What could have happened...

We can't really fault Dion, can we? After all, it was he who said "Do you think it is easy to make priorities?

Apparently it's easier to make priorities when you have leaders of two competing parties assigning them to you, and explaining what they are.

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In an alternate universe here's what could have happened:

Harper proposes the elimination of the $1.95 / vote subsidy.

Liberals either accept it or don't.
- if they take it, they suffer financially for awhile, but bounce back leaner and more focussed, as the Conservatives did not so long ago.
- if they don't:

NDP sees an opportunity:
-They are already grass-roots, and will have less to lose by this plan.
-They would have a tactical advantage over the Libs in the next election (financially), and perhaps usurp the Libs as the federalist Left option
-They could wear the white hats for participating in a plan that financially chokes off the Separatists, and make them irrelevant for perhaps a full generation.

Neither Liberals nor NDP did so.

Thus, they chose the other option, of validating the Bloc, emboldening the separatists, and as a bonus, stoking separatists sentiments in the West.

Good goin' boneheads!