Eye on Labrador -
It's going to be a busy summer for Labrador MP Todd Russell.
While he won't have to deal with the day-to-day business of the House in Ottawa, Russell's BlackBerry is likely to be buzzing throughout these welcome warm months. It seems likely that the government will fall in the fall and then the whirlwind of a federal election campaign will quickly begin.
The real question, however, is this: will Michael Ignatieff still be around as Liberal leader when fall arrives?
Ask any Liberal MP about talk of a coalition with the NDP and they'll laugh it off as media speculation gone wild. That's the usual fallback position for politicians when they don't want to talk about major problems inside their party.
While the Liberal-NDP merger talk has gone quiet in recent weeks, don't think for a second that heavyweight figures from both parties won't chat about it over summer. They'll probably agree that there should be no public talk about it - after all, the last time they tried to form a coalition, Canadian voters took up their pitchforks - but it seems a post-election pact will be in the works if that's what required to oust Stephen Harper from 24 Sussex Drive.
What the Liberals don't seem to understand is that even a whiff of talk about a merger of the parties seriously damages their party's credibility and may in fact help Harper get the majority government he's been dreaming about for several years. Liberal voters may not support the NDP, and vice versa. Could that lead them to vote Conservative? That's the million-dollar question the Liberals are trying to answer right now.
Russell is not one of the Liberals' big players. He's been a backbencher since coming into office and seems to be doing well in his role as Aboriginal Affairs critic. But he's been around long enough that it's safe to say party powerbrokers will be seeking his opinion about whether Ignatieff should go, whether he would support a Bob Rae leadership coup or whether Russell thinks a coalition with the NDP is a good idea. All these things will be floated to the Big Land's representative in the next three months - we just won't hear about it.
And while Russell will be dealing with his buzzing Berry, Tory supporters in Labrador should be figuring out who might stand against Russell when the election is called. Parachuting a candidate in again is not an option. Labradorians won't vote for someone from St. John's, and rightly so. If the Conservatives ever want to wrest the Labrador seat away from Russell, they have to convince a local to take him on.
There are Conservative-minded Labradorians out there who, with the proper encouragement and financial support, could mount a challenge. The problem is convincing them that they aren't just headed for an electoral pounding.
Andrew Waugh, former editor of the Labradorian, writes from Dartmouth, NS.
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