Obama. Obama. Obama. Sounds so nice you have to say it thrice.
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Seems even our Prime Minister, the stiff one, wants to catch some of that Obama magic, cozying up to the President-Elect this week to talk about, of all things, a continental climate change pact, or so the headlines tell us. Strange days indeed. Most peculiar momma.
Of course, Harp’s real motive is not to save the planet. It’s to save the Tar Sands.
The Yanks are serious about not buying Alberta crude unless its production meets certain emissions standards. And right now it’s almost costing more to squeeze the crud out of the ground than what a barrel’s fetching on the market – to say nothing of the greenhouse gases being spewed into the atmosphere.
The economies of scale are tilting. The pendulum is swinging. All of a sudden the environment is on Harp’s agenda, right up there with the economy.
Catch the Tories’ other climate change announcement, the one made a day after the election? It’s offering developing countries cash to meet their Kyoto targets? Wait. Didn’t the Tories opt out of Kyoto?
Harp is moving fast to claim the political middle ground.
If the election results taught the Tory leader anything, it’s that he has to govern from the centre if he wants one final shot at that coveted majority four years from now. See Jim Prentice’s appointment as enviro minister. Even Sierra lauded that one.
All of which makes the ongoing Liberal leadership saga more difficult, and interesting, to watch.
Which direction will the rank and file steer the goodship lollipop? Right now it looks like the party big wigs will be the real ones making the choice.
It’s clear the fixers in the party want to stay a course to the right, lining up behind Michael Ignatieff like so many jackals in heat, licking their power hungry chops at an election in a year’s time.
Who’ll carry the banner for the more left-leaning wing of the party that supported the now defeated Stephane Dion?
Certainly, it won’t be Bob Rae. Why he’s decided to re-enter the fray is anybody’s guess.
Will Gerard Kennedy or Martha Hall Findlay take another stab? Or will it be little-known Domenic Leblanc, the New Brunswick MP who Dion appointed Vice-Chair of the National Policy and Platform Committee of the party?
That first-time MP Justin Trudeau’s name has been floated, suggests just how marginalized those on the the left of the party have become.
Dion says Lib MPs won’t be as quick to prop up the Tory minority this parliamentary session.
But with Harp starting to crowd the political middle, the Libs might find themselves voting with the government more often than not, or risk looking like the real right wingers.
