As of Tuesday night, Canadian politics is going to change for the worse — for Conservatives, for Liberals, for independents. But the New Democratic Party won’t give a damn.

As of Tuesday night — and if successive polls are correct - the Parti Quebecois will win power in Quebec. And, as of Tuesday night, separatism (or the threat of it) will once again start to dominate our national agenda and paralyze our politics. The NDP, however, don’t care about that. Because, among other things, the New Democrats have quietly transformed themselves into the successor to the Bloc Quebecois in the House of Commons. The NDP are the separatists’ Trojan Horse in Ottawa.

And that is a development that should concern everyone who cares about Canada.

It’s been a long time in the making. In last year’s federal election, scores of Bloquistes transformed themselves into New Democrats. As QMI’s Jean-Louis Fortin reported many months ago, the separatist vote collapsed in Quebec because the NDP had successfully — and deliberately — cultivated the support of those who wish to break up Canada. As Fortin documented, Alexandre Boulerice, the NDP MP for Montreal’s Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie riding, “proudly confessed to QMI Agency he continues to campaign for Quebec Solidaire, the provincial leftist party that promotes independence.” Meanwhile, former NDP leadership candidate Romeo Saganash, MP for the northern Quebec riding of Abitibi-Baie-James-Nunavik-Eeyou, also openly supports sovereignty. So does Claude Patry, the NDP representative for the Jonquiere-Alma riding.

The NDP was infiltrated by Quebec separatists about 20 years ago, Fortin noted. Dozens of the New Democrats’ Quebec MPs have supported separatism in the past, or quietly still do so.

There’s a reason for that. The NDP, unlike the Tories and the Grits, has proclaimed a policy that separatists adore. They call it the Sherbrooke Declaration. The Sherbrooke Declaration is the NDP’s official Quebec policy. Among other things, it cynically states that appealling to Quebec separatists is “a cornerstone” of a future NDP government. To do that, the declaration declares, the NDP will re-open the Constitution to grant Quebec special status. This will be done in “the medium term,” whatever that means.

The threat at the centre of the declaration — the threat the NDP pose, quite literally, wherever they hold power or the balance of power — will be seen when there is another referendum on “sovereignty.” The NDP — as defended by Jack Layton and now Thomas Mulcair — will accept that Canada can be broken up with a single vote. Fifty percent plus one. That’s it.

The problem with that, of course, is that it is against the law and common sense. Both the Clarity Act and the Supreme Court of Canada have made clear that there needs to be a clear question, a clear majority and a clean process before the separatists can get what they want.

But the NDP, as noted, don’t give a sweet damn about that. They’ve got the Sherbrooke Declaration, and they’ve got a caucus overflowing with crypto-separatists. As of Tuesday night, none of that is academic anymore. As of Tuesday night, it matters.

The NDP — whether in this week’s Ontario byelections, or in Tuesday night’s Quebec election outcome — are a manifest threat to Canadian unity.