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"New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton (sorry, prime-minister-in-waiting Jack Layton) is having a splendid election campaign," The Globe's Jeffrey Simpson wrote Saturday in his column How can voters take the NDP seriously?

"He always does.

"Mr. Layton is an excellent talker, indefatigable, focused, experienced in the black arts of exaggeration, always on the attack and not taken seriously by the media.

"Well, that's not entirely fair. The media take him seriously as a player in the media narrative of reporting politics: as a horse in a political race, doing well at the turn, slowing a bit here, gaining momentum there, depending on the results of the latest poll(s).

"Nobody expects the NDP to win, or even become the Official Opposition. So Mr. Layton can say just about whatever he likes — scatter promises with political impunity — secure in the knowledge that neither the media nor the other parties will subject what he says to scrutiny.

He can even take to affirming what a government led by "Prime Minister Jack Layton" would do, without anybody pricking the absurdity and pomposity of the pretense . . .

"But, hey, campaigns are mostly about rhetoric, horse-race coverage, promises, television ads, good guys and bad guys, broad visions.

"If anyone thought the NDP had a remote chance to form a government, serious attention might be paid to what the leader is actually saying. Fortunately for Mr. Layton, that doesn't happen."

Whether you agree or not, it's a provocative argument. That's why we at globeandmail.com are pleased that Mr. Simpson came online on Monday to take your questions on his column, on the NDP and on the campaign so far.

Your questions and Mr. Simpson's answers appear at the bottom of this page.

Mr. Simpson has won all three of Canada's leading literary prizes — the Governor-General's award for non-fiction book writing, the National Magazine Award for political writing, and the National Newspaper Award for column writing (twice). He has also won the Hyman Solomon Award for excellence in public policy journalism. In January 2000, he became an Officer of the Order of Canada.

He joined The Globe and Mail in 1974. His career with the newspaper began at City Hall in Toronto and with coverage of Quebec politics. In 1977, he became a member of the paper's Ottawa bureau, and eighteen months later he was named The Globe and Mail's Ottawa bureau chief. From 1981-1983, Mr. Simpson served as The Globe's European correspondent based in London, England. He began writing his national affairs column in January, 1984.

Mr. Simpson has published six books — Discipline of Power (1980); Spoils of Power (1988); Faultlines, Struggling for a Canadian Vision (1993); The Anxious Years (1996) and Star-Spangled Canadians (2000). His most recent book, The Friendly Dictatorship: Reflections on Canadian Democracy (2001), was nominated for the Donner Prize as the best book on public policy.

Editor's Note: globeandmail.com editors will read and allow or reject each question/comment. Comments/questions may be edited for length or clarity. HTML is not allowed. We will not publish questions/comments that include personal attacks on participants in these discussions, that make false or unsubstantiated allegations, that purport to quote people or reports where the purported quote or fact cannot be easily verified, or questions/comments that include vulgar language or libellous statements. Preference will be given to readers who submit questions/comments using their full name and home town, rather than a pseudonym.

Tenille Bonoguore, globeandmail.com: Good afternoon, Jeffrey, and thank you so much for joining us today. Before we dive into the many submitted questions, can you please tell us how much of an impact you believe the NDP will have at the ballot box this Oct. 14?

Jeffrey Simpson: Thank you, Tenille. The NDP, as its top people will tell you, always struggles with a dilemma at the end of a campaign in which it appears the Conservatives might win: How do they position themselves as the best party to "stop" the Conservative majority? Instinctively, more people believe the Liberals, as historically the larger party, are better positioned to accomplish objective, and votes tend to flow their way at the end, rather than to the NDP. In this campaign, Mr. Layton is clearly more highly regarded that Mr. Dion (who isn't?), and therefore this drain towards the Liberals might not happen. It has been surprising to me that thus far the NDP does not appear to have been much hurt by the improved performance of the Greens.

Baldev Sood, Toronto writes: "There is no better man between Layton, Dion and Harper. For personal advantage, I will vote Harper; for national advantage, I will vote Layton; and for universal good, I will vote Dion." Jeffrey, how common do you believe that break-down to be?)

