i don't remember bob rae either, but i'm educated enough on the history to understand what the ndp are all about: they're a controlled opposition party that campaigns on the left and governs on the right, which is where their history in fire and brimstone prairie populism is.

their founder, tommy douglas, was basically a nazi.

throughout the years, there's always been reasons to keep them out. they've held homophobic positions, racist positions, xenophobic positions, backwards positions on trade, weird positions on the constitution, bizarre positions on sovereignty, scary ideas about electoral reform - ideas that smart people have, in the end, usually rejected. sometimes, they produce good mps, and you want them on committee. but, you've generally wanted to keep the way they think - this "progressive" ideology - out of government, because it just leads to calvinism and eugenics, in the end.

the liberals have always been the more secular and more humanist party. and, they've always done the heavy lifting, in the end.