This is what Joe Comartin says he’s hearing. “I think most people in my area, I like to think we have fairly sophisticated voters here, their analysis is that we have the election, we spend the $300 million to $350 million and we don’t get much change. What they’d prefer for us to do is to try to hammer away at the government and try to get the [EI] criteria changed,” says Comartin, the Windsor NDP MP who has acknowledged the proposed EI changes won’t help many autoworkers in his riding.
Comartin says there is little else on the agenda that would compel the NDP to reverse course again. Corporate tax cuts or an extension to the Afghanistan mission would be deal breakers, but neither is likely to come up this fall. The NDP opposes a proposed free trade deal with Colombia, but the Liberals support it, potentially, Comartin figures, putting Ignatieff in an awkward spot.
In the meantime, if Layton can stand the jeers on Parliament Hill, the NDP may yet seem the conscience of Ottawa it periodically claims to be. “I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never, ever had confidence in Stephen Harper,” Stoffer says. “But I am comfortable in looking at the lay of the land and seeing the situation out there, and the reality is it is a change for the NDP, there’s no question. But, again, if we’re able to do something constructive, then at least that’s something positive.”
