The NDP leader is backed only by a tiny band of subversives, his energy critic, Peter Julian, his environment critic and deputy leader, Megan Leslie, and his lone Alberta MP, Linda Duncan.
As he journeys to Fort McMurray, he drags with him accusations he is “lecturing” Alberta on the oilsands, is seeking to divide the country and is carving up the nation in some Ottawa bunker, pitting region versus region, rubbing his hands in glee as he counts central Canadian seats on his way to forming the next government.
He is on the agenda of the western premiers’ meeting in Edmonton and is the subject of a politically motivated government motion condemning him in the British Columbia legislature.
Enough already with the wedge politics.
Mulcair is a federal leader and, as such, he has the right — indeed, the obligation — to question federal environmental policies.
No matter how many times he is demonized from the West or across the aisle in the House of Commons, he is raising questions that call for mature debate, not comic book counterattacks from Conservatives who want to paint the nation in white hats and black hats.
The opposition leader is holding the pro-resource Harper government, not the Alberta government of Alison Redford, to account on federal regulations on navigable waters, migratory birds, fisheries and the health of First Nations.
The federal environmental record of this government is appalling; its own environmental commissioner said as much earlier this month.
“What I say with regard to sustainable development applies as much in New Brunswick as it does in British Columbia,’’ Mulcair said this week. “It’s a vision to include economic, social and environmental aspects every time the government takes a decision.’’
He said he has done it in Quebec as environment minister and he wants to take that model to the federal level.
But by using the generic “Dutch disease” argument to address a potential economic imbalance in this country, he is caricatured as someone who believes the oilsands and the western economy are a “disease.’’
Wednesday, the Alberta-based Pembina Institute, which was the first to call for “responsible oil sands development,’’ will release a study that, according to co-author Dan Woynillowicz, will diagnose Canada with a unique strain of what has been branded “Dutch disease,’’ named after the Netherlands phenomenon where a preoccupation with natural gas inflated its currency and badly damaged its manufacturing exports.
He calls it “oil sands fever,” and says it is creating winners and losers in the Canadian economy and could leave this country behind in the clean energy economies of the future.
He takes a balanced view, acknowledging that manufacturing exports have also declined because of the manufacturing boom in China and declining U.S. demand.
But Woynillowicz, a senior policy analyst at the think tank, argues that with the manufacturing sector compensating by servicing the resource sector, a dangerous imbalance in the Canadian economy is being created.
He also argues that the inflated loonie hurts Alberta as well, with every one-cent increase over a 12-month period costing the Alberta treasury $247 million, as it incurs oilsands costs in Canadian dollars, but sells to international markets in U.S. dollars.
Woynillowicz argues for the establishment of a federal savings fund for oil and gas revenues, something to be funded from corporate tax revenue, or at least a portion of it, phased in by the federal government.
Inevitably, he says, the oilsands will be overtaken by cheaper or lower emission energy sources and the federal government is too focused on the today of gung-ho resource extraction at the expense of the inevitable tomorrow in a boom-bust cycle.
He also calls for the elimination of preferential tax treatment for the oil-and-gas sector that can widen the gap between have and have-not provinces and the convening of an expert panel of the Royal Society of Canada to guide oilsands development in the context of economic growth.
In other words, he is calling for a move from partisan politics to long-range planning.
There is nothing divisive about that.
But if such common ground cannot be found, Alberta should be looking in tony Rockcliffe for the location of its new Ottawa office.
The rents are pricy, but they should look to Acacia Avenue, within easy viewing distance of Stornoway, the better to keep an eye on their enemy, Mulcair.
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Tim Harper
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