So desperate are the federal NDP to disprove their irrelevance that they have taken to meddling in the affairs of the private sector media.

The NDP are calling on Ottawa to halt the blockbuster merger between Izzy Asper's CanWest Global and Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc.

At best it is a desperate attempt to make national headlines. Or worse, it is a firm belief that government has a legitimate role in deciding what news and information people should be exposed to.

The logic behind the NDP's regulated media market goes like this: to enhance the freedom of the press, limits must be placed on press freedoms. Media outlets must not grow too fast. That is scary. No media outlet should have an audience much bigger than another. That is not fair.

The NDP's outrage over media consolidation is tactical not principled. If the NDP had their way, they would probably expropriate and nationalize Canada's media landscape and place it firmly in control of some sedentary central committee beholden to its political masters.

That explains why the NDP called for an Order-in-Council instead of parliamentary debate and voting to scrub the media merger. Why bother with pesky pretenses like democracy when governments can rule by decree It is far more efficient.

The CanWest-Hollinger merger is first and foremost nobody's concern. It is good and well to comment on the deal but it is bad form to try and scuttle it. If two consenting companies voluntarily enter into a business contract, no one - Ottawa included - has any business meddling in their affairs. Premier Doer was right to tell his federal party counterparts to buzz-off.

Secondly, the hysterics over media concentration hardly add up. When the dust settles on the merger, CanWest will control only 29 percent of average daily circulation in Canada, compared to Quebecor at 21 percent and Torstar with 13 percent. Competition is alive and well.

The NDP disregard global pressures that allow puny Canadian media outlets to fall prey to American Goliaths. How long will it be before Canada's cultural protection laws bend or break to U.S pressure

In the rapidly changing media industry, not unlike federal politics, the law of the jungle is "swallow or be swallowed". A broadcaster like CanWest, however successful by Canadian standards, is no match for other multi-national media conglomerates like the planned merger between AOL and Time Warner. If Canada is to challenge the American heavyweights, it needs to develop its own contenders.

I'm sure The NDP would agree that the "market of ideas" is best protected and nurtured by the freedom of the press. That includes not only the freedom to print as it sees fit, but to expand as it wills.