For all the Canucks on the forum, what do you think would have happened, or what would it have took, for Broadbent and the NDP to rise into power in Canada? Broadbent is considered by most to be the best leader the NDP ever had, so what could it have taken to have Broadbent be PM?
ASBs?
The NDP has a smallish steady minority of voters, heavily concentrated geographically. It's a bit hard to imagine them forming the government. About the only way I could seriously imagine it would be if the Liberals managed to self-destruct (the way the PCs did under Mulroney and Kim Campbell), leaving essentially a one party state (with the PC's filling the role of Chretien's Liberals). The vacuum on the left would have to be filled, and the NDP could move far enough to the centre to take over, instead of a revived phoenix Liberal party. But I just don't really see that happening.
Note that OTL, Reform had to merge and re-brand before they got into power.
To meet PART of the challenge, a Liberal-NDP coalition with Broadbent as leader because he was more trustworthy would be possible. Of course, any time the NDP supported Liberal minority governments, they lost ground in the next election, so I'm not real sure they'd do well / last past a single term, but they might try.