NDP Supporting the Conservatives?

This is an Archived Post. Click here to visit the most recent content

Many people have suggested that Jack Layton and the NDP supported Stephen Harper's party when we voted against a Liberal motion to recall the troops from Afghanistan at the end of the mission in February 2009.

Before I try to explain this odd event, let me clearly state that the NDP supports our soldiers but not the mission.

1) The NDP did not support Stephen Harper's party - we voted against the Liberal motion. We want withdrawal to begin immediately. The NDP did not support extending the mission to February 2009 in the first place (neither did Stephan Dion by the way).
2) The NDP has been consistent in its criticism of the Afghanistan mission.
3) As far as I understand, the Liberal motion was not a confidence motion. As such, even if it had passed, Stephen Harper and company could have ignored it just like they are ignoring Kyoto targets.
4) Now just suppose it had been a confidence motion and the 'newish' minority government lost the confidence of the House. A new election would have taken place and we could have seen the Liberals back in power. However, now the NDP would have supported the mission end-date of February 2009 and it would be hard to call for an earlier withdrawal.
5) In reality, on April 26, Jack Layton and the NDP tabled a motion to call for withdrawal to begin immediately.

For more on the War in Afghanistan and the NDP, please visit:

http://www.ndp.ca/page/5211

Before I let you go, I have one final point your may want to consider. We have been told that Canadians fight for peace ... we fight to build peaceful societies and we stand ready to fight in order to maintain peace. If this is true, why then is there no desk or committee for the study of peace in the Department of National Defense (http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/sitemap_e.asp#P)?