Let's say its 2008 all over again. And you are a dashing, personally popular, mustachioed leader of a much less popular party on the left wing of the political spectrum that perennially finishes third or fourth. Your policies are old, comfortable, familiar to 15% - 20% of the electorate. The party on the right can only grow so much because of fears about its hidden agenda and its awkward leader. The party in the centre has broken with its long tradition of selecting electable leaders. Climate change is on everybody's lips, so much so that it is the main plank of
both the party in the centre and a new party on the left, the Greens. So, faced with this opportunity what do you do?
If your answer was bury your head in the sand, than you just might be Jack Layton. And your short-sighted decision then, is looking like its really going to hurt you now, in 2011.
Jack Layton is a committed environmentalist. He hasn't owned a car since 1983. His house, a charming semi in downtown Toronto is
environmentally sound, retrofitted to reduce its footprint. And one suspects that he, like most environmentalists, recognise that without a real tax on carbon it will be next to impossible to mount an efficient and cost-effective campaign against greenhouse gas emissions.
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