In this extraordinary time in Canadian history the national Conservative party is in a swoon. The party has jammed itself into a cat’s cradle of cross purposes and lack of focus. Having defrocked its leader via some internal broil, then started and stalled a parody of a leadership race, when the present crisis hit, it is on the political equivalent of an ice pan slowly drifting to warm waters.
A few of its key members are doing what little can be done in such a context. But a coherent, continuous and full Opposition is just not there. It is less odd than regrettable that in the peak of a crisis, and an unprecedented explosion of expenditure, the Conservative Opposition hardly checks in. It is bad for the government, too. Governments need opposition. It saves them from arrogance, it bolts them to accountability.
The party holds an impressive number of parliamentary seats, but without a Parliament to sit in, numerical presence is irrelevant. This also means the region of the country the Conservatives almost exclusively represents, which we ritually refer to as the West (to B.C.’s chagrin) is lacking that representation. This has two effects.
The first is obvious. It means a whole region of the country will not see its priorities reflected, or reflected only poorly, in the minority Liberal government’s choices and policies.
Given that government’s embrace of global warming as a creed, and its not-so-subdued antagonism towards the oil industry, any effective targeting of support to the industry is very unlikely. The $1.7 billion allotted to clean up orphaned wells has no connection with the forward dynamic of the industry — ending the landlock, consenting to an east-west pipeline, stemming the flight of companies and jobs.
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