On losing strategies

Sure, Greg is right to criticize the Libs for being willing to provoke a national unity crisis for political gain. But I'm not sure when that became reason for surprise: have we already forgotten that the party's main Quebec strategy during its stay in government from 1993 to 2006 involved picking fights with the Bloc in order to create the most polarized environment possible between sovereigntists and nationalists, then happily taking the smaller share of that split?

Which isn't to say there aren't a couple of difference this time out.

First, there's the fact that the Libs' strategy is one which has been emphatically repudiated by actual Quebec voters every time they've had the chance.

Provincially, it was the ADQ who first stunned the Libs and their stage adversaries in the PQ by suggesting that maybe that polarization didn't make for the best way of viewing politics. (And while the ADQ didn't end up having much else to offer, there's no particular indication that its later decline actually reflected any change from that inclination.)

Now, the NDP has swept the province federally with substantially the same message about looking beyond the tired old sovereignty battle, combined with an appeal to work together to achieve better results for Quebec and Canada alike.

Given that history, a party interested in learning from its mistakes might respond by looking for some way to fit into a new alignment in Quebec. But if the Libs insist on going back to the same well even after it's proven to have run dry, that only looks like all the more reason to treat them as utterly irrelevant.

And indeed, the other major difference between this and past efforts to use sovereignty as a wedge issue is that this time, the Libs have been reduced to trying to fabricate an issue which is far removed from any substantive effect.

Of course they've had some help, as it's remarkable how quick the media has been to jump all over Jack Layton with future hypotheticals when it's Stephen Harper's definition of a valid referendum that will actually dictate what happens in the near future. But at some point, they're bound to notice that instead of being able to point to any principles or common vision as they try to define themselves and rebuild from electoral disaster, they apparently have nothing better to do than to try to foment divisions in a stronger opposition party. And while that may keep the Libs' hyperpartisans busy, it hardly figures to improve their perception in the general public.