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What does all that spell? You only have to listen to what party leader Elizabeth May has been saying of late. Earlier in the year she had seemed to rule out supporting the Conservatives in a minority. But since the summer she has taken to saying she could support either party, so long as it had a credible plan for dealing with climate change. Whether either party does, at present, at least to the Greens’ satisfaction, is another matter: May is holding out hope that each might be persuaded to adopt one, in exchange for power.

Further confirmation might be found in May’s remarkable statement at last week’s “emergency” meeting of the Commons ethics committee, in response to the federal ethics commissioner’s report on the SNC-Lavalin affair. “The prime minister,” she said, “is guilty of the kind of offence for which resignation is appropriate.” May has been accused of being too friendly with the Liberals in general, and the prime minister in particular. Her recent rhetoric implies not just that she might be willing to hold her nose and support the Conservatives, but that she would have to hold her nose to support either party.

That’s smart strategy, I think. By leaving open the possibility of propping up a Conservative government, May actually takes some of the air out of the Tories’ “majority or bust” strategy. But it does leave an opening for the increasingly desperate NDP. And that is to present themselves as the “real” voice of the left, pure and uncompromising where the Greens are wishy-washy and opportunistic, steady and experienced where the Greens are drunk on their newfound popularity. Hence Singh’s Thursday statement. The message, amplified in subsequent statements by NDP MPs: perhaps the Greens might be willing to do deals with the hated Tories, but the NDP is not.

I don’t say that is Singh’s thinking. I only say that’s what it might be, and that if it were, it would not be entirely mistaken. After all, what else has he got?