Delusional Dippers

During the election campaign I found myself in an argument with some NDP partisans. These are the "NDP or bust" types who believe that the NDP deserves to govern just because the Conservatives and the Liberals have been governing for so long it is now the NDP's turn, regardless of how Canadians vote. Naturally they are all supporters of Proportional Representation because they believe it will make the NDP the kingmakers in every election. They are wrong of course. Right now our politics is geared towards the FPTP voting system. If we change that our politics will also change which will lead to a change in the Canadian voting patterns. That is the first delusion of these Dippers. I have written extensively on this and I will not repeat it here.

I discovered a second delusion among this group during the election. Essentially they believe that if the Conservatives would have won the most seats in the election but not a majority the Liberals could still govern. Their theory was that in such a situation Justin Trudeau would still be PM so he could stay in that position, even though the Liberals had less seats, by convening the House and having a confidence vote. The NDP would support them and things would go on as if no election really took place.

Their argument is technically true. Justin Trudeau is the PM and if the Liberals would have lost the election on Monday he would still be the PM unless he resigned. In the extreme, if a sitting PM were to be crushed he could technically not resign, convene the House and see if he could gain its confidence., lose that vote and ask the GG to drop the writ again.

However, all of that goes against 150+ years of Parliamentary convention in this country. Simply put, which ever political party wins the most seats in the House earns the right to form a government and seek the confidence of the House. This time it was the Liberals but if it would have been the Conservatives then Mr. Trudeau would have resigned and Mr. O'Toole would be on his way to forming a government. When the time came in a few weeks they would seek the confidence of the House and Mr. Singh, who has already said that we would be able to work with a Conservative government, would have probably voted confidence in that government.

All of this was denied by these delusional Dippers. It is was a pretty convenient argument for them though. If Mr. Trudeau did not go against 150+ years of Parliamentary convention and the Conservatives formed a government, with the NDP voting confidence in that government in the House, then Justin Trudeau would be the reason why all of the regressive policies of the Conservatives being implemented, not the NDP, because he did not exercise his right to seek the confidence of the House. It is very twisted logic but it goes back to Jack Layton's role in the destruction of the child care agreements and the Kelowna Accords in 2006. They become really prickly if you bring this up.

The more insidious part to their argument is if Mr. Trudeau would have done what they suggested it would have set up a 2011 scenario for the Liberal Party in the subsequent election. I am certain that such considerations did not come into play in their arguments. (If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.)

All of this was based on the third delusion that the NDP would gain win more than 30 seats, as the polls were saying they would at the time. That was not going to happen and it never was going to happen. The pollsters always overestimate the NDP support during the writ period. Simply put, take the average poll estimate for the NDP and subtract three and you will get the actual number they will receive on e-day. That is exactly what happened. So if Mr. Trudeau would have lost the election and tried to hang on he would have needed more than the support of the NDP to maintain government. He would not have received it.

Of course, their Trudeau defying 150 years of convention gambit is not really a delusion. They know the reality. The argument was calculated to provide cover to any role the NDP had in implementing a Conservative agenda and to set up a 2011 scenario. 

In short, they were playing political games. I have no problem with that. They are acting like all of the other partisans for political parties.

However, as I have stated before my problem is with the sanctimonious self-righteousness of their beliefs that they are still the "conscience of Canadian politics", that they do not play politics like the other parties do and that they are the only real "progressive" option for Canadians. 

None of the above is true and it has not been true for quite some time, although they still believe it is, and that is why they are and continue to be delusional.