Is it time for a Liberal-NDP merger? 

Canadian progressives are slowly coming to terms with the idea, or perhaps even the inevitability, of a Pierre Poilievre Conservative government. As they do, it’s time for them to entertain an even more uncomfortable notion: a formal merger between the federal Liberals and New Democrats.

This is hardly a new idea, even if it hasn’t been seriously discussed for more than a decade. But the last time the Conservatives were in command of a majority government, it was an option some progressives seemed to seriously consider. Even former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien suggested it was a realistic possibility. "It will be done one day,” he told Evan Solomon back in 2011. “Look at the way that [Stephen] Harper did that — Harper had [Peter] MacKay there. [He] made a solemn promise in writing that never he will talk [about] merging with the Reform [Party]. He's now the minister of defence. Things happen and they happen, sometimes, at moments unexpected."

Those moments never came to fruition between 2011 and 2015, thanks in large part to the belief on both sides that they could win the next election on their own. The NDP had Jack Layton’s massive breakthrough in Quebec and a new Quebec-born leader in Thomas Mulcair on their side, while the Liberals had a prodigal son waiting in the wings. But if Poilievre wins the sort of majority the current polls are predicting, neither the NDP nor the Liberals will have much reason for that sort of hope.

Yes, Liberal and New Democrat partisans might dislike each other almost as much as they both dislike Conservatives. But their parties have worked constructively with each other for more than two years now, and there are obvious pieces of common political ground they could use to stand up a more formal alliance. From new social spending priorities like daycare and dental care to climate policy and housing, there is much the two progressive parties can and should unite around.

The benefits of a de-facto merger of progressives are already apparent at the provincial level. The decline of provincial Liberal parties on the Prairies has allowed the progressive vote to coalesce around NDP leaders like David Eby, Wab Kinew and Rachel Notley. The electoral math in the upcoming British Columbia election shows just how powerful this can be. According to 338Canada’s current predictions, the BC NDP is expected to win 42 per cent of the vote yet take 73 per cent of the seats, in large part because the conservative vote will be split between BC United and the BC Conservative Party. At the federal level, where the split works the other way, Liberals and New Democrats are only projected to win a small handful of the province’s 42 federal seats.

This is, of course, an artifact of the first-past-the-post system, one the federal Liberals and New Democrats declined to change during their negotiations on electoral reform. That may prove to be one of the biggest strategic miscalculations of the last decade. But now that they’re lying in this bed together, they might as well contemplate the idea of sharing it permanently.

None of this will, or should, happen before the next election. As Bruce Anderson said during a recent edition of Good Talk, “I can think of nothing that would be more harmful to the near-term electoral prospects for the Liberal Party than to spend more time talking about how much they have in common with the NDP.”

If the next election unfolds the way the polls are suggesting right now, both parties will need to go about the business of picking new leaders first. “I don’t believe this can happen, this kind of rejoining of progressive forces in this country, unless you have two leaders who are ascending rather than in decline,” Chantal Hébert said on the same podcast. “And at this point, what we have are leaders in decline.”

Both parties would also have to do an internal gut-check on who they think they are — and who they want to be. Back in 2012, former Liberal leader Stéphane Dion dismissed the idea of a merger on the basis of the ideological and intellectual gulf between the two parties. “Liberals do not have a moderate wing,” he said at the time. “We are moderates.”

But the last decade under Justin Trudeau has clearly narrowed that distance between the two parties, and it’s not at all clear whether the Liberal Party is still defined by its commitment to moderation. New Democrats would also have to ask themselves whether they were willing to formally align with a party whose culture revolves more around winning elections than winning debates.

Maybe a formal merger is too far. Maybe some sort of progressive primary, one where Liberals agree not to run candidates in strong NDP ridings and vice versa, is a more palatable idea — that could, in time, lead to a more complete union. But both Liberals and New Democrats would do well to reflect back on the string of majority governments the Chrétien Liberals won and the role that a split on the political right played in those outcomes. Eventually, after any number of fits and starts, the country’s conservative factions found a way to put aside their differences and unite against the government they disdained. The big question here is whether it will take progressives a decade to do the same.