What comes next

So Michael Ignatieff has made it clear that his idea of leadership is standing athwart history, yelling "Proceed with Caution!". But what does the Libs' choice to spend the balance of this Parliament blinking in Stephen Harper's general direction mean for the NDP?

As I've mentioned before, looking strictly at its political interests, the NDP could hardly have asked for a greater gift than to have Ignatieff side with the Cons over the democratic coalition. And the actual events look only to reinforce that conclusion if the NDP plays its cards right.

The NDP's first course of action should naturally be to reach out to its coalition supporters to build a cohesive opposition to the Con government. The most obvious pool of potential support may be in Quebec: with Ignatieff essentially telling over a third of the province that he disagrees with their conclusion that he should be Prime Minister, there would seem to be loads of opportunity to push disgruntled Libs into the NDP camp. But there was significant support for the coalition across the country, and the NDP should be making every effort to bring that movement under its umbrella.

But how best to do that? I'll note here that as tempting as it may be to come out with guns blazing against the Libs, that may not be the best possible option. Instead, there should be a wide opening to portray the NDP's actions as the cutting edge of a new breed of politics. After all, the NDP took the lead role in brokering the coalition agreement, and put in most of the organizational work to rebuild its public perception after the Cons' initial ad blitz managed to misinform far too many Canadians into distrusting it.

Ultimately, the message should then be that the NDP's current seat count put it in position to create the opportunity for the coalition to begin a new era of cooperative politics. But that wasn't enough in this case due to the Libs reverting to old-line political calculations, where being #2 in the party queue supposedly means being able to count on becoming government by default somewhere down the line.

That means that for a future coalition to succeed where this one failed, what's most needed is a strong message that such an assumption isn't correct, particularly where the Libs abdicate their responsibilities by voluntarily choosing worse government in the meantime. And what better way to change that calculus than to improve the NDP's relative seat count so the Libs don't consider themselves to inevitably be next in line for government?

While the NDP should be quick to point out its role in the coalition process, however, it should be careful about taking credit for any of the contents of the Cons' budget. Instead, it would seem to have an opening to criticize not only the Cons' implementation, but the broader decisions made by the Cons as well.

And one of the points that I'd think would be worth picking up is the obvious link between the Cons' tax cuts and Deficit Jim's sea of red ink. With balanced-budget advocates now fleeing the Cons in droves and the Libs choosing not to try to alter the government's course, the NDP should be looking for every available opportunity to highlight the differences between "tax cuts at all costs" fiscal conservatism and "smart, balanced budgeting" fiscal responsibility, while doing everything it can to draw the latter group into the NDP's fold.

In sum, Ignatieff's decision to kill off the coalition and prop up the Cons has left the NDP with a huge opportunity to claim a massive amount of territory based on cooperative politics, accountability and fiscal responsibility, all while keeping up the "effective opposition" title. And if Layton, Mulcair and company are able to make those labels stick, then the NDP should be ideally positioned for the next federal election.