Jeffrey Simpson: Baldev, I suppose there are some people who might see things that way. In most cases, if people are voting on "strong leadership," Harper will beat the other two all the time, especially Dion whose numbers in this area are catastrophically bad.

Miles Lunn, Toronto: Hello Jeffrey Simpson, I was wondering with the polls now showing the NDP almost even with the Liberals if there is at least a potential danger of a greater polarization in Canadian politics between the left and right, with little middle ground. Historically we had the Progressive Conservatives and Liberals both close to the centre, but after the rise of the Reform Party and its dominance in the Conservatives, we've seen a far more ideological right. Could we see the same thing on the left? And what happens to centrist? Is there any hope of returning the politics of consensus and compromise, rather than division and polarization?

Jeffrey Simpson: Miles, There was one poll, and only one (Angus Reid's latest) that showed the Liberals and NDP tied at 21. All other polls have shown a spread, including today's Harris/Decima poll that shows an almost 10 point spread. (Pardon me, I'm going from memory here.) Clearly the Liberal decline has narrowed the gap between them and the NDP. Something essential to understand: In that Angus Reid data, if you did down deep, you find Liberals who are leaving their party, or intending to, are going much more to the Conservatives than to the NDP. In other words, Liberals who worry about losing votes to the NDP are looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

If there were a two-party system, yes, there is every reason to believe that there might be sharper polarization in the political system. On the other hand, if the NDP did become the alternative to a centre-right govenrment, they would have to become much more sensible, and they would never run on the fairy-tale platform that they released yesterday. If you look at those Angus Reid numbers I alluded to earlier, Jack Layton gets very high marks for his environmental concern and abysmal marks for knowing how to run an economy. Ultimately, that's what people vote on when it comes to issues. I'm in B.C. this morning. People here haven't forgotten the NDP years, just as they haven't in Ontario, at least above a certain age.

S.G., Montreal: Hi Mr. Simpson, thanks for your always-excellent coverage. My question concerns this: all the leaders, as well as individual candidates from each party, are full of promises they likely can't keep, and aim to stake out territory in the land of rhetoric. Jack Layton is no exception, but as you state, he has to blow harder to be noticed (much like Gilles Duceppe, and to a lesser degree, the barely-audible voice of novice Elizabeth May).

But with some clear momentum and voter preferences shifting in the big cities, the NDP does have a slim chance to be the Opposition, or at least a bit closer to it, for the first time ever. Is it not possible that the NDP may finally have started to 'grow up' and that it's at last ready to play with the big guys?

Jeffrey Simpson: S.G., I don't see much evidence of this "growing up" in the platform. Sorry. I would love to have seen it. Look, here's the fundamental problem I have with the federal NDP, some aspect of which I greatly admire: They simply do not like or trust the free-market system. I took along Jack Layton's first book with me on a flight out west. I had a yellow marker, and I wanted to underline the passage where he had something good to say about the market, so I could write a column about this "new" NDP leader who had learned from the successful NDP governments in Manitoba and Saskatchewan and Western Europe. I never once used my marker. Nothing has fundamentally changed, and until it does, the NDP will never vie for power in a serious fashion.

Kenneth Radu, Montreal: Agreeing with your premise that the NDP will not, perhaps ever, form the government, do you believe that a substantial number of NDPers in parliament could influence legislation for the better? Historically, have they not been in a position where they exerted beneficial pressure?

Jeffrey Simpson: Kenneth, It depends what you mean by beneificial. If it means more spending on social programs, yes, that is something more NDPers in parliament would certainly stand for. If it means other policy areas, that's a matter of personal political preference.

Matthew Harper, Toronto: In my opinion Jack Layton has run a very respectable campaign so far. But I'm concerned that an NDP government would be too populist, at the expense of truly planning for the future. My question is: Do you think that the NDP platform/ideology dis-incentivizes higher education?

