...A potential deal between Jack Layton's New Democrats and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Tories has been rumoured ever since the two leaders agreed last fall to send the government's Clean Air Act to a special legislative committee to be rewritten.
But it was at a Vancouver meeting of Layton, NDP environment critic Nathan Cullen (Skeena-Bulkley Valley) and Environment Minister John Baird that the NDP's political demands started to bear fruit, sources said.
At that Jan. 11 meeting, Layton presented his list of demands to the Tories – primarily a series of amendments to be made to the government's Clean Air Act – if they were to regain credibility on the sensitive environment file.
...Cullen said in an interview yesterday that the NDP presented "no ultimatum."
"There was no deal to any of the offers we made."
"If you want Canadians to give you a second chance, this is the way to do it, to roll something constructive out the door," he said of the conversation, noting that neither Stéphane Dion as Liberal environment minister, nor Rona Ambrose, who held the post for the Tories, were prepared to act.
Comments (5)
If you notice, part of the purpose of the Star article was to suggest that the money for the rainforest was pork-barrel spending aimed at an NDP riding.
Get ready for more attacks on this budding Tory-NDP alliance in the weeks to come. Liberals and their various allies, including the Star, can’t stand the thought that they’ll be shut out of any real progress on the environment. It could get ugly. In fact, it’s already started.
Posted by Dennis (Second Thoughts) | February 1, 2007 11:15 AM
Posted on February 1, 2007 11:15
I was just about to post nearly the identical comment.
Harper “getting it done” on the environment, just doesn’t accord with the liberal sponsored: “Harper is anti-environment” pre-determined story line.
A big reason why the media made it a huge political issue is because it was assumed Harper would fight it.
Now that Harper’s spoiled their party, the media will be vicious in their response.
Watch out, here it comes.
Posted by chester | February 1, 2007 11:47 AM
Posted on February 1, 2007 11:47
Notice how the more Harper acts on the environment, the more he’s attacked.
This issue has never been about envirnomental action per se. It’s been about using the enviroment as a political tool.
And the more it continues the more we enter the absurd world where the Liberals, who literally did nothing for over a decade, are given free reign to attack Harper for “not doing enough” at each sucessive stage he does more and more.
Posted by Chester | February 1, 2007 11:53 AM
Posted on February 1, 2007 11:53
The author Star’s headline is reaching … far.
As the story notes, this agreement had been six years in the making. Indeed, it was the BC NDP government back in 2001 who made initial preservation announcement.
Similarly, the press release from the Ministry of the Environment, indicates that the $30 million that the headline screams about is only a quarter of the total funding, with the majority coming from the Province and private sector.
Are the NDP’s critics actually suggesting that Layton cooked up a deal with not only Baird, but also Gordon Campbell and a bunch of conservation groups?
Get real.
Posted by oppo-guy | February 1, 2007 12:02 PM
Posted on February 1, 2007 12:02
Conspiring with a party of power-hungry socialists to defraud the taxpayer may help win a few seats in the next election but it isn’t going to do these guys any good in the long run.
It won’t do Harper and the Conservatives any good either.
The Decline of the American Republic handily explains what is befuddling Canadian party hacks and hackettes at this moment (with a couple of editorial additions to bring it up to date, and with apologies to Greg for spamming his blog):
“The intelligent political leader … understands clearly that there is no such thing as a compact majority. There are only large minorities bent on pressing their own special social or economic or political goals. And each of these minorities, individually, may not think of its goals as socialistic … But it is the politician’s job, if he is to remain in power, to coalesce all these minorities into a majority, and with government funds or government favors to buy the votes of farmers, of workers, of business leaders [of eco-loons, of grandma’s, of separatists …]. It is not because they want socialism that these people acquiesce in such betrayals. They just do not realize that each of these adventures inflicts another wound on the free society. The system of free enterprise cannot systain these huge tolls. It is impossible to collect enough taxes to pay the bills. Hence the politicians who run the show turn to borrowing money from the citizens, from industry and from the banks [and by inflation, printing new money which allows them to bribe the electorate with devalued currency]. This creates a spurious prosperity which can last only until the the taxing power and the debt-paying power [and the inflating power] of government is exhausted, when the whole degenerate structure will sink down in disaster.
“Here is a revolution taking place under our eyes - one step at a time. Each advance into socialism is made possible by some special benefit in money or legislation which will accrue to some gullible group. And once this drift sets in a most astonishing phenomenon appears. The nation slides unresisting down the slippery grade into socialism without any Socialist Party being implicated in the adventure” [emphasis in the original]
OK, in Canada’s case that should read, “… without any Socialist Party having formed the federal government.”
The book is pretty good. It has everything happening right now in the Canadian political scene pretty much nailed, from farm policy to eco-loonism to the GWOT. The scams never change, only their names.
Posted by Anonymous | February 1, 2007 7:38 PM
Posted on February 1, 2007 19:38