Even though their leaders (or prospective leaders) mostly object to the idea, the federal Liberals and NDP will need to come together to succeed, according to a former Tory cabinet minister visiting Prince George.
Speaking to a group of students at the University of Northern B.C. Thursday, Stockwell Day compared the current state of the non-governing two parties to the state the right-wing groups were in prior to the formation of the Conservative party.
Day said he believes the previous day's visitor to the school, Justin Trudeau, will win the Liberal leadership race and that he will even become the leader of the official Opposition in the House of Commons.
"Whether or not he'll be the next prime minister I think is going to depend on whether those two parties are going to come together - the NDP and Liberals," Day said. "One or two more elections, there'll be enough Liberals that will be upset and enough NDP upset that they will form a coalition. That's my belief. And then politics is really going to get interesting."
About two dozen students gathered in the university's student centre to listen to Day speak about what drove him into politics and to gauge his opinion on a variety of current affairs. After leaving politics in 2011, Day started a government relations consulting firm.
The event was sponsored by the UNBC Young Conservatives club, now in its second year.
"This is probably our biggest event we've had so far," said club president Rob Currie-Wood, noting Parliament is usually sitting during the fall and winter semesters, leaving the January break the only time to get government officials to visit the school. The lunch-hour meet and greet also served as a registration drive for the club.
Day was also in town to attend a reception with Prince George-Valemount MLA Shirley Bond.
"I'm actively working very hard to get the B.C. Liberals re-elected," Day acknowledged, adding the first time in his life he had ever voted Liberal was for the provincial party.
He said that for a period of time while he was the finance minister for the Alberta provincial government, the NDP were in power in B.C. and that people and money were migrating to his province in large amounts.
"When the government shifted, prosperity started coming back to B.C. is greater numbers," Day said.
When asked if the country is getting their full value for exporting resources, Day said Canadians can't afford to not sell what they have.
"If we don't manufacture, produce, add value and sell it to the nations that need it, those nations will go to other countries, many of which are not democratic. They're run by dictators, they don't have any where near the same environmental standards," he said, noting he thinks there is a need for multiple pipelines, not just the one being proposed. "And Canada's resources and the jobs and the prosperity and the social programs that we can have because of the taxes that come from those, we will lose."
The former international trade minister also said he foresees Enbridge having difficulty in moving ahead with their specific proposal for the Northern Gateway project because it has "become very tainted, rightly or wrongly."
