But the big question on the federal political landscape right now is how the bear, so far unwilling to move no matter how many times the stick is stuck in his ribs, will ultimately respond.
The government will keep poking Opposition Leader Tom Mulcair, alleging he is pitting east versus west, because they believe they have found the NDP leader’s soft underbelly, a flank Mulcair himself exposed.
Some Conservatives may sincerely believe Mulcair’s call for environmental sustainability in this country is really a question of unity and an insult to the ascendant west. But in strictly political terms, the goal here is to spark a Mulcarian eruption or a humiliating climb down.
And the longer they poke, the more they evade scrutiny of Employment Insurance reforms or Old Age Security changes or anything else they have buried in their giant budget bill.
Instead, for two weeks the NDP leader has been the focus as he endured attack by Twitter, Facebook, editorial page, punditry, radio interview, television interview, government statement, government answer and government minister striding to the microphone in the foyer of the Commons.
He has been kicked by Brad Wall, Alison Redford, Christy Clark, Stephen Harper, Joe Oliver, James Moore, any number of Conservative backbenchers, Rex Murphy and the right-wing media in this country.
Since his election as NDP leader, Mulcair has been a revelation.
He has sharpened questions in the House, been unafraid of sparking debate, staking a position and using some pugilistic language to back it.
He is not of the bland, meaningless platitudes which pass for so much of the so-called debate in the nation’s capital.
He does not do nuance. He has, however, also been something of a contradiction.
He has been branded as impetuous, but he has been consistent over the long haul with his views on the oilsands, and the perils of resource extraction without sustainable long-term environmental policies in all regions of the country.
He shows no sign of backing down, saying this is a three-year debate, perhaps the defining issue in the 2015 campaign.
But he has also shot from the hip.
Days after his party formed an opposition, he questioned whether there were actually pictures of a dead Osama bin Laden.
When Conrad Black was allowed a quick return to Canada, he just as quickly condemned the special treatment for the “British criminal.”
Black has threatened to sue him, but being on the wrong side of Black is a pretty crowded field and unlikely to cause Mulcair any grief.
More crucial is how he handles a controversy which was still playing on western Canadian front pages this weekend.
“They’ve picked the wrong guy if they think they’re going to be bullying me,” Mulcair says of the Conservative attacks.
But the Conservatives will be relentless. Their base is in the west and they are hardly apologetic about trumpeting the strength of the region.
“We are the future,” Heritage Minister Moore, a British Columbian, told the NDP leader.
Mulcair knows how to retreat if needed.
He had to pull back after the bin Laden gaffe and he has scrambled back from his position that the western premiers were merely Harper’s messengers.
He will have to find a little finesse and the long-lost nuance in order to somehow close the book on the environmental debate, for now.
Redford took a step toward him in an interview with the Calgary Herald Saturday, conceding Alberta needs to do a better job of explaining the economic benefits of the oilsands to the rest of the country.
Roger Gibbins, the president of the Canada West Foundation, added that Mulcair is tapping into a widely held Canadian sentiment that the oilsands are not being managed in an environmentally responsible manner.
Mulcair, in what will be the most closely watched domestic trip of an opposition leader in years, will be in Alberta for two days at the end of the month.
Here’s betting he and Redford, as two mature political leaders, will bend over backwards to find some common ground.
It is in neither’s interest to have this cacophonous debate play out any longer on the national agenda.
It’s especially not in Mulcair’s interests.
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Tim Harper
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