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Thomas Mulcair’s New Democrats have a bit of an issue bubbling away on the Linda McQuaig front. The journalist/activist/author/candidate suggested Friday that “a lot of the oilsands oil may have to stay in the ground,” if Canada is to meet its reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions.

This is hardly radical and should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with McQuaig’s views. But it caused a bit of a media storm, opened the party to criticism and forced the leadership to declare that McQuaig spoke for herself and did not reflect party policy.

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tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Kelly McParland: McQuaig’s latest outburst undercuts Mulcair’s sanitized NDP Back to video

The NDP is far from alone in having loose cannons to worry about. Until Stephen Harper imposed much-needed internal discipline on the Conservative party – for which he has been portrayed as a paranoid micro-managing control freak – the Tories were regularly tripped up by Bozo eruptions from one obscure crank or another who’d managed to take out a membership card. Alberta’s Wildrose party saw its rapid rise towards power crumble when a pair of enthusiasts shared their thoughts about skin colour and sexual preferences. As we speak, the U.S. Republican party is desperate to find a way to make Donald Trump shut up and go away before he reduces the party to smouldering ash.