Liberal, NDP insiders talk merger

[tuvor]

Source: CBC

Senior insiders with the federal Liberals and New Democrats have been holding secret talks about the possibility of merging their parties to form a new entity to take on the Conservatives, CBC News has learned.

Many Liberal insiders confirmed that discussions between the two parties are not just focused on forming a coalition after an election or co-operation before one, but the creation of a new party.

The new party would possibly be named the Liberal Democrats and there has been tentative talk about what a shared platform would look like and an understanding that a race would be required to choose a new leader.

"Serious people are involved in discussions at a serious level," Warren Kinsella, a former adviser to former prime minister Jean Chrétien, told CBC News.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/06/08/liberal-ndp-new-party.html

[David__77]

1. Noooooo.

So that the center-right Liberals can wipe out the progressive NDP? Terrible idea. They would become a powerless minority in a merged party. Sound familiar?

[New Dawn]

2. Yes, that would be a terrible idea. Canada needs PR and party-lists for its elections instead.

[provis99]

4. PR is an EXTREMELY bad idea.

look how it works in Israel. The two mainstream parties are reliant on a few extremist kook parties to maintain power. In a PR system, the NDP would be broken up into four or five parties, and completely disappear.

[New Dawn]

5. Extremism is mainstream in Israel (i.e. Likud), the election method has nothing to do with it.

Secondly, the assertion that the NDP would break apart due to PR is baseless. The claim that PR (or mixed-member) systems are "inherently unstable" is always trotted out by right-wingers in "US government" textbooks. However, the reality of such systems is far from the spooky picture depicted by such propagandists. Consider reading The Politics of Electoral Systems (edited by Michael Gallagher and Paul Mitchell) for a comparative study on election methods.

[Prometheus Bound]

6. Agree. PR is badly needed to bring some fairness to the electoral system.

[loudsue]

3. The is EXACTLY how the NDN works. They ARE republicans.

And it's a really smart republican strategy to split the Democratic party. The NDN has unlimited "think tank" and corporate money. We need to make sure computerized elections are not fixed first, and then just purge the party of the republican infiltrators they call the "blue dogs". They're dogs, alright.

[Posteritatis]

8. You do know this article is about Canadian politics, right?

And is talking about doing the opposite of splitting parties? And that our elections generally aren't computerized? And that this article is about Canadian politics, because it seems to need repeating?

[Posteritatis]

7. Not gonna happen, especially with the current party leaders

Seeing as they're more interested in fighting each other than in presenting a united front of any kind against the Conservatives - when they aren't actively supporting the Conservatives - I can't exactly see either willing to let the other have a substantial stake in their identity.