Should Linda McQuaig find herself the new NDP MP for Toronto Centre in 10 days, the national narrative is already crafted.

It would be a blow to Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and a huge breakthrough for NDP Leader Tom Mulcair — but it might also quietly bring a smile to the face of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

McQuaig could be a walking, talking wedge issue for the Conservatives who love to reduce debate to caricatures of bad guys versus good guys.

She could play many roles. She could be the heroine of the big union bosses, the job-killer who has called for a moratorium or a “slow down” of Alberta tar sands production, she could be the embodiment of the big taxing lefty, even the buddy of the late Hugo Chavez, who she once described as a “feisty mix of Robin Hood, Che Guevara and Michael Bublé.’’

She would be Linda Lightning Rod.

But McQuaig, a best-selling author and longtime progressive commentator and columnist, isn’t buying.

“I don’t see myself as a lightning rod,’’ she says. “I have been in the public eye for some time. I’m somewhat known, in a positive way, I’ve written best selling books.

“It’s not like I’m known for crack or something.’’

McQuaig, for the first time, is seeking elected office, in a Nov. 25 byelection in a riding believed to be solidly Liberal. To win, she must knock off another journalist, Liberal Chrystia Freeland, Trudeau’s hand-picked candidate.

It’s frankly difficult to imagine McQuaig quietly accepting caucus talking points as a team player on a squad that Mulcair is dragging toward the middle because the lady doesn’t seem much for dragging.

She agrees she has spent much of her life as a lone wolf, but looks forward to joining a team.

She knows teamwork and even plays on a basketball team on Fridays, she says.

Do you ever pass or just shoot? I asked her. She assures me she passes.

“Much as I really want to win, even a really strong showing will look good on the NDP,’’ she says, endorsing views published that day by my colleague, Chantal Hébert.

That sounds dangerously close to the old NDP mantra about moral victories, an attitude Mulcair has tried to shake out of the party.

“I want to win so badly, I can’t tell you,’’ she amends. “I’m just saying that frankly it’s not such a bad position to be the underdog.’’

She sees an opportunity to expose the lack of policies and lack of substance on the squeeze of the middle class by Freeland, “but more broadly, through her, Justin as well. That’s kind of exciting.’’

McQuaig has argued for a 60 per cent tax on those earning incomes over $500,000 (Mulcair disagrees) but now says that raising corporate tax rates, NDP policy, is the route to go because it will raise even more revenue.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“You don’t have to move on every front at once.’’

She has tried to smoke out Trudeau and his support for the Keystone XL pipeline, making him part of “Harper’s petro state,’’ but she is in lockstep with Mulcair’s backing of a west-east pipeline.

The fact that McQuaig backs any pipeline might shock some who have followed her writings on climate change.

She “may well have” called for a moratorium on tar sands development, she says, but she’s a bit more careful now, saying the country must meet United Nations environmental sustainability guidelines.

That may require “cutbacks or whatever, on the oil sands.

“No more unbridled development with a government that shows contempt for environmental concerns.’’

She would land in the Commons as the Harper government goes after unionized public service workers in its latest manufactured war, but McQuaig vows that she would stand with the public service.

In the past 30 years, all the income gains have gone to the top 10 per cent, she says, and key to the Harper strategy is pitting the remaining 90 per cent against each other, whether it is unionized workers versus non-unionized workers, the private sector versus the public sector, or temporary workers versus full-time workers.

“They are always trying to get us to fight over the last piece of pie so we won’t notice the elite have already made off with the first nine pieces of the pie.’’

McQuaig, by her own admission, is facing an uphill battle in Toronto Centre. An old style NDP moral victory could be at hand. Anything more would not only shake up Toronto but provide a jolt to Ottawa.

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

Read more about: