How Harper seized control of pipeline and health-care debates

Building a storyline that sticks helped the Conservatives sink two successive Liberal leaders and they are using the same strategy early in 2012 on a pair of major policy debates facing Canadians.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's team has attempted to leap out in front of its opponents and shape the narrative on the hot-button issues of health-care funding and oil pipeline construction.

When Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver came out guns blazing over “environmental and other radical groups” and foreign interests who he said were trying to hijack the domestic debate, discussion immediately shifted away from the very concerns environmental groups have been voicing.

Critics and stakeholders were left struggling to poke holes in the government's logic – the involvement of Chinese interests in the process, for example – rather than leading the debate themselves.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/how-harper-seized-control-of-pipeline-and-health-care-debates/article2309141/

It could be Harper's wet dream come true. It is up to others, not Harper!


Health Care
The premiers now have to make the Feds the bad guy in the system. They should not be afraid to stand up to them. They should all fight them in the same way that Alberta and Quebec has argued with the feds. We will have all provinces eventually against the feds. That includes Ontario!


Natural Resources
The opposition should adopt what the former Alberta premier had for his run at the premiership. More added value! More Alberta added value and more Canadian added value. There is much that can be built on this requirement.


It could be Harper's dilema.