There sure has been a lot of talk about the NDP and the Liberals merging since Jack Layton's untimely death.
There has been musings by members in both parties. The always outspoken NDP MP Pat Martin says he'll take up the mantle of merger in the NDP leadership if no one else does. Liberal MP Denis Corderre thinks a merger is worth thinking about.
But both interm Liberal leader Bob Rae and NDP president and potential leadership hopeful Brian Topp dismisses the whole thing.
Some compare an NDP/Liberal merger with the merger between the old Progressive Conservative and the Reform/Alliance parties.
Timing aside, a Liberal-NDP merger makes sense. There is strength in numbers as the former Progressive Conservative and Reform/Alliance parties learned. The centre right and right became the government through pragmatic co-operation and political self-interest.
Not quite the same though. The merger between the Reform and the PC's was a family reunification. The Conservative family fractured in the late '80's during the Mulroney administration because of some in the family becoming frustrated. Thus the Reform party was formed. The PC's suffered an historic loss in '93 that resulted in being reduced to two seats. After languishing in the wilderness for years, they decided to get back together. It took patience, hard work and time, a long time. It took over ten years to get their act together.
Getting the Dippers and the Libs together would be a much larger and difficult task. It's not going to happen overnight. The NDP and the Libs have always been two separate parties. Still even though the Libs have drifted to the more and more to the left there's no guarantee that all members of both parties would become members of a new merged party. Blue liberals would just go to the Conservatives and the radical far left in the NDP I believe would leave too and who knows where they would go, the communist party, maybe they would form a new party. Who knows?
This whole merger thing will probably depend on who emerges as permanent leaders in both parties. It sure will be interesting though to watch what happens in the months and years ahead.
