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Problem two was the new NDP leader, Mulcair, who had won the leadership of his party on the promise of moving it to the centre. Mulcair also yielded the opportunity: In an apparent bid to court sentiment in Ontario’s manufacturing heartland, he began talking up “Dutch disease,” the ostensible hardship caused by high oil prices (we should wish for such hardship, now) and attacking TransCanada’s Keystone XL plan to build a pipeline linking Alberta with the Texas Gulf Coast.

Trudeau backed Keystone unequivocally. In doing so he ticked off several important strategic boxes at a stroke. He made himself appear economically more serious than Mulcair, who could henceforth be dismissed as a wild-eyed socialist. He got attention on the Prairies, which showed up consistently in by-election results thereafter. He reassured Ontario swing voters, always seeking a leader who can mind the store. And he cast himself as a pro-business Liberal, someone to whom a weary Harper voter might switch in a pinch.

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It all worked beautifully, from a Liberal standpoint. Capping the strategy, as the years ticked by, was that Harper himself, despite having crafted an omnibus budget in 2012 that seemed wholly designed to get Canadian resources to market, had failed to get results. Contrary to Trudeau’s recent assertion, the former PM was never a cheerleader for these projects — and that was part of the problem. Legislative changes and demonizing environmentalists aside, Harper never once, that I know of, gave a major speech extolling the benefits to Canada of Keystone, Energy East, TransMountain or any other pipeline plan. In Dec. of 2013, when the National Energy Board joint review panel effectively kicked Enbridge’s Northern Gateway plan curbside, Harper and his ministers were mum.