How Green Can The NDP Be?

David Reevely writes for the Ottawa Citizen by day, and by night blogs as The EcoLibertarian, where he tries to square the circle between Libertarian ideology and Environmentalism. His latest post deals with the election season skirmish between the NDP's Howard Hampton, whose party sits stagnant in third place, and Green leader Frank de Jong, whose party is maybe, maybe, maybe experiencing a mini-Ontario Renaissance. His conclusion is that the NDP, as it is currently constituted, has a problem:

The NDP’s caught. It’s been the default party of sandal-wearing granola-crunchers for a long time, but it’s also the party of big labour, and those two constituencies are increasingly mutually exclusive. Voters have realized that you can’t be in favour of making stuff free, like water, while simultaneously being in favour of limiting its use — unless you also favour extremely heavy regulation. That’s how the NDP would solve most problems, but it’s sure not a vote-getter.

This analysis applies federally as well. IMHO the greatest opportunity for "leakage" at the national level is from Urban environmentalists who see the NDP's labor base as being as much an obstacle to progress on green issues as the Tories.

Although I think Mr. Reevely's semi-approving words re the Frank De Jong campaign also indicate that the Green's have a real opportunity to pull support from the right side of the political spectrum as well, federally as well as provincially.