Should the NDP and Liberals Merge?

If the NDP is so much interested in power it might as well merge with the Conservatives and work within the government. Oh sorry I forgot that is in effect the present situation lol! How come the Green party that just caught up with the NDP is not pressing to merge with Liberals or maybe they could merge with the Conservatives now they are greening! Actually a more sensible merger would be of the Greens and NDP to challenge Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.


'Unite the left' against Tories, NDP MP urges
Last Updated: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 | 11:22 AM ET
CBC News
An "informal coalition" uniting federal New Democrats with centre-left Liberals may be necessary to thwart Conservative government dominance in Canada over the coming years, a veteran NDP MP has said.

In an interview with the Toronto Star published Wednesday, Pat Martin, MP for the riding of Winnipeg Centre, said it may be time to "unite the left somehow" in order to expand the NDP's base, but stopped short of suggesting the Liberals and NDP enter into a formal merger.

Martin said he would "rather stick pins in my eyes" than see such a formal merger of the parties, but he also acknowledged the need "to swallow up the centre."

He told the Star he likened the current challenge for centre-left parties to that of the political climate during the 1990s, when the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties were splitting votes on the right.

"I'm talking about some kind of informal coalition," Martin told the newspaper. He said that co-operative strategies were achievable under former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin, but "the phone never rang."

A Decima poll released March 1 showed NDP support had dipped into the low teens. For the first time in Decima's polling, the numbers showed national support for the Green party was head-to-head with the NDP at 13 per cent.

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Meanwhile, the Conservatives surpassed the Liberals with 36 per cent support compared to the Liberals' 27 per cent.

"This should be a call to arms, a sounding of the alarm," Martin said, telling the Star the next election would be a make-or-break moment for the NDP.

"How much longer can we hang on?" he said.

Martin also questioned the logic in spending $15 million in each election when the NDP can only expect to put 29 MPs or fewer into the House of Commons: "You would be crazy not to ask yourself, 'How much longer can we continue to spend that kind of money for these kinds of results?'"

The outspoken MP's comments drew no response from a Liberal party spokesman and federal NDP Leader Jack Layton denied there were dissenters in his party.

A Decima Research poll released last April showed that a quarter of Canadians wanted the NDP and the Liberals to join forces