i believe trudeau's position is actually that he'll support it if it's no longer widely opposed. which is almost comically liberal. mulcair's position is that he'll support it if it passes the environmental review. but, see, it's unclear to me why it is that they would think - in contradiction to all polls - that criticizing mulcair for possibly being *against* the pipeline would be good politics. you'd think they'd criticize him for being in favour of it, if they were trying to win votes - whether it's true or not (and it mostly is).

but, see, there's been this constant string of hints for years that these elections are...they're not inconsequential, so much as that they're really directed at a layer of power that's largely obscured, and of unclear national origin.

there's a sort of cognitive dissonance around it. on the one hand, we're all very naive, aren't we? on the other, what's the use in peddling evidenceless conspiracy theories? but it's the absolute truth: you'll see these weird campaign announcements and attacks from time to time that just make you scratch your head, until you realize "oh. right. that's not meant to influence voters. that's meant to influence that unstated ethereal force of unclear national origin."

it's just this unclear force that seems to be of great importance.

like, diefenbaker getting into a lot of trouble with kennedy-johnson administration, and then disappearing.

or there was the time that reagan accused trudeau of being a soviet spy, and then trudeau disappeared.

and the time that chretien refused to go to war, and canada got mad cow, sars and stephen harper (i'm undecided on which is more dangerous to our health).

it's just been there. this force. in the background. for many years. and the actors seem entirely aware of it. but, there's very few ways in which the public can quantify or understand it

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/brian-gallant-criticizes-tom-mulcair-s-energy-east-pipeline-stance-1.3197057