Change for the better

In case there was any doubt whether the NDP was looking to improve on the performance of past opposition parties, Mitchel Raphael's overview of the party's strategy looks to confirm that it's ready to take on the Cons on all fronts.

To start with, after years of the Cons setting and manipulating the rules (all too often abetted by other parties willing to see how their changes played out), the NDP is ready to fight back:

Since they have always been an opposition party (though now with a huge increase in resources), NDPers have fine-tuned every trick in the book to force delays and fight procedural wars on issues dear to them. Toronto NDP MP Olivia Chow says her party, over the last four years, helped delay the free trade deal with Colombia and a transportation bill. However, NDP deputy leader Libby Davies says watch for the Conservatives to work hard to erode their ability to challenge bills within the current system.

And more importantly, the NDP looks to recognize that its place in the spotlight can best be used to challenge the Cons on values rather than merely looking to prod them about the scandal du jour:

NDPers also say to watch for a different kind of question period. After the G20 in Toronto, the Liberals hammered the government over items such as the infamous “fake lake,” while the NDP went after the Conservatives on the trampling of civil rights. Re-elected NDP MP Don Davies, who was his party’s public safety critic last session, says he expects there will be more focus on substantive issues in QP rather than simply a bunch of scandal questions, a strategy the Liberals had turned into an art form. Former Liberal MPs told Capital Diary in the past they were literally harassed by their own party to help when mud throwing was needed.

Of course, it remains to be seen how well those principles get applied in practice. But for now, the plan looks to be exactly what's needed both to establish the NDP as the leading alternative to the Cons in the longer term, and to help define the territory where future elections will be fought.