Not so lazy dog days of summer

Columnists regularly use “the dog days of summer” umbrella to cover the boring quiet of late August when there isn’t much compelling political action and when readers have grown tired of the long, hot days of summer.

When kids are listless and bored and when the projects we planned for summer certainly haven’t been completed. Thankfully, it will be time soon to buy school supplies and for politicians to crank up for another year of gladiatorship.

Those students moving on look forward to the greater freedom, challenges and responsibilities of post-secondary education, and those who went directly to the job market are starting to find some extra coins in their pockets. For these of our fellow and sister citizens, the first week of September is one of the rites of passage into adulthood, a week few of us forget.

For the rest, September constitutes a turning of a page arguably more real than the new calendar year. Even those of us who have well since left behind the cycle of our own or our kids’ school year, the sweet sense of a fresh start remains.

In the political world, a number of points for our attention, as they always do, have presented themselves.

Danny grabs a stake

Danny Williams has again taken the kind of action of which other premiers, including our own, can only dream. Under considerable pressure, with a federal government making life as difficult as possible and with the expectations of a provincial electorate hungry finally to realize its potential in the oil patch, Danny has secured a deal that not only gives the province a decent share of the economic rent, but keeps it on the inside of the energy discourse, with a share of the action.

One of the long-standing arguments in favour of the nationalization that gave us Petro-Can - an argument now largely forgotten - is that if you wish to know what’s really happening in the oil industry - knowledge necessary for good public policy and regulation - you need to own a stake. Danny has done just that, and he has set a fine standard for premiership.

When Rod decides he’s well enough rested to return to Province House, he might well take a few minutes to think about the lessons Danny has provided, even if our potential offshore isn’t as rich as it is off the Rock.

This year is Rod’s last chance, if he has any chance left, of showing the Tories that he wasn’t a mistake. A quick, robust deal on post-secondary educational transfers, some significant road deals and a significant fix on the Atlantic Accord are the least we might expect from a premier of the same party as the government in Ottawa. Even then, it may be too late.

New package from Steve?

In Ottawa, my friend Steven Harper must decide whether to introduce a new legislative package of substance, now that his list of five campaign planks and considerable military refurbishment have been more or less achieved. If he takes this bold step, he provides the opposition a bevy of targets, making their fall work a lot easier and perhaps even fun.

Or he may decide instead just to temporize, give us more rhetoric than substance, and not show his hand until the next budget or election. The latter strategy runs the risk of making him look a lot more like Mr. Dithers than Steven would like, and takes out of play the “we got the job done” mantra.

Stéphane has before him an early day of reckoning. While his support as a leader is growing in Ontario, many Québécois are seemingly certain that he just isn’t a leader. This is partly a result of the Tories’ ads against him, but more significantly because of his strongly Trudeau-like resistance to Quebec nationalism.

The Liberals will likely retain the Outremont riding, but they need to do so by a decent margin if Stéphane is to feel any comfort, and they need to do decently well in the other byelection tests in Québec Sept. 21 as well. Otherwise the knives may be out.

Still, Stéphane, like Trudeau, may have more lives than a cat.