OTTAWA—Why did the Keystone XL pipeline figuratively run through downtown Toronto Thursday?

Because for the next 2 1/2 weeks, all debate over Alberta bitumen, the future of the Senate, patronizing campaign posters and the future of Rob Ford flows through Toronto Centre, site of one of the most important federal byelections in recent Canadian history.

At some point, Opposition leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau were going to have cast Stephen Harper aside for a bit and engage each other.

That time is now, that place is Toronto Centre.

The stakes are highest for the NDP leader, and Mulcair’s anti-Trudeau offensive began mid-week, an offensive fuelled by a search for a “progressive wedge issue,’’ aided and abetted by some Liberal ineptitude.

By any standard, Mulcair has had the upper hand in the run-up to the Toronto battle, already having established himself as the parliamentary prosecutor-in-chief in keeping Harper on the defensive over the Senate spending scandal with incisive questioning each day.

But given the Trudeau phenomenon, all this may count for nothing. There is a chance Mulcair could lose all four by-elections set for Nov. 25, including the two urban shootouts in Toronto Centre and Montreal’s Bourassa.

There is also some anecdotal evidence that Mulcair is doing the heavy lifting on the Senate fiasco, dragging Harper down to Trudeau’s benefit.

So Mulcair took the battle to Trudeau.

Trudeau, he said, doesn’t “understand ethics . . . doesn’t understand hypocrisy,’’ after the Liberal leader advised his senators to abstain on the Senate vote on suspending Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau, who had spent two weeks trying to steer the matter to committee.

That Trudeau’s MPs in the Commons railing against the excesses of the trio and the party’s senators pushing for due process were on a collision course was clear for some time. But a plea for abstentions was no answer because Trudeau was asking his own senators to fall on the hypocrisy sword and it is to their credit that most ignored him.

Then Trudeau came under fire for a pastel-coloured campaign promotion for a “ladies night” event in Toronto Thursday, in which women were invited to “really get to know the future prime minister.” With two strong women, Liberal Chrystia Freeland and New Democrat Linda McQuaig contesting Toronto Centre, the timing and locale could not have been worse for the Liberals.

The pushback was led by a trio of female Conservative cabinet ministers, but it gave the NDP’s women’s issues critic Niki Ashton the opening to laud McQuaig, and deride Freeland for attending “ladies night.’’

Also significantly Thursday, Mulcair became the first prominent federal politician to call on Ford to resign, again a position that one supposes, in the absence of specific polling data, is popular in that riding.

But the riskiest NDP gambit was its decision to use its opposition day not to debate the Senate, but to introduce a resolution formalizing its opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline.

This is, after all, a pipeline proposal that could die on its own in the U.S. with no help from the NDP and such a resolution gave the government a day of sniping at the “No Development Party,’’ which stands in the way of jobs and economic growth in this country.

It may be more than 3,400 kilometres from the Keystone nexus at Hardisty, Alta., and Yonge and Dundas streets, but this, too, was all about Trudeau and his support of Keystone voiced in Washington recently.

New Democrats say they have been hearing about the issue on Toronto Centre doorsteps and McQuaig was trying to gain points with Freeland’s decision to decline an invitation to debate climate change.

The NDP motion, put forward by its energy critic Peter Julian, states Keystone is not in Canada’s best interests because it would export more than 40,000 Canadian jobs and intensify the export of unprocessed raw bitumen.

The party is backing a west-to-east Canadian pipeline.

The goal was to force the Liberal caucus to stand behind Trudeau on Keystone, which New Democrats, most notably McQuaig, will say puts them on board with Harper’s vision of Canada as a “petro-state.’’

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“Justin Trudeau went before a group of progressives in Washington last week and sang the praises of the Keystone XL pipeline. Progressives across Canada are still scratching their heads.’’ Mulcair said.

A progressive wedge issue? It’s hard to say, but Trudeau and Mulcair are ready to ensure that with the Commons on a break next week, the best federal political show is in downtown Toronto.

Tim Harper is a national affairs writer. His column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. tharper@thestar.ca Twitter:@nutgraf1

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