Coffee Talk audio -

Yesterday’s Saskatoonhomepage.ca News Poll asked whether the federal Liberals and NDP should join to form one party. 

As of this writing, almost 53% of respondents had voted yes, and just over 47% voted no.   That’s reasonably close and no wonder because it’s a tough question.  While not a fanatic follower, I certainly have been an interested observer of the political scene all my adult life.  In my younger years, the Liberals were usually in power in Ottawa with Jean Chretien, Pierre Trudeau and back to Lester Pearson. In the 21^st century, the pendulum has swung to the Conservatives who were formed out of the Progressive Conservatives and the Reform Party.  The NDP were always a distant third until the last election.  As to whether the Liberals and NDP will or should join forces, my money says they will wait until after the next election to see if a) the NDP surge will sustain itself or was just a Jack Layton phenomenon, b) if the Liberals really have fallen too far off the cliff to climb back up, and c) if the Conservatives maintain their majority.  That’s when we will see whether there are enough Liberals and NDP’ers believe there is a need for a combined effort to topple the Conservatives in the following election.  As I said, I’m just an interested observer and I really don’t know what the backroom thinking is nowadays as we go down the road toward the next federal election. Time will tell.

That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.