Brian Topp & the NDP: Not On Your Side

Topp-led NDP would do what's good for them, not what's good for Canada

Anyone who pays even passing attention to the NDP has noticed it: their penchant for divisive politics.

They delight in drawing sides among Canadians, then telliing as many as possible that the NDP is on their side, and that their political opponents are not.

Yet if you live in the provinces of BC, Alberta or Ontario, the NDP is unequivocally not on your side... or at least they won't be, if Brian Topp -- so far the only declared candidate for the NDP leadership -- gets his way.

Topp has already declared that the NDP will staunchly oppose any additional seats in Parliament for Alberta, BC or Ontario unless Quebec recieves a proportionate increase of its own. This despite the fact that Quebec is already disproportionately represented on a scale greater than anywhere else in the world.

Topp's justification for sticking the 61% of Canadians that are underrepresented in Parliament is rather bizarre: because Parliament recognized Quebec as a distinct society within Canada, it's entitled to be overrepresented.

“The national legislature … has recognized the province of Quebec as a nation within the country, a resolution that was supported by all parties, and this is an occasion where it’s time to think about what that resolution means,” Topp declared.

It isn't hard to figure out what that motion means. It doesn't require extensive reflection. It may mean that Quebec is distinct within Canada, but it doesn't mean that it's above the rest of Canada.

Sadly, many of the NDP's hardcore supporters will back Topp's opposition to equitable democracy in Canada even thought it's vastly democratic. They even manage to offer some supremely dumb reasons: some will even declare that in opposing the addition of more seats in Parliament, they're fighting in favour of small government (not realizing that there's a difference between Parliament and the government).

Some oppose the addition of these seats believing that too many of them -- particularly in Alberta -- will fall to the Tories. For these people, their motivation is crassly partisan.

In Brian Topp's case, he's merely shamelessly pandering to Quebec at the expense of the rest of Canada. After all, it wasn't BC, Alberta or Ontario that delivered a mass of new seats to the NDP in the last election. It was Quebec.

In pandering to Quebec, the NDP is only doing what's good for itself. The NDP's merely doing what the NDP does best: putting itself first, and Canada second.