perils of opposition

For the record, the following is in no way intended as definitive of how Jack Layton and the NDP will handle the responsibility and scrutiny that comes with being the Official Opposition in the House of Commons. The time is far too soon to begin to determine it, as Michael Ignatieff said on election night, given four years of Conservative government and NDP opposition, Liberals will look pretty good again. But 48 hours after the election, while Layton remained silent, other party spokespersons were alternately messing-up and trying to put out fires.

In what may become known as L'affaire Brosseau, there's more explaining to do than just justifying how a student-tavern waitress can win election without visiting the riding she now represents and partying in LasVegas when she might otherwise have been knocking on doors and introducing herself to voters. But of course, her lack of fluency in French probably meant staying in Vegas was the preferred strategy. Heap on this, the fact that her nomination papers contain signatures of people who never met her and don't recall signing any such forms.

This could just be put down as "politics as normal in Québec" and that would be sad. However, reality is 59 of the NDP's 103 MPs are Québecers, only one of whom has any experience and yesterday he went off like the wing-nuts who believe Elvis is still alive and the moon landing never happened. Of the other 58, few if any have the experience and qualifications most Canadians expect of their MPs. I have nothing against 19 year old McGill students, and indeed some of the rookies may turn out to be exceptional politicians and leaders, but they are going to make it very difficult for Layton to present his party as a government in waiting.

As for Thomas Mulcair's declaration that he doesn't believe the US government has pictures of Osama bin Laden's corpse - a declaration that other party representatives had to move fast to reject - that embarrassment cannot be attributed to a rookie. Mulcair, as much as Layton, was responsible for the NDP surge in Québec and while some of us have long seen him as an attention-grabbing ego stalking his leader, this is proof on the national stage. It will be interesting to see if Layton retains Mulcair as deputy leader in light of such a foolish faux pas, but how can he not when more than half the caucus in from Québec.

It used to be a maxim of Canadian politics that you cannot form a majority government without the support of Québec. Now we have a majority government with little Québec presence and an official opposition composed largely of what can best be described as accidental MPs. Give some thought to how that is going to play out in the rest of Canada and you can begin to appreciate how May 2 may have the best day in the life of the NDP and Jack Layton. The prime minister must be very content and perhaps, the fat lady hasn't sung yet at the last Liberal convention.