An increasingly irreconcilable difference of opinion between Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and his most successful living predecessor, Jean Chrétien, is at the root of the spreading turmoil within the federal Liberal party.

While the two men share a strong belief that a Harper majority victory in the next election would have profound and—from their perspective—tragic consequences for the country, Chrétien is convinced that little short of a pre-election recasting of the progressive side of the federal landscape can ensure that Conservative rule does not become the new normal in Canada.

The former prime minister has come to the view that the future success of the Liberal brand and the maintenance of the central place of its values in the country’s political life rest with a more co-operative relationship with the NDP.

On that score, a merger is only one of a variety of options at hand and hardly the preferred one. Alternatives include the softer approach of an electoral coalition or even just a non-aggression pact between the two parties for the next campaign.

Chrétien is supported in his belief by his former constitutional teammate Roy Romanow, but also by former federal NPD leader Ed Broadbent. Broadbent led the NDP to an unprecedented seat score in 1988 but his success also helped create the conditions for the second Brian Mulroney majority and the passage of the free-trade agreement with the United States.

Chrétien, Romanow and Broadbent see the upcoming battle for the Montreal riding of Outremont between Thomas Mulcair, the NDP’s only Quebec MP, and Martin Cauchon, a past and potentially future Quebec federal Liberal star, as a sample of the self-defeating war the national progressive parties are poised to wage against each other in the next election.

Chrétien’s reasoning involves an implicit admission that exceptional conditions presided over his three consecutive majorities, conditions that will not be replicated.

On the occasion of the hanging of his official portrait on Parliament Hill a few weeks ago, he joked that he could still return to lead the party to victory. Made in jest, that comment involved a good dose of post-politics hubris.

In the 2000 campaign for instance, Chrétien virtually tied the Bloc Québécois for seats in Quebec. Those Liberal gains went a long way to secure his majority victory. But the NDP did not even win two per cent of the popular vote in the province in that election. Under Jack Layton, it polls in the mid-teens.

With party fortunes stagnant, Liberal history—replete as it is with leadership-related back-stabbing—is repeating itself these days. But there is more at play than the kind of personal rivalry that pitted the Chrétien and Paul Martin clans against each other for the duration of the two men’s joint tenure in politics.

Ignatieff has fallen on the wrong side of Chrétien on a subject that his predecessor links to the fundamental issue of the future of the country and the place of the party he once led in it.

Up to a point, their differences are reminiscent of those that opposed Pierre Trudeau to John Turner at the time of the Meech Lake constitutional debate.

The active participation of the former prime minister in behind-the-scenes conversations over new arrangements with the NPD as well as his recent vocal public support for the concept speak to a high level of engagement in the debate.

The last time Chrétien and Ignatieff locked horns by proxy was last fall, over the latter’s refusal to pave the way for Cauchon’s run in his former riding of Outremont.

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Ignatieff blinked and that set in motion the resignation of then-Quebec lieutenant Denis Coderre. The Quebec wing of the party has yet to recover from that episode and, along with it, the leader’s standing in a province where the Liberals need to make gains if they are to have a shot at government in the next election.

At the time of that collision, Chrétien signalled that he believed the Liberals should still fight the next campaign under Ignatieff and, presumably, as a stand-alone party. It should come as no surprise that the message that he has now come to a different conclusion on both scores is resonating loudly within Liberal ranks.

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