Jeffrey Simpson: Matthew, No, it doesn't "deincentivize" (whatever that means) higher education. The NDP federally and provincially has been preoccupied by student access, fees, debt, which are perfectly respectable concerns. The party has been less interested in research, class sizes etc. Things have improved significantly in terms of university financing compared to a decade ago, largely because of the outstanding policies introduced by the Chretien-Martin government and continued by the Harper government. Similarly, fees went up in B.C. that helped the universities here, although recently government spending has not kept pace. Alberta and Ontario have invested, too, in their schools. We still are not investing enough, but provinces are boxed in by their burgeoning health-care budgets and cannot find the cash for the additional investments.

Shanaz Joan Parsan, Edgewater, U.S.: Hi Jeffrey, Thanks for taking questions. Do you think that the current polls really reflect the Election Day expected outcome or just frustration at this time? If there is some sort of alliance on the left, what concessions will Layton have to make for this (as he will never be given PM as he wants)?

Jeffrey Simpson: Shanaz, I am tempted to ask you what thoughts you might have about the U.S. election that is so interesting AND consequential. But I digress...

There will not an an "alliance on the left" before the election, and Jack Layton won't be making any concessions to anybody. Why should he? He thinks he's got the wind in his sails, and the national media is buying into the narrative. Let's put it this way: if ever the NDP is going to break out of its historic 14-18 per cent share of the popular vote, it's got to be this time, what with a very unpopular Liberal leader, the Liberal Party struggling, a Conservative Party that is having trouble growing, an experienced NDP leader and a well-financed NDP campaign, eye-popping electoral promises, and something easy to run against, a carbon tax. With all that going for the NDP, if the party can't break 20 per cent, I can't imagine when it will.

Kenneth Yurchuk, Toronto: Mr. Simpson, you appear to regard the New Democrats with very thinly disguised contempt (some might call it openly sneering disgust). Doesn't that make you a rather odd choice of person to fairly and reasonably discuss NDP politics and policy on an open forum?

Jeffrey Simpson: Kenneth, I find this comment amusing but not untypical. I have taken apart the Conservative policies regularly and vigorously on taxes, climate change, children's policy, foreign policy, and am accused of being anti-Conservative. I recently wrote about the many weaknesses in the Liberal platform, and am accused of being a Harper slave. I called the Green Party platform in many areas bordering on ridiculous. But when I say the NDP positions on basic economic questions are flawed, I am accused by irate NDPers as having some kind of hate on for the party. I suspect that New Democrats' deep sense of moral superiority makes them particular thin-skinned.

Steven Langdon, Ottawa: Why should a discussion framed in these pejorative terms take place the day after Layton has released a well-documented and comprehensive policy platform? Why not a substantive discussion of the alternative choices that the NDP platform advances? As an M.P. I worked with excellent NDP governments in Manitoba and Saskatchewan that managed provincial economic development well, and made responsible taxation decisions to counter deficits.

Jeffrey Simpson: Steven, Very nice to hear from you. I have spent I don't know how many years writing that there is much that the federal NDP, of which you were a part, could and should learn from those provincial NDP parties. Alas, the federal party was always reluctant, indeed often hostile, because major elements of the federal NDP did not believe their provincial cousins had kept faith with ideology, had been too pragmatic. Many an NDP convention that I attended underscored this split. I remember in particular a big NDP convention in Winnipeg at which Premier Gary Doer spoke. He gave a speech in which he listed six or seven points for NDP success. The applause he received was polite, nothing more.

You used to represent a heavily unionized district in Windsor, and it was often the industrial unions in Ontario that held sway within the federal NDP that were so skeptical of the prairie NDP parties. What's fascinating to me, by the way, (and you would be interested if not heartened by this) is that when I started writing about politics three decades ago, the NDP were very strong in rural Saskatchewan and parts of central, rural Manitoba. The farmer-union alliance that was supposedly at the heart of the CCF and then the NDP was still in evidence. There was an area of west-central rural Saskatchewan that was called Red Square. Now, both provincially and federally, the NDP is nowhere in rural Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Geoff Ondercin-Bourne, Hamilton: Jeffrey, now that it looks as if the Liberals have no more chance of winning this election than the NDP, why target the latter rather than the former in your attack?

