Prime Minister Thomas Mulcair...?

Not likely; his early-days edge as a new face in a party celebrating its first big break federally, has blunted his appeal to a constituency larger than those newly-acquired NDP supporters in Quebec.  While it might fit in with tradition whereby it was always held that federal premiers must be balanced with one from Quebec and the next from Ontario, things have changed. 

Mr. Mulcair perhaps aimed too high; he would be more comfortable and more suited to the premiership of Quebec, not Canada.

He's been batting away at the provincial premiers out West in a manner that is clearly divisive, returning the strains that the West has traditionally felt toward government that comes out of Ontario or Quebec, neglecting the concerns of Western Canada.  The irony here, of course, is that other traditions have also changed; Ontario and Quebec no longer represent the weight of the country's political advantage.

And Ontario, once considered to represent the workhorse of Confederation, generating wealth unmatched by any other province, has now become the financial weakling of the East, joining Quebec as a have-not province, requiring the generosity of robust economies coming out Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Newfoundland, to make ends meet.

The manufacturing sector that once made Ontario so fiscally superior to her sister provinces has slowly evaporated.  And it did so long before the emergence of a strong Canadian currency, pre-dating as well the production of oil and gas from Alberta and potash wealth from Saskatchewan. Even so, it cannot be claimed with the heated energy that Mr. Mulcair has done that oil extraction from Alberta oilsands is responsible for the disappearance of manufacturing in Ontario.

There are, instead, some feasible indications that growth in the manufacturing sector is re-emerging, thanks to the oil and coal industries.  As pointed out by Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, in response to Thomas Mulcair's accusations that the wealthy, productive, minerals-rich West is depleting the coffers of the East, when in fact, the reverse is true.

There's something about having a competitive edge when it comes to the manufacturing sector. If we're not manufacturing something unique, something that cannot be produced elsewhere, and if it is not efficiently-produced and costed, it will go elsewhere.  A high-paid workforce producing something of substance that is fungible will fail, as emerging economies sacrifice their workforce to produce the same objects at lower cost.

"We have one more message for Mr. Mulcair and that is his facts are wrong and what he's doing is very divisive.  This is someone who wants to be the prime minister, the prime minister who will have to work with all of us", complained Premier Wall.  He's taking it too personally; The Leader of the Official Opposition is simply a combative, complaining typical Quebecer.

If the strategy is to create a distance between Quebec-Ontario and Alberta-B.C.-Saskatchewan, it's been done before, and wasn't very healthy for inter-relations and unity for the country as a whole.  Yet Mr. Mulcair iterates and reiterates that Alberta's bitumen boom hurts central Canadian manufacturers, forcing job losses.

This is, in fact, an issue he lays squarely at the economic feet of the Prime Minister.  "Right now we're allowing them to use the air, the water and the land as a free dumping ground and that's where the problem arises", he insists.  "Why is that the case?  Because they're not assuming their obligations under the law because the government is not enforcing the law".

And here we thought that the provinces and the federal government were working handily, seriously in tandem with one another for the greater good of the Canadian community.  With a responsible and aware eye on the environment, as well as the manner in which best to advance the country's production and trading interests.  Okay, it's true a little more careful introspection would be useful, along with a dedicated pledge to streamlining extraction techniques to minimize environment impact.

The NDP has been taking to thinking of itself as a government-in-waiting, and Mr. Mulcair soon to occupy 24 Sussex Drive.  Some Canadians shudder at the even distant prospect of that transformative change.  For it would be transformative, as in a disaster of monumental proportions.  The heart may be in the right place, but the strategic and intelligently creative threads are just not there.