NDP's Patry Bloc Bolt: Short-Term Pain, Long-Term Gain?

By Keith Edmund White

Editor-in-Chief

Keith Edmund White on why the pundits are wrong on Patry's Bloc bolt, with some help from recent U.S. party-switching history.  And how the loss of one seat my just hand the NDP Parliament in 2015.

My google-news feed is filled with takes on Quebec NDP MP Claude Patry's switch to, in the National Post's words, the "moribund but still kicking" Bloc Quebecois.  

The BQ now boasts a whopping 5 members in Canada's 308-member Parliament.

But the NDP, Canada's Official Opposition Party, has one less seat.

So does Patry's Bloc party signal closing time for the NDP?

Party-Switches Matter Until They Don't-Just Ask Jim Jeffords

There's an interesting U.S. party-switch that may help gauge the actual impact of Patry's NDP.

  

Who doesn't remember all that 2000 U.S. presidential election-Floridian "hanging chad" gloriousness?

But do you remember Republican Senator Jim Jeffords's surprising party switch that handed Democrats the Senate?

The U.S. political world was turned upside down!

Or not.

Four years latter, Republicans controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House.

And, two years latter, Democrats roared back in Congress, and Obama captured the White House in 2008.  

And Jeffords was the catalyst, right?  

Not so much.

Counterinuitive Theory:  Patry's Departure As NDP Net-Positive

Most of the Canadian press is bashing Opposition Leader/NDP leader Thomas Mulcair for causing his own defection.  Why the blame?  Mulcair got his hands dirty with the non-issue issue of Quebec separation.  

Specifically Mulcair bringing up the Clarity Act.

What's the Clarity Act faux pas?

Boiled down (i.e. code for me not reading the Act), Mulcair green-lit an attempt for allowing separation "negotiations" to commence after a provincial separation referendum snags 50 percent + 1.  (It gets a little more complicated, but let's take that summary for now.)

Now, yes, getting into this was nationally dumb, as suggested by this CBC report. 

Though, Mulcair leaped to Leader of the Opposition thanks to NDP support in Quebec.  Oh, and the NDP--a new national upstart--favors the policy in their platform.

But, as turns out, even tinkering with the vote threshold (which, under current Canadian law hasn't even been clearly defined, but is believed to hoover around 60% or more) wasn't flexible enough for one NDP MP.

From the National Post:

As we see this week, even the NDP’s proposed law, by the very fact that it presupposes the Parliament of Canada has a right to set conditions, any conditions, on Quebec separation, is too colonialist for some. Hence, Patry’s departure after, he said, much soul-searching. 

... 

Mulcair now must work internally to ensure there are no further defections from other soul-searchers. But how will he do this? It seems unlikely his interests will broaden, nationally. Far more plausible is that the NDP’s field of vision narrows ever more closely on Quebec – preserving its bread and butter. This tendency can only deepen once the fluently francophone Trudeau becomes leader of the Liberal party.

But the following Patry scenarios seem just as plausible.

• Patry Was NDP-Partied Out.  Patry would have left earlier had Mulcair not done his seemingly ill-advised Clarity Act.
• Patry's Departure Proves NDP's Federalist Bent?  Patry's departure might actually (i) jolt further NDPs from not getting distracted by Quebec separation issues and (ii) show the public that the NDP won't be a natural fit for Quebec separatists. 
• Patry NDP Parting Suggests Personal Ambition or Separatist Conviction, Not NDP Coalition Management Failure.  The cynic in me has to believe Patry either is (i) making a self-calculating move for his riding or (ii) would rather 'lead' an irrelevant party than back-bench for a relevant one.  And, assuming Patry's departure comes from the heart, if separatist tensions were going to rear their head, he would have left anyway.

In short, the NDP has to go through this period of transition.  And, whether they get one defection or more, better now than closer to Canada's next national election.

And with the NDP slipping in the polls, an injection of electoral fear might re-focus the NDP on a winning national agenda.

If that happens, a defection now might mean a NDP government latter.