OTTAWA - I truly hate to resurrect the post-May 2nd "can the Liberals survive" debate, but recent developments in the NDP leadership campaign have added a new element to the plot. The commentariat has been obsessed with arguing about whether or not the Liberals can continue as a centrist party. Questions on this matter have centered on the efficacy of a Liberal/NDP merger, and whether the Liberals should shift left in good Trudeaupian fashion or shift right in solidarity with Chretien.

But perhaps the more fundamental question is this: can the Liberals hold onto their status as Canada's inner urban party?

A quick look at a map of Canada, divided by riding, shows the weakness, plain as day. The Liberals have been confined to the backwaters of the downtown core. They have become the party of Newfoundland and downtown Toronto, but this isn't just the reality of May 2nd. Look further back into Parliaments past and you can see the slow decline of Liberal opportunities outside of the downtown.

In 2008, Liberal Party support was relegated almost exclusively to Toronto and Montreal. Only a sliver of other regions, particularly on the East Coast, produced any seats for the centrist party.

In 2004, the problem was less omnipresent. Predictably, urban cores backed the Liberals strongly. But the right-leaning fiscal policies of Paul Martin seemed to play well in suburban, central, and rural Ontario, where the Protestant/Loyalist settler culture is die hard, and resulting conservative tendencies run deep.

Fast forward from 2004 to the present, and one can see a steady trend of diminishing Liberal support outside of urban areas. It can even be seen in the Ontario provincial election, where a sharp divide has emerged showing Liberal consolidation in Toronto while the suburban edge of Ontario shifted right to Tim Hudak's Progressive Conservatives.

The Liberal Party is at a critical juncture. It must expand beyond this perennial metropolitan constituency, but it also cannot afford to lose that same constituency.

Can the Liberals maintain control of the downtowns of Canada? Take a look at today's Toronto. It certainly brings Liberal urban domination into question. Downtown ridings were equally likely to elect NDP candidates as they were Liberals. Meanwhile, the Tories have penetrated the outer edges and have only shored up their siege of the inner city by way of Toronto's suburban ridings.

NDP gains on May 2nd were almost exclusively in Quebec. Only a handful of seats swung the NDP's way in English Canada. But what happened in Toronto is a promising light of hope for urban social justice activists and unionists hoping to build a new NDP constituency in Canada's urban areas. It also demonstrates that Liberal downtown fortresses aren't as impregnable as they once seemed. Corners of the NDP leadership field have recognized this opportunity and acted on it.

NDP leadership candidate Paul Dewar recently announced a key plank in his leadership platform for just this purpose: a multi-million dollar "urban strategy" in opposition to Stephen Harper's supposed inability to "work hand in hand" with cities. This urban strategy includes a massive extension of EI and pension benefits to new categories of workers concentrated in cities. It also includes a national housing strategy and national transit strategy.

Canada's NDP, at the provincial and federal levels, has always involved a tug of war between two factions. The Prairie-farmer wing of their party shares many of the populist tendencies of the old Reform party, while the ideological New Left NDP, exemplified in the social justice activists and unionists at the party's core, represent new urban opportunities.

It is a telling sign that talk of "national strategies" remains deeply unpopular outside of the downtowns. The majority of voting Canadians, particularly in Canada's culturally conservative suburban and rural areas, remain deeply skeptical of big government national strategies. Meanwhile, the promise of wide scale intervention into the lives of "barbaric" non-urbanites is a tempting offer for the interventionist voters of Canada's inner cities.

Dewar's largely un-costed, but clearly expensive, urban strategy is a clear play to energize urban support for the NDP. If implemented in a federal election, it would represent a major assault on the left wing of the Liberal Party, with the potential of taking away the remainder of that party's Toronto seats.

Were I a part of the Liberal leadership, I would begin seriously considering what I could offer my urban backers to prevent an NDP sweep of downtown cores across the nation. If the Liberals have any hope of returning to form, they must expand beyond the metropolis. They simply won't have that opportunity if they can't even hold on to Toronto.