Was it worth the candle? The NDP had but little choice. To their allies in organized labour, what they view as the Conservative Government dictating the result of collective agreements was a hill to die on.
Jack Layton and his cohorts had to make a fight of it to demonstrate that even a majority government can be slowed down and exposed. But the jury is out on how much good it did for them with the broader public. In the eyes of the Canadian taxpayer, their three day sleepless in Ottawa defence of an unpopular postal union will no doubt depict them as a political party in thrall to big labour. If they are endeavouring to moderate their brand and reach out to the mainstream at the center of national affairs, then this hardly helped.
The difficulty of the NDP in this imbroglio was that they were fighting on the weakest ground. While their best argument was defence of the right to free collective bargaining, the Conservatives were making a case for protecting the economy, which is obviously a case with wider appeal.
Not to miss that point on her appearance on Question Period this Sunday, Labour Minister Lisa Raitt stated the government would never intervene when management and labour make deals that are good for the economy. However, that leaves little doubt about who will make that often tricky judgment. Raitt denied that the Conservatives intend to turn back agreements that are too costly in the interest of their political imperative of eliminating the deficit in three years.
Brad Lavigne is certain his party was not a loser in this postal/union stand-off. The principal secretary to the NDP leader says the 60 per cent of Canadians who did not vote Conservative will support the filibuster. He believes the Conservative government's plan is to chip away at the hard fought gains of labour in the area of pension plans. This is the real heart of the issue the government and the labour movement are confronting in the coming year. The government believes there is support for the view that public service pensions in particular are too generous and are resented by the majority of Canadians who have no such income support.
For many years Canadians lamented the fact that their political choices between the Conservatives and the Liberals were tweedledum and tweedledee. In policy terms, there was little to choose between them. Not anymore. We are entering the most politically polarized era in our national history. It may be much more muted, but it is not dissimilar to the right and left divisions that have paralyzed American politics.
In this opening battle of the Conservatives and the NDP, still refusing to drop the description ‘socialist', no compromise was possible. Was it the opening salvo in the clash of the irreconcilables?
