The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.
OTTAWA – Tom Mulcair brazenly parachutes into enemy territory Wednesday. 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.’’
For the rest of this article, please go to the Toronto Star website: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1202578–tim-harper-ndp-leader-tom-mulcair-invades-enemy-territory