(Centre Block of the Canadian Parliament. The Prime Minister's office is one of the corner windows. Might we see a Liberal-Democrat there anytime soon? I suspect not.)
To begin, the histories of the parties are too different. Unlike the Reform/Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties whose merger in 2003 formed the Conservative Party of Canada, the NDP and Liberals have not been under the same tent for 50 years, if ever. Indeed, the Liberals, going back to 1867 and the NDP going back to 1961, have for decades cultivated their own identities and often been at odds. Yes, Liberals move left when Conservatives govern (and almost universally do this while campaigning), they are still the party that balanced Canadian finances using massive spending cuts in the late 90s, and have influential right-of-centre connections to the business and banking elites of Toronto and Montreal. This is anathema to the traditional NDP base of trade unions, western Canadian farmers and their newly cultivated base of socially democratic Quebecois and inner city voters.
(Lester B. Pearson was the first Liberal prime minister to encounter a united NDP on his left flank)
Secondly, the logistics of the merger will be very difficult. Currently, with 102 seats in the House of Commons, the NDP are the Official Opposition. But until this year's breakthrough, the NDP had only cracked the 40 seat barrier once (1988) and had never been serious contenders for official opposition status. Indeed, one could argue that until Jack Layton's leadership, it had always been a two horse race between the Liberals and the various right-of-centre parties – the one exception being the Bloc Quebecois when it formed the Official Opposition in the 35th Parliament [1994-1997]. However, were the two Progressive Conservative members sitting with the Reform members, the right-of-centre parties would have tied the Bloc for 54 seats and perhaps formed the Official Opposition.
So while Jack Layton was always more popular than his party, we can nevertheless expect the NDP to try to leverage their 102 seats and opposition status into senior-partner status during merger talks. This will be very difficult for the Liberals to accept because they will see their long-time status as the ‘Natural Governing Party’ as their ticket to the senior-partner seat. This will lead to an impasse and an eventual maintenance of the status quo. I suppose a merger of equals could be sought, but in party politics mergers almost always happen with a junior and senior partner. Looking at recent Canadian politics, one need only see how the Progressive Conservatives and Canadian Alliance needed each other, but there was no question the Alliance was in a better position and it was their leader who became Prime Minister.
Relative parliamentary newcomer Justin Trudeau has gone on record of saying he would listen to the merger overtones – as has NDP stalwart and possible leadership candidate Pat Martin. Unfortunately for them, both will ultimately be disappointed. The NDP and Liberals are just too different and even their contempt of Stephen Harper will not be enough to overcome these differences. This is why we will not see a merged ‘Liberal-Democratic Party of Canada' in the near future.
*In the interest of full and complete disclosure, I am a card-carrying member of the Conservative Party. I do not, however, count myself as being mean-spirited towards the political views of the NDP or Liberals and as such have aimed to write a reasoned and thoughtful analysis about an important issue in Canadian political life.
