“We've heard through the grapevine that the Harper government is going to announce a delay," said the Chief Phillip said to the hundreds of people gathered to protest the bitumen pipeline proposal.
"This is the rumour -- that it’s going to be a delay to allow for more consultation with First Nations communities. We know that if we take this matter to the court today, the Harper government will lose.”
Delay pretty much means post-2015. Otherwise it becomes an issue in the 2015 federal election.
That doesn't worry you? It probably should.
ReplyDelete@ lance. Why should delay worry anyone? Because high-cost/high-carbon fossil fuels are at risk of becoming stranded assets? Because China has announced it will be setting an absolute GHG emissions cap next year that may weaken the trading price of bitumen? Because the big emitters may actually get a serious carbon-pricing/emissions reduction protocol in place next year? Because the iron lung of Athabasca is named Stephen Harper and his dwindling political capital is running out onto the floor?
ReplyDeleteMe, I'm not worried. Not at all.
It's not easy being Stevie. If he OK's Gateway, the opposition has a year to keep hammering the CONs over it up to the election. Additional legal challenges will probably emerge from the First Nations and maybe citizens in BC, hell, you could see the First Nations protesting in from of Buckingham Palace.
ReplyDeleteAs they used to say in 1880's Chicago politics, "Never get in the way of a perfectly good trainwreck". Let us watch this unfold in all its majesty.
MoS, What's the CPC's standard operating procedure regarding elections?
ReplyDeleteFind a wedge and drive it, hard.
What pro-pipeline party won in BC?
What party in that election lost based on a bozo-eruption by the leader on KM?
Edstock has it half right, except PM Harper will use it as a driver for the election.
PM Harper is too smart to let the left/right and the media spend a year smearing any decision and he'll say something like 'the issue is too contentious for a top-down yes/no and needs to go to the people'.
They'll campaign on it(jobs, economy, Northern Gateway...etc). Trudeau has already endorsed the pipeline, so that ad writes itself and eliminates that threat. Which leaves Mulcair and May....
Sure, Lance, sure. PS. Trudeau endorsed Keystone. Not NG.
ReplyDelete@Edstock
ReplyDeleteAlso you have to look at the way the BC seats are distributed:
Cons Green Liberal NDP 21 1 2 12
A nice dragged-out fight could easily cost him half or more of his seats in BC which would almost certainly mean defeat. Much better to put it off till after the election when if he wins he has 4-5 years for the fight and for people to forget. If he loses, well he won't care
Lance, even Christy Clark didn't run on a pro-pipeline platform. Harper may be coming to realize that he faces a lot more than just First Nations opposition to the Northern Gateway.
ReplyDeleteHere on the coast there are a lot of lifelong law-abiding greyhairs ready to resort to civil disobedience to resist the Gateway. Once Harper turns on the grannies and gramps, the rest of the province will turn on him. He's already drawing up his enemies list.