In the 1960s, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the Canadian Labour Congress forged a bond and came together to form a new political party—the NDP. Both organizations need to rediscover that fighting spirit to become a political force once again. Otherwise, they will wither and fade into irrelevance and oblivion.
That could be part of the calculation.
The irony of this is that propping up the Liberals in the previous term was supposed to pull the focus Left to progressive policies and bring legitimacy to the NDP as a party that is able to govern.
They succeeded on the first but have apparently failed on the second to the point where the Liberals have gotten all the credit (or blame, depending on your point of view).
Now we’re all set to see the same movie in this term.
It might not be clear on what are Carney’s intentions vs the backroom bargains that will be required for the NDP support this time around. But if he surrounds himself with the old Liberal guard as Trudeau did, I would encourage everyone to remember that the Liberal party has a very long history of saying one thing and doing another and that other thing isn’t always in the collective best interests of Canadians. This is why I don’t mind the dependency on the NDP.