Tangible gains

John Ibbitson reports that corporate tax cuts are on hold at least until the next election, as the Liberals don't want to put their continued rule in the hands of the Cons.

This is great news for the NDP on a couple of levels. Most obviously, it's one more example of how the NDP has effectively used its leverage to tilt policy choices away from indiscriminate corporatism and toward its core constituencies, which happen to match the interests of most Canadians.

But on a more speculative level, this could be a turning point on the question of which party is best suited to offer a counterbalance to the Liberals coming out of the next election. By still refusing to cooperate even to pass policies they support even after a full summer of sober second thought, the Cons give the impression of having no desire to even participate in Parliament. This spring, there was at least ongoing testimony which could be cited regularly as a reason for the refusal to work with the Libs; now, there's really no excuse aside from sheer politics, and nobody besides the Cons sees any great need to hold an election in November rather than next year.

Meanwhile, any distinction on policy between the Cons and the Libs has to be reduced if a vote for either is seen as a vote for corporate tax cuts (among other generally similar platform planks). But even as those two parties agree on policy, it's also clear that the NDP's policy position is an entirely reasonable one. Investing elsewhere rather than in tax cuts must be an entirely mainstream choice given that neither the Libs nor the Cons want to go to any great effort to implement them. And it helps as well that the economy is doing just fine at current tax levels.

As an end result, the Cons look all the more like their own portrayal of the Libs: a group so driven by an attempt to win nominal power that it doesn't care whether Canada is effectively governed. And that has to make the NDP, with both a people-friendly policy package and a willingness to actually govern by consensus, look all the better as the true alternative to continued Liberal government.