The problem with a political party that never held power is, as time wears on, victory as elusive as ever, the perpetual underdog tends to lean harder on us-against-them rhetoric.

Underneath the silver Queen of the Yukon plane hanging from the Yukon Transportation Museum's ceiling, NDP Leader Jack Layton delivered such a speech Saturday evening.

It certainly satisfied the party faithful, gathered for a weekend political action conference organized by the Yukon Federation of Labour, but revealed there's nothing new in Layton's bag of polemics.

So why hasn't he managed to win a government since taking the reins of the Green and Orange machine in 2003?

Because a slew of political adversaries, both past and present, spanning Canada and the world, are hindering democratic socialist aspirations everywhere. According to Layton, current foes standing between New Democrats and power are old school politics propped up by big business.

"Bay Street has their political parties ...one's in Red and one's in Blue. They can change the sweaters back and forth but it's the same agenda under the sweater, ultimately," Layton said.

While blue sweaters remain utterly abhorrent to him, the red ones were not distasteful enough (at least back in December 2008) for the NDP to join forces with, spawning the coalition alternative to Stephen Harper's minority Conservatives.

That brief power gambit relegated to the history books, Layton now seeks commonality outside Canada's borders to bolster his flock.

"Let's join with the family of nations globally that are turning towards new policies and a new direction. Turning its back on years of Reagan, Thatcher, George Bush, and then the other George Bush and Mulroney and Stephen Harper."

Ah, yes. Think globally, then lash out locally. It formed the meat and potatoes of Layton's Saturday performance and, judging from the giddy reaction, it remains a crowd-pleasing tactic.

Not satisfied to wallow in near-yesteryear's wayward policies that witnessed the Berlin Wall come down and the Soviet Union collapse, Layton instead looked further down Memory Lane to the Great Depression and the birth of the NDP's predecessor, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation.

"It's like back in the '30s, when our party was created, when a group of people got together and began to talk about how we could create a better society," Layton said. "There was the drought, the Depression, there was the unfairness towards farmers."

Nods to Tommy Douglas and universal health care's Saskatchewan roots were close behind, and Layton punctuated these references with his vision for the future.

"I think it's time we took what Tommy Douglas dreamed of, which is health care for everybody, and extended it to pharmaceutical medication," said Layton, generating more applause.

Upon this gesture, Layton distinguished what separates the NDP from Conservatives.

"(Harper's) view is everybody should be on their own, free-floating individuals, not connected to a community, not engaged in a common project together, but competing with everybody and whoever climbs to the top wins and something trickles down and the rest of us gets what's left," Layton said.

"When you run a society entirely that way, you're going to end up with massive inequality and unfairness and injustice."

But Statistics Canada's poverty numbers, compiled between 1996 and 2006, show some of that inequality is declining.

In 1996, 15.7 per cent (or 4.5 million people) comprised the country's lowest wage earners. Ten years later, that percentage had fallen to 10.5, or 3.3 million.

In that same period, low-income rates for families of two or more adults dropped from 12.1 per cent to seven per cent.

How these numbers will look post-2009, after the current recession has washed over the landscape remains to be seen, but Layton's already hitching his wagon to the cause of the economy's casualties; now and down the line.

"I think it's possible to build a society that's much more fair, much more just and actually, probably one where a heck of a lot more people will be happy, as well," he promised.

But pledges from the political pulpit were no match for the boisterous response Layton received at every slight he delivered his arch-enemy Harper.

It seems life in Canada for these folks since the Conservatives came to power has been downright dreary; as if Harper was personally responsible for every job lost, each hungry mouth left unfed or for all the homeless wandering our streets.

And if we shouldn't blame Harper for the social ills befalling Canada's citizens, then surely we can't credit the man for those great North of 60 government jobs, that lucrative union work or well-compensated NGO employment. That would be going too far.

If truth be told, Layton's got bigger problems than Harper as far as shoring up support for the NDP.

Following his speech, Layton fielded questions from several of the 60 or so in attendance.

The last volley came courtesy of John Streicker, the Yukon's Green Party candidate who surprised many in the territory when he garnered more support than the NDP here in last year's general election.

Streicker wanted to know what Layton thought of the Greens - a loaded question of sorts, as that party's emergence most threatens the NDP's bedrock.

In responding, Layton appeared to let down his us-versus-them guard, leaving the door open (preferably in the NDP's direction), for luring wannabe Greens back into the fold.

"There will always be policy differences between any group of people but think of how much we could do together," Layton offered at the beginning of a rambling answer that included a promise of proportional representation - also a plank in the Greens' platform - were the NDP ever to form the government.

"I'll always make the proposition that people who believe in (our) ideas might want to consider joining with us and we'll roll up our sleeves together."

While Streicker was not swayed from his Green ambitions, it did not dampen New Democratic Party enthusiasm in the room.

"Sell him a membership!"