Article content continued

The answer to that question depends entirely on which party, or parties, form government come October.

Stephen Harper responded to the TRC’s recommendations by saying his government is still awaiting the final report (due in the fall) before deciding on appropriate next steps.

This is a very convenient way to side-step the TRC — even though, from a policy perspective, he knows all he needs to know to respond. The full report will amount to millions of pages of testimony that still need to be translated and edited. But the recommendations will not change.

This, at least, buys the prime minister more time as the bidding war for the public’s affection gets underway.

Harper and Justin Trudeau were at Rideau Hall Wednesday. Using this analogy, the Liberal leader has already crushed the bid by promising to implement all 94 recommendations. One wonders whether he read them all before making that commitment. He almost certainly didn’t cost them. Such is the freedom from responsibility of being in opposition.

Tom Mulcair was slightly more circumspect, promising to launch an inquiry into murdered and missing aboriginal women, if the NDP is elected.

But he also promised to engage in “respectful nation-to-nation” relations, which sounds wonderful in theory but impossible in practice, given there are more than 630 “nations” with which an NDP government would have to haggle.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or

It’s not yet clear whether the stirring images of the past few days will resonate with non-aboriginal voters beyond the week’s end.