Mulcair hopes Notley’s magic will rub off
NDP leader hits Alberta for enthusiastic rally, calls Liberals ‘old, corrupt’
EDMONTON— New Democrats gathered in the place that brought them their biggest boost of morale this year for an enthusiastic campaign rally based on their message that Canadians who want change have a different choice available this election. “The momentum for change began in Quebec and it spread right here to Alberta and now in just three days we have a historic opportunity before us — an opportunity that we must not pass up,” an energetic NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair told a sizable crowd in an Edmonton convention centre Friday night as he linked the socalled Orange Wave of 2011 to the spring election that saw Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley end the decades-long Progressive Conservative dynasty with a majority government.
“Let me ask you, Edmonton, do you want to go back to the old, corrupt, Liberal party ways, where the country was governed not by what was best for you and your family, but by what was best for Liberal insiders?” Mulcair roared, seeming to devote most of his enthusiasm for the antiLiberal portion of his speech, despite otherwise arguing the battle in Alberta ridings is one between New Democrats and Conservatives.
Still, part of his message was slightly different — in a big way — from the one Mulcair has been pushing the past two days in Quebec, where he has been eager to link the current Justin Trudeau Liberals with the Jean Chrétien-era sponsorship scandal that decimated Liberal fortunes in Quebec and beyond.
In Quebec, Mulcair was happy to talk up the fact that Dan Gagnier had resigned as Liberal campaign cochair after The Canadian Press revealed he had sent an email to officials at TransCanada Corp. — the company behind the proposed Energy East pipeline project — advising them how and when to lobby a new federal government should one come to power in the Oct.19 election.
The $12-billion Energy East project would rely mostly on an existing natural gas pipeline to transport crude oil from the West to refineries in the East, and Mulcair has walked back his initial enthusiasm for the idea since it became highly controversial in Quebec.
In Edmonton, however, where Notley appeared with Mulcair for the first time in this 11-week election campaign, Mulcair left the name of the company out of his characterization of events.
He referred to TransCanada only as a “major corporation” and left the Energy East pipeline out of it altogether. The tweak in messaging underscores the fine line Mulcair, whose greatest support remains in the province of Quebec, despite a recent setback in public opinion polls there over his stance on the niqab issue, has sometimes had to walk throughout this campaign.
Earlier Friday, Mulcair visited the town of Lac-Mégantic, Que., where a train derailment killed 47 people and burned several blocks of buildings to the ground in July 2013.
“The government has to begin playing a more active role in protecting the public,” Mulcair said.
“The NDP sincerely believes that this notion that somehow all government is bad, all government activity constitutes red tape that should be eliminated, is simply wrong. There is nothing more essential than protecting the public in all things that governments do,” said Mulcair, who pointed out that the era of allowing industries to regulate themselves had begun under the former Liberal government. The NDP platform promised $110 million over four years to improve rail safety in Canada, including $15 million next year for a public inquiry into this tragedy and how to protect other towns and cities from similar disasters.
Yet, Mulcair danced around a question about whether one way to tackle the issue is to transport more crude oil through underground pipelines.
“It is evident to anyone who looks at the current situation in Canada that it’s no to Energy East or any other pipeline like Kinder Morgan, because there is no credible, thorough, environmental assessment process right now,” said Mulcair.
And there, unlike in Edmonton, Mulcair was quick to link the Energy East pipeline to Gagnier.