A minority government in Quebec has left federal New Democrats with little choice but to shelve plans for a provincial New Democratic party in la belle province, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says.

In an interview that aired Sunday on Radio-Canada's Les Coulisses du Pouvoir, Mulcair told host Emmanuelle Latraverse while there's a lot of demand from the party's base for a provincial party, a minority government means another provincial election could be triggered at any time.

The NDP leader said the prospect of facing a provincial electorate while readying for a federal election in 2015 would "split the party's resources."

"We don't have the resources to do both at the same time," said Mulcair speaking from Montreal where the Quebec wing of the federal NDP gathered for their biennial convention this weekend.

While delegates debated the idea of forming a provincial party on Saturday, Mulcair made his position clear on Sunday.

"My first priority is to beat Stephen Harper and his Conservatives in 2015," Mulcair told Latraverse. "There's a lot of work cut out for us but we'll get there because the stakes are high."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/11/04/pol-tom-mulcair-provincial-ndp-in-quebec-on-hold.html

muclair basically made a mistake when he announced without any consultation that the ndp would run candidates in the next provincial election. one third of federal NDP voters in 2011 were from people who self-identify as sovereigntist. at the same time, justin trudeau seems to be peeling off federalists. if sovereigntists believed that the NDP was reasserting federalism and endangering the PQ government then it is likely they would have returned to the Bloc fold or stayed home. it would have also caused a lot of division among party activists, given that there are a number of NDP supporters in quebec solidaire, a small (6% of vote) provincial socialist party.