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It is a remarkable event in Canadian history. No, not the opposition parties' apparent decision to bring down a government they can't beat in an election. They were promising to do that in the early spring. It isn't even remarkable that they believe the Governor-General has no other choice but to ask Stéphane Dion to form a government. The precedent they cite - Lord Byng asking Arthur Meighen to form a government in 1926 after he had won more seats than Mackenzie King's Liberals in the most recent election - is in no way similar to our present circumstance.

No, what is truly remarkable is the ability of one leader, Jack Layton, to sign away his party without so much as a “by your leave” for rank-and-file New Democrats.

When the Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives decided to form the Conservative Party of Canada, after a long negotiation, there were separate referendums in each party. Mr. Layton appears to have had one telephone conference call with New Democratic MPs.

What of the determined social democrats who resent Bob Rae's defection, or have never forgiven Michael Ignatieff's initial support for the Bush Doctrine in Iraq? What about those who were offended by Paul Martin's slash-and-burn cuts to provincial social transfer payments, which imperilled welfare, health care and postsecondary education? Well, they and the Liberals they campaigned against could form one putative, presumptive government now, with the support of Quebec's sovereigntists.

Now, whatever one's view of the present government, it is a much more serious defection from social democratic principles to see the New Democrats acting as a fold-in mascot for a government led by Mr. Dion, whose tax, defence and environmental policies they have opposed.

Political larceny and power are irresistible to any Liberal - you can't blame them for being unable to restrain themselves. The Pavlovian Liberal response, without consulting party membership, should not surprise, even for those who might bridle at being in bed with “bring them home now” NDP policy on Afghanistan or “close the tar sands” energy policy. Like alcoholics, they have no control when it comes to power.

However, the principled, populist, kitchen table New Democrats - they were supposed to believe in a coherent view of how a fair and equitable society should operate. To desert this for a mess of potage like six cabinet seats seems to sell out Tommy Douglas, David Lewis, M. J. Coldwell and J. S. Woodsworth for very little indeed.

Furthermore, if the Liberals and their NDP and Bloc allies pull this off, the Tories will face three incumbent parties having to defend what happens in the next few months. Will the NDP and Bloc have real questions for their spawn in Parliament? And what of NDP commitments on social justice or health care?

The left began disappearing this week in Canada, getting squeezed into an odd separatist-centralist Liberal/Bloc ménage. If the NDP campaigned for a mandate to do this, they kept it very quiet (as did the Bloc). That the Liberals did not campaign on a coalition is not unusual. Historically, from the days of Pierre Trudeau's attack on Robert Stanfield's “price and wage freeze,” which Mr. Trudeau campaigned against vigorously yet brought in after the election, expecting any relationship between platform and policy has been generalized folly.

But the New Democrats? They used to be different, even when their policy prescriptions were naive or unduly statist, their motives, purposes and integrity were clear.

Canada will suffer from the absence of a coherent left-centre party that always defends collective bargaining, social justice and a creative and humanizing role for the state. This will cost the quality of our national debate for decades to come. Surrendering that clarity to Liberal political appetites and Bloc manipulation is an act of political desertion and abdication of staggering proportions.

Card-carrying New Democrats across the country were not even given a vote on the matter by Jack Layton, Ed Broadbent or Thomas Mulcair. For a party with the NDP's traditions and heritage, that is truly remarkable.

Hugh Segal is a senior fellow at the Queen's School of Policy Studies and the junior Conservative Senator from Ontario.