At least the Canada Post filibuster was exciting for the kids

It didn’t take long for this new Parliament’s odd character to assert itself. The NDP launched a filibuster to stall back-to-work legislation aimed at Canada Post employees. One NDP MP after another got up to hurl thunderbolts at the government and chew up time. Under Hansard’s rules, the clock accompanying the House of Commons’s workday stopped. The fourth Thursday in June lasted until Saturday night. The Prime Minister played host at a late-night hospitality suite for his MPs. The little dog laughed to see such sport, and the dish ran away with the spoon.

Let’s unpack all of this and see what we can learn from it. As soon as Jack Layton dropped his stalling tactics the NDP lost, which means postal-union employees lost too. Stephen Harper’s government legislated a smaller pay increase than Canada Post had proposed in its final offer. Jean Chrétien took his pound of flesh in precisely the same way when he legislated posties back to work, at a discount, in 1997.

So the NDP learned it’s unable to shout back the tide. In a way this reinforces Ottawa’s latest conventional wisdom. Layton, it is fashionable to say, has less influence with 103 MPs against a majority government than he used to have with 37. He can’t force an election. He can’t block legislation. What good is he?

Plenty good, to his supporters. The supposed power he wielded from 2004 to 2011 was mostly a headache. Forcing an election meant returning, each time, to a Parliament with more Conservatives. Deciding not to force an election meant backing down. The Liberals usually helped Layton by backing down before he had to, but every once in a while he had to swallow himself whole.

Now he can do what opposition leaders are best at: he can oppose. Loudly, grandly, painlessly. Or he can choose not to oppose—to play the statesman. In fact the NDP has already done both. They voted to support a bill streamlining big trials with lots of criminal suspects, after a Quebec biker-gang trial dragged on so long the judge threw the case out. And then, when the mail strike came, they dug their heels in.

How smart was that? Conservatives were delighted because Layton’s play made his NDP look old-fashioned, a shill for organized labour. That’s no way to broaden the party’s appeal. But as Stephen Harper knows well, broadening your appeal isn’t always the smart thing to do. Big tents collapse if there’s nothing persuasive to hold them up, a fate that befell Joe Clark, Kim Campbell and Paul Martin in turn. Layton’s voters include a lot of people who believe in the right to strike. Now they know he still does, too. He can pick a big-tent issue some other time.

Meanwhile, his very young NDP caucus has enjoyed a few days’ adventure. Dozens of them got a chance to speak at length in the Commons, in the dead of night, on a not very important issue. They will have more confidence next time.

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Source: Maclean