Hébert: Tory déjà vu: It's Quebec vs. Alberta
There is a perfect federal-provincial storm brewing on the climate-change horizon in Canada and it is bringing to the fore the very kind of irreconcilable regional differences that once doomed Brian Mulroney’s Tory government.
For the second time in two decades, the capacity of a federal Conservative government to bridge the competing interests of Quebec and Alberta is being tested and found wanting.
Twenty years ago, the implosion of the federal Progressive Conservative party was set in motion by a constitutional crisis that saw its Quebec and Alberta supporters go different ways.
This time, the issue is not the Constitution but climate change, and, in a reversal from the Mulroney dynamics, the Harper government is sending clear signals that it is willing to risk its small beachhead in Quebec to preserve its larger Alberta base.
Shit you guys, it’s 1993 all over again. Someone better call Brian Mulroney (or Kim Campbell) and ask how that went last time.
