Norman Spector @nspector4 Basically, McQuaig has put @ThomasMulcair and @RachelNotley between a rock and a hard place
It’s not easy being Joe. NDP Finance Minister Joe Ceci has a career-killing job at the worst possible time.
While Ceci blankets Alberta, talking to dozens of groups about the fall provincial budget, the economic news has drifted from dangerous to downright dire.
Oil wallows below $45 US a barrel. Alberta’s unemployment rate now tops six per cent, highest in the West. Calgary unemployment has jumped to 6.6 per cent.
The Keystone XL oil pipeline, which U.S. President Barack Obama seems determined to keep on rejecting, appears to be beyond resurrection.
The other options to move Alberta oil — Northern Gateway, Kinder Morgan and Energy East — are tangled up in a hot federal election campaign where only one party, the Conservatives, calls flat-out for building them, but never manages to do it.
And the political temperature keeps rising.
Toronto NDP candidate Linda McQuaig touched off a national uproar with her comment that the “tar sands” might have to stay in the ground if climate targets are ever to be met.
Federal NDP Leader Tom Mulcair stopped far short of rejecting McQuaig’s view when he said he’s in favour of energy development with much stricter environmental controls, and with policies that force companies to “internalize” the cost of their pollution.
more
Braid: Notley’s NDP mousetrapped by federal campaign and sinking economy | Calgary Herald
Sheila Gunn Reid @SheilaGunnReid 
