoie, who called for federalist progressives to unite under a new banner.

On the other side of the debate is Mr. Ignatieff, who last fall dismissed any prospective resurrection of the 2008 coalition deal signed by the entire Liberal caucus. “We do not support a coalition today or tomorrow,” he said.

On Tuesday, a senior Liberal in Mr. Ignatieff’s office said the party plans on running a campaign to form a Liberal government with candidates in every riding.

Divisions have been hardened further by the addition to the Ignatieff ranks of old Paul Martin aides, like former director of communications Scott Reid. He was forthright in his opinion that it should be the Liberal party’s ambition to beat Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, “not surrender to Jack Layton’s NDP.”

“This is a merger by any other name… A slippery slope to sacrificing our political identity. It would amount to a total betrayal of the Liberal party’s history, identity and success,” he said.

Mr. Reid rightly raised some prickly questions for those hankering after some vague accommodation among the “progressive majority.”

“Would we run 100 fewer candidates? Would we abandon Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the NDP and ask Ralph [Goodale] to step down? I think the notion is absurd. The only person who advocated it was Jean Chrétien on CBC but I have a hard time believing Jean Chrétien thinks the Liberal party shouldn’t run 308 candidates at the next election.”

The battle lines are not entirely set. While many supporters of Mr. Chrétien and Mr. Rae have coalesced around the banner of uniting the left, and most of Mr. Ignatieff and Mr. Martin’s boosters oppose such a move, the narrative is not quite that neat. For example, Peter Donolo was Mr. Chrétien’s director of communications but is now heavily invested in the Ignatieff camp as chief of staff.

What’s more, it is unlikely that many of those who would favour a progressive accommodation are in favour of a pre-election pact. One of Mr. Rae’s supporters said he would rather not rule out a post-election governing arrangement, as Mr. Ignatieff seems to have done. Both Liberals and New Democrats say discussions about a coalition remain hypothetical at this point.

But as Mr. Ignatieff’s support continues to slip, nervous caucus members add the support of the two left of centre parties together and dream of government. That may be wishful thinking – not all Liberals would join a united left. As one Toronto Grit said: “Rae is fundamentally a lefty who paid $10 to become a Liberal. But he hasn’t changed his substance, only his perfume. My opinion is that it is a bad idea for the Liberals but a good opportunity for the NDP.”

Meanwhile, the NDP are happy to fuel the fires within the Liberal party. Nothing bad can come from internal Grit strife and, at the same time, the party remains in the news. “We’re front and centre. If the political discourse of this week is that Jack Layton is the only one who can unseat Stephen Harper and the separatists, then why in the world would any New Democrat want it to stop,” said a cheerful Brad Lavigne, the party’s national director.