"Even under Layton’s leadership, the NDP could not have presumed that in the event of a war-to-the-finish with the Liberals, Quebec would automatically line up behind it. There is no appetite for that particular contest in the province.
"In the last election, the fact that Layton was the biggest cheerleader of the aborted 2008 Liberal-NDP coalition — a concept whose popularity endures to this day — gave him a lift in Quebec.
"A majority of Quebecers also support a rapprochement between the Liberals and the NDP.
"The notion of a coming-together of their two parties is heresy to many Liberal and New Democrat activists in the rest of the country. Whenever the issue is raised, they point to their strikingly different pasts to foreclose the option of a common future.
"But against the seismic realignment that is ongoing in Quebec, that argument comes across as empty.
"These days, some of the Liberals and Bloc Québécois incumbents who were defeated in the last federal election are considering running provincially under the banner of the new party former PQ minister François Legault is trying to get off the ground.
"If a Quebec tent is large enough to shelter people who hail from such irreconcilable sides in the so-called national debate, the thinking — at least in Quebec — is that there should be a progressive tent sturdy enough to accommodate the NDP and the Liberals federally."
Full article: Canada News: NDP will need growth outside its Quebec base.
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