There was a wonderful picture of Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and resigning MP Bob Rae as they walk down a corridor in the Centre Block of Parliament the other day. The picture was of the two men from the rear. You did not need the caption to tell you who they are. They had their arm around each other as comrades. The picture said far more than a thousand words. Bob is headed for his next career. Justin is headed for the summer barbeque circuit with the Liberal Party. He has a tough schedule to keep.
But you cannot go out on that summer barbeque circuit with just platitudes. The Liberals that Justin will be talking to across Canada want meaty stuff. Justin is the party leader now. He has to get his party motivated, organized, determined and focussed. Anyone foolish enough to believe the positive polls today for the Liberals is kidding themselves. We have, at the most, two years to get decent candidates, captivating programs and motivated workers. Justin’s job is to tell people to get to work or get out of the way.
The Liberal Party has three opponents in the coming election. The most serious opponent is inertia and the Liberal Party has got lots of that. It’s time to get off your asses, folks. And then we have Tommy Mulcair and his New Democrats. They think they are the alternative to the Conservatives and we have to dissuade voters from deluding themselves on that issue. The third opponent is Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. They have all the money they need and it has already been proved that they are fully prepared to lie, cheat and steal the votes needed to stay in power.
And, on top of that, we have millions of turned off voters whom we have to motivate and deliver to the polling places come election day. That requires new ideas, new energy, new workers and new funding.
One of the issues that Justin will have to get off the fence on is Alberta’s bitumen. This is the centre piece of Prime Minister Harper’s economic policy and it is going to blow up this summer. The National Energy Board is holding hearings in Calgary in August about running bitumen to the east coast. The focus will be on Enbridge’s old crude oil pipeline (Line 9) that runs right through the City of Toronto. Enbridge wants to run hot bitumen slurry through that pipe at high pressure. This is a disaster on its way to happen.
While politicians think it is safe to kiss babies, the royal baby due this summer is going to focus attention on doing something about the entire question of English royalty in addition to the lingering bad smell from the Senate. That opens up the Canadian Constitution and Justin desperately needs the right talking points. He can hardly hedge on the issue and expect to attract younger voters.
There will be much more on this over the summer.
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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
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