It’s tricky to campaign on a ‘balanced’ climate change agenda, even though that’s what Canadians want
By Shachi Kurl, Executive Director
Justin Trudeau may get credit for his yoga skills, but I’ve spent the week mesmerized by Jagmeet Singh’s apparent position changes on the question of pipeline approval. He initially told CBC that as prime minister, he would not impose pipeline projects on provinces that don’t want them. The NDP leader then bristled at the suggestion that this would effectively give the provinces a “veto” over endeavours that are clearly the jurisdiction of the federal government. He instead says he wants to work with provincial, municipal and first nations governments to get them to yes.
What happens when those stakeholder have been asked nicely, cajoled, pleaded with, incentivized and still say no? That’s less material to Singh at the moment; polling shows that at this stage in the campaign, it’s not likely to be his problem. Besides, in the short term, he needs to outwork the Greens for the anti-pipeline, anti-oilsands, anti-resource development vote in an election in which uncommitted voters have identified climate change as their number one issue, and where three parties are vying for their much-needed support.
For the rest of this piece, please view it on the Ottawa Citizen’s site where it was initially published.
Image – Jean Levac/Postmedia
