Ken Chapman on the Purple Coalition

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... and I hope for all our sakes he's right.

So ... How Much Is Harper Paying You, Jack?

I see that the NDP has chosen to prop up the HarperCon$:

The NDP will join with Bloc Québécois to support the Conservatives financial ways-and-means motion to be introduced on Friday. The motion, which includes the popular tax credits for home renovation, is considered a confidence issue and its defeat could trigger an election.

But the NDP will also support the proposed EI reforms and will vote for the measures in order to get them into a parliamentary committee, which can be a lengthy process.

That means the party would refrain from voting the government down on any other confidence motion that would trigger an election, including a Liberal no-confidence motion expected the first week of October.

I sure hope Harper's paid you a bundle, Jack ... because when he screws you over, it had better be worth every dime of it to you.

It seems to me that Layton has just shown that his principles are for sale - no NDP leader with any actual principles should ever be willing to get into bed with Harper's band of neoCons.

As for Mr. Harper, remind me again why "unelected coalitions" are a bad thing? Seems to me that's exactly what you've just created.

Why Is The NDP Acting Like An Adjunct To Harper?

There's an important observation in this morning's article about the Liberal Caucus retreat:

But a $550-a-plate fundraising dinner slated for Monday night in Sudbury has garnered criticism from local unions and the NDP, as about 3,000 workers with Vale Inco enter their seventh week on the picket lines with no negotiations between the company and the union.

Some workers along the picket line described the dinner as a "slap in the face" and said they planned to protest outside the event.

Sudbury NDP MP Glenn Thibeault also plans to hold a dinner of his own, serving spaghetti and salad at $5.50 a plate to support miners who find themselves without a job.

"My whole meal … is going to cost about $550 to feed about 150 to 200 people, so there's a big difference here," he said.

Uh huh. Now, tell me Mr. Layton, about those "fundamental differences" that keep you from "supporting" the Harper government? You seem to be doing an awfully good job of telling your people to ignore the malfeasance of the Conservative GOVERNMENT while paying attention to the Liberals.

It's pretty amazing how regularly we are hearing things out of the NDP that sound suspiciously like Conservative-generated talking points.

The Purple Coalition Takes Shape

The timing and choice of Canada's next ambassador to the United States just smells wrong to me.

I'm speculating a bit here, but in the last couple of weeks, Jack Layton and Stephen Harper meet, and then this week, NDP Premier Gary Doer is appointed Canada's next ambassador to Washington.

To say that the timing of this is a little fishy is an understatement, but it fits. Layton has very carefully avoided actually criticizing the Harper government directly - instead choosing to frame his criticism of Harper's recent round of pork barrel patronage in terms of the Liberals:

"He has declared to the Canadian public that he would not name unelected people to the Senate. ... His word means less and less every day he's in office, and he's behaving more and more like the Liberals," NDP Leader Jack Layton said of Harper.

One has to wonder about the NDP's soft-pedalling of its criticisms of the Harper government when suddenly one of the NDP's longest serving public figures is granted a plum appointment by Canada's most partisan Prime Minister. Harper doesn't typically do things like this unless he's getting something out of it.

In this case, he gets to point to Doer as an example where he has apparently not been partisan, and I suspect that he also gets Layton to be somewhat passive for the next few months - and Layton will continue to focus his efforts on the Liberals instead of the government.

Layton will, of course, continue to talk vaguely in terms of "fundamental differences" with the Conservatives and it will be a rare vote that he actually aligns with the Conservatives in the House of Commons. He holds enough of a weight in the House of Commons that he can order his caucus to vote against the government, and thereby act as a fulcrum for whatever lever Harper is trying to apply to the Liberals.

Layton knows that an election right now will go against him, and likely as not end his political career - party leaders that lose seats tend not to survive so very long...even in the NDP.