Political parties can be divided in two groups: those that move where the majority of the people are and those that wait for the majority of people to move to them. Usually the Liberal Party belongs in the first group, while the NDP and the Conservatives belong to the second.
Things, however, have slightly changed as Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives move into the first group and the Liberal Party being all over the map. At least Jack Layton’s NDP have remained where they usually are. This change, however, has created political instability.
In fact, the electorate is now confused about the Conservatives while the Liberals are confused about the electorate. So Canadians are refusing both a Conservative majority government and a Liberal minority.
The NDP is lately doing everything by the book. They have a very good organization, a leader who is very much respected in and out of the party, their policies have broad appeal to the majority of Canadians, but yet they are stuck in the polls in the ‘teens’.
The problem is credibility. Canadians love what Jack Layton preaches but they have serious doubts that he can deliver it.
Mind you, Liberals and Conservatives only randomly have delivered their promises. For example the Liberals have promised a national childcare program five times while the Conservatives said that a budget deficit was a political heresy.
But this is exactly the point.
The secret to political success is not in the product, but in the packaging. The Liberal Party is the best at this, as they always tell Canadians want they want but, eventually, they do what they can. They gained power in the ’90s fighting against free trade and GST and they governed taking advantage of the two policies.
The Liberal Party’s problems in employing this strategy now is that there is not much to package in terms of policies and leadership.
It’s one reason Canadians are not considering them even for a minority government.
The Conservatives, aside from the obsession with law and orderissues, have smartly moved into Liberal electorate area but voters are still not convinced on which side of the river they will eventually land. And that’s why they can’t win a majority government right now.
Then we have the NDP, a party that is like a beautiful lover to spend a dream night with, but you leave in the morning when you go to work to pay taxes and mortgages.
Layton ’s leadership has created the necessary infrastructure for the party to become more in tune with the current society and stop reading from the spartito of an opera that no one sings anymore.
Canadians don’t like those ugly people in Alberta who exploit our soil and pollute our environment, but the hate they have for them is smaller than the love they have for the flood of dollars coming from their drilling directly into the Canadian economy.
Canadians are all pro environment but yet former Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion lost the 2008 election mainly because of his ‘carbon tax’ to fight pollution.
With the Conservatives trying to repackage their product in a new box and the Liberals crushing their box and not knowing where to start repackaging, it is time for the NDP to think outside of their obsolete box and use all the potential they have accumulated lately under Layton and his team.
The strategy of waiting for the people to come to you is the most honourable and honest, unfortunately it is not working.
It is time that the NDP starts moving towards the people, not the other way around. It is a difficult process, but a good start is to convince themselves that slogans like “the rich are richer and the poor are becoming poorer” are taking them neither to 24 Sussex nor to Stornoway.
