When Liberal MP David McGuinty recently suggested that some western Conservative MPs should “go back to Alberta” because he didn’t feel they were representing national interests on energy matters, was it just another political gaffe, or was he opening up old wounds that could prove costly for the Liberals?
It came at an inopportune time for the Liberals, who are hoping for an upset in Monday’s byelection in Calgary Centre, and with leadership favourite Justin Trudeau recently making overtures to western voters in ways such as supporting the US$15.1- billion takeover of Nexen Inc. by China’s CNOOC Ltd. and speaking favourably about the oilsands’ contribution to Canada.
The Liberal party seemed to take the matter seriously, with McGuinty being reprimanded by interim leader Bob Rae and his potential future leader, Trudeau, who said the whole episode “ticks me off as a Liberal.” McGuinty resigned as the party’s energy and natural resources critic on Wednesday.
There’s some good-natured razzing going on right now between those in the West and Central Canada in anticipation of this weekend’s Grey Cup matchup between Toronto Argonauts and the Calgary Stampeders.
Whether the McGuinty controversy boosts real tension between the different regions remains to be seen. An editorial that ran in the Calgary Sun and Edmonton Sun on Thursday said it would be understandable if Albertans resurrected old bumper stickers saying, “Let the eastern bastards freeze in the dark.”
This slogan became popular when former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau implemented the National Energy Program in the early 1980s.
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The Sun editorial noted that the Liberal politician under fire is the brother of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, another Liberal. The latter is dealing with his own issues after recently announcing his pending resignation barely a year after re-election and proroguing provincial parliament until his replacement is determined. It’s a move critics say is designed to suppress discussion about his government’s controversial decision to cancel contracts for two power plants for political reasons at a cost to taxpayers that amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars.
“While David McGuinty’s mutt would likely get elected in the comfort-wrapped bubble of Ottawa South – the proof being that it kept re-electing his premier brother – there is no worry in that sheltered community about local or provincial issues, not like in Alberta where energy decisions affect the daily lives of virtually all constituents,” the Sun said in the editorial.
Tim Powers, vice-president of Ottawa-based Summa Communications and a political strategist for the Tories, noted the two Liberal family connections that are caught up in this controversy.
“It’s almost a battle of dueling family lineages,” he said. “You have one Trudeau trying to break away from another Trudeau’s poison pill that sank Liberal fortunes in the West, and then you have one McGuinty re-profiling and reinvigorating what many western people think about Ontario, and they see that represented in his brother, the premier, in terms of maybe some of the things he’s done.”
Dalton McGuinty has suggested in the past that Alberta’s economic success comes at the expense of Ontario, with rising oil exports raising the Canadian dollar’s value, which makes Ontario’s manufacturing sector less competitive.
“There’s still a sense in Western Canada that the East doesn’t appreciate them to the degree that they should,” Powers said. “Those tensions are very real.”
Results of next week’s byelection will give a partial indication of how damaging to the Liberals David McGuinty’s recent comments were, Powers added.
Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid said McGuinty’s comments might have killed the chances Liberal Harvey Locke had of beating Conservative Joan Crockatt in the Calgary Centre byelection, which he said would be unfortunate because: “This is a modern, complex city that deserves more than one party’s voice.”
Nonetheless, he categorized McGuinty’s comments like this: “McGuinty was attacking Conservative politicians, not Albertans. But in this province, that can amount to the same thing. Throw in some background hostility to the industry, and a local Liberal has big trouble.”
Warren Kinsella, a Liberal political strategist who used to work for former prime minister Jean Chretien, said McGuinty’s misstep came at a bad time for the party.
“Politicians say dumb things all the time; no news there,” Kinsella said in an email to Global News. “What was particularly unhelpful here was the timing. Making a statement like that during the Calgary Centre byelection only gave hope back to a losing Conservative campaign; not good.”
Kinsella agreed with Rae’s public scolding of McGuinty, saying “it was a big deal.” However, he said the Conservatives’ reaction to this is “fake.” Among the things said, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the House of Commons Wednesday that McGuinty’s words were “shameful.”
“This is the same group of Conservatives who used to say ‘eastern bastards’ should ‘freeze in the dark’ and who said Atlantic Canadians have ‘a culture of defeat,’ ” said Kinsella, who is based in Toronto but has lived in Calgary. “Why didn’t any of them apologize for those comments?”
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