Jeffrey Simpson: Geoff, See the answer to Kenneth above. I did a tough analysis of the Liberal platform, but I didn't hear you complaining, and I have been all over the Conservatives, and I didn't hear from you.

Here's one prism through which I try to judge these parties: productivity and competitiveness. Our capacity to continue to generate the national wealth we need to pay for social programs and to raise incomes depends on our ability to improve in these areas.

Our record, as you know, has been very poor, and this means that our standard of living in real terms will not increase. To do this, we need, among other things, compeitive business tax rates (that the NDP proposes to push up from the anticipated 15 per cent to 22, really really dumb), lower marginal tax rates on low- and moderate-income people, investments in research and innovation, free trade (that every economist knows brings net economic gains) and a bunch of other things. By this standard, none of the party platforms measures up, and I say so every chance I get.

Another point, I happen to think greenhouse gas emissions/global warming is an issue for our time and future generations. I happen to think that a carbon tax, properly structured, is the best policy instrument, although I realize it's a political loser. So all right, we go the NDP (and U.S.) route of a cap-and-trade for large industries. I'm for that, too. But let's not kid ourselves. The costs of that system on industries will be passed on to consumers, something the NDP doesn't mention because it's easier to say "let the big polluters pay," there is no offset for low-income people when these costs are passed on, and about half the emissions are untouched (vehicles, buildings, agriculture etc.) To get at some of these, the NDP proposes the usual mix of subsidies, that we have seen time and again don't work very well.

Tom Shaffer, Victoria: I wholly agree that Jack Layton could not, in all probability, form the next government of Canada. However, I do not discount the possibility that he could become the leader of the opposition in either a majority government or a minority government led by Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party. Do you agree that this scentario is possible and that if it happens, the Liberal Party of Canada will reorganize under new leadership and emerge much stronger than it is today?

Jeffrey Simpson: Tom, it is possible that the NDP could secure more seats that the Liberals because, despite the first-past-the-post system that the NDP always rails against, their votes are rather bunched and could therefore produce more seats than the Liberals whose seats are spread out.

Both these parties are enormously weak in wide swaths of the country: the Liberals almost everywhere west of Ontario and throughout much of Quebec; the NDP in rural Canada, suburban Canada (except parts of Vancouver), Alberta and most of Quebec, all of PEI, most of Newfoundland.

The Liberals I talk to are already talking about post-Dion scenarios, without any of them having a clear sense of who his replacement might be and how and when that would come about. The Liberals do need a fundamental re-think of who they are, and where they might fit into the Canada. They are losing some support among the ethnic voters, too, because the Conservatives are effectively talking to some of these groups about issues that matter such as tight-knit families, entrepreneurship etc.

But, by the way, the dog that hasn't barked in the night in this campaign is why the Conservatives are not doing better, to this point. We might remember that in almost every campaign, the incumbent party loses ground in a campaign, courtesy of the hammering it takes from th combined forces of the opposition. And there are a lot of negatives out there about Mr. Harper, just as many as his positives, and the Conservative campaign revolves exclusively around him.

Tenille Bonoguore, globeandmail.com: Many thanks for your time today, Jeffrey, and thanks also to our readers for submitting questions. To finish up, could you please tell us how you believe the NDP would react if the party did land Official Opposition status, or caused the upset of the century to win the election?

Jeffrey Simpson: Tenille, The NDP isn't going to win the election, although it might win the campaign in the sense of doing better. We shall see. The threshold for the NDP is 18 per cent. They've never gone higher. With everything else going their way, plus their own campaign going well, they should break that barrier this time. If they don't, there will be a lot of soul-searching. Were they to return with more seats than the Liberals, it would be an earthquake in Canadian politics, that's for sure. Thank you.