Not long after Thomas Mulcair became NDP leader, the Bloc Quebecois proposed a motion to abolish the federal Clarity Act, arguing once again that a simple majority of 50 per cent plus one is a sufficient mandate to negotiate the separation of Quebec from Canada. The BQ motion — the party’s most significant action since being reduced to four seats in the 2011 federal election — backed the NDP into an unwelcome national unity corner that haunts them to this day.

Mulcair, calculating correctly that a blanket rejection of the Bloc motion would both outrage nationalist Quebecers and violate his party’s own policy, tabled an NDP bill supportive of a simple referendum majority so long as the ballot question clearly delineates between continued provincial status and outright sovereignty.

Mulcair undoubtedly must be running on a few assumptions about the state of Quebec politics and Canadian federalism before proposing the controversial legislation, which he’s calling the “unity bill”.

Given the radical shift in support from the BQ to the NDP in 2011, Mulcair must be reasoning that Quebecers have warmed somewhat to the federalist cause. And since Quebecers have rejected separatism twice — in 1980 and 1995, during much headier times and in response to a vague ballot question — he must be gambling that the bill, while controversial in the ROC, is low-risk.

What Mulcair did not foresee was a rift within his party as the PQ gained majority-level public support due to its xenophobic “values charter”, which is wildly popular among francophone voters. He radically underestimated the skittishness of Western Canadians when confronted with even the whiff of another national unity crisis.

It is this profound fear of Quebec’s separation that led former Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow to come out against his party’s unity bill last weekend.

“I just don’t accept its consequences or its potential consequences,” the NDP elder statesman told the Canadian Press, adding that anything less than 100 per cent voter turnout in a referendum would mean less than half of Quebec’s eligible voters could precipitate the break-up of Canada.

Romanow’s arguments are valid and important, and most Canadians would agree that something more than 50-per-cent-plus-one is required to destroy the country as we know it.

To Quebecers, Mulcair presents New Democrats as the champions of democracy and Quebec’s self-determination. To the rest of Canada, he provides a winking assurance that a referendum is unlikely.

In many ways, Mulcair is saying one thing to Quebecers and another to Western Canadians.

To Quebecers, he presents New Democrats as the champions of democracy and Quebec’s self-determination. To the rest of Canada, he provides a winking assurance that a referendum is unlikely.

But Western Canadians like Romanow aren’t buying the double standard, whether on national unity or other policies where the New Democrats have favoured the interests of Quebec.

Shortly after his election as NDP leader, Mulcair diagnosed Canada as suffering from a case of ‘Dutch disease,’ whereby the Alberta oilsands inflate the value of the Canadian dollar and hurt Ontario manufacturing. He also has come out against the Northern Gateway and Keystone XL pipelines in favour of a proposed route channelling oil from Alberta to Quebec.

The gambit, meant to unite Quebec progressives, Ontario labourers and B.C. environmentalists, has alienated the resource-rich Prairie provinces. Indeed, former Manitoba NDP premier and current ambassador to the United States Gary Doer is a vocal proponent of Keystone.

Mulcair’s cautious manoeuvring on the Canada/European Union Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA), whereby the party withholds its support until the full text of the agreement is released, was meant to placate both pro-trade Quebecers and Western protectionists integral to the NDP’s electoral base. It has failed to silence the latter, however, as they grow suspicious of the party’s growing “neo-liberalism.”

Finally, Mulcair’s skilful caucus gag order on the Quebec student movement ensured the New Democrats weren’t held accountable for the fractious debate raging in the province over tuition fees, students’ right to strike and the threat to constitutional freedoms posed by Jean Charest’s Bill 78. But the NDP’s silence led to speculation from supportive civil society actors like the Canadian Federation of Students and various unions that the party was betraying its traditional ties to the labour movement and abandoning progressive social policies.

These are the consequences of the NDP’s tendency under Mulcair to conceive of Canada as a series of provincial silos. Look no further than the inordinate time Mulcair has dedicated to the Senate controversy and the Lac-Megantic tragedy in question period, both issues that resonate predominantly in Quebec.

University of Winnipeg professor and expert on Canadian socialism, Allen Mills, put it succinctly in an op-ed for the Winnipeg Free Press in the summer of 2011:

“Reasoning that English Canada wanted a strong central government and Quebec a strong provincial government, the NDP concluded: Why not have a country in which both existed? … Canada would have two nations, one governed from Quebec City and the other from Ottawa.”

Under Mulcair, the NDP has crafted policies in order to appeal to Quebec City while assuming Ottawa would recognize their tactical brilliance. In fact, the rest of Canada has recognized only their fundamental cynicism.

Roy Romanow’s comments don’t just signal a small policy rift among New Democrats but rather the impossibility of the NDP as a modern Canadian brokerage party.

For better or worse, the NDP is firmly, and perhaps irrevocably, rooted in Quebec.

Ethan Cabel, Hons. BA Political Science from the University of Winnipeg, is an Ottawa-based freelance writer. He enters graduate studies in political studies this fall.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.