Deal makers and soul shakers?

They’re using terms like deals with the devil and selling your soul, to describe a story coming out of the mainstream media of central Canada involving the Northwest’s very own Member of Parliament.

Nathan Cullen has been under the gun for the last few days after reports in the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star over an alliance between the Conservatives and the NDP revolving around environmental matters.

It was a story that came out over the weekend, but so far hasn’t really picked up any traction nationally, though perhaps it got lost during the media blitz revolving a football game in the USA and the new line of Conservative attacks on the stewardship of the Liberals by Stephane Dion.

A quick scan of the issue doesn’t portend so much as scandal as more of typical minority government politics, the Conservatives would like to delay an election for a set period of time yet, to do that they need the help of one of the three parties opposite. Considering the tone of debate with the Liberals lately, we can strike them off the dance card, leaving the Bloc and the NDP. Since they have chosen the environment as their topic of choice, the natural dance partner would be Jack Layton and his environment critic Nathan Cullen.

With a shiny new Minister to launch on the populace and a portfolio that kind of ran off the rails in the last year, the Tories needed something to show they were getting serious on the environment. Hence we get the Great Bear Rainforest deliberations and for the national media some kind of chicanery and skullduggery, which doesn’t actually seem to appear in what we have been provided thus far.

Maybe it was a slow news day, maybe there is some smoking gun waiting to be discovered, but so far there isn’t any blinding flash of light that screams out scandal.

Rather it comes out to be more of the usual political horse trading you see when a minority government doesn’t want to head to the polls just yet. We might be missing the big picture, but compared to some of the big scandals of the day with our Federal politicians, surely the national media could do better than this.

For their part the NDP did a little spin control of their own, with a story in the Hill Times yesterday that tries to refute and diminish the claims of the two Toronto based newspapers of last week.

For its part the Daily picked up the trail and provided the local approach to it, in their Monday paper.

NATIONAL MEDIA TAKES RUN AT CULLEN FOR ALLEGED DEAL
But MP is quick to say there were no ultimatums on the bargaining table
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Monday, February 5, 2007
Pages one and three

Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen is being accused in the national media of making a proverbial deal with the devil.

And the cost of his soul, according to the papers, was $30 million in funding for First Nations communities in the Great Bear rainforest.

According to articles in both the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star, “a strange and risky alliance between the NDP and the Harper government on the environment has been bolstered by a $30 million federal contribution two weeks ago.”

At a Vancouver meeting between NDP leader Jack Layton, Cullen (also the NDP’s environment critic), and the new Environment Minister John Baird, Layton presented his list of demands to the Tories – primarily a series of amendments to be made to the government’s Clean Air Act – if they were to regain credibility on the sensitive environment file.

According to unnamed sources in the Toronto Star, before consenting to anything, Layton told Baird he wanted to see a sign of good faith showing the Conservatives were actually committed to the environment, and not just trying to save their government from defeat.

Then two weeks later, the Great Bear Rainforest announcement was made.

“That absolutely happened,” said one source. “It was one of many, many components that helped get them over the top on this.”

The funding package has been on the back-burner since last February when the B. C. government committed $30 million to the $60 million package put together by environmentalists through private foundations.

The other parties to the funding were only told three days before the federal announcement, seemingly odd given it took environmental organizations six years to bring the provincial government on board.

However, Cullen denied in the national media that any ultimatums were put on the table.

And in a regional media scrum, he characterized the meeting optimistically, with the new environment minister “ready to listen.”

“There was no deal to any of the offers we made,” said Cullen, to the national press.

“If you want Canadians to give you a second chance, this is the way to do it, roll something constructive out the door,” he said of the conversation, noting that neither Stephane Dion as Liberal environment minister, nor Rona Ambrose, who held the post for the Tories, were prepared to act.

And the fact the rainforest sits in his riding was “never a consideration,” said Cullen.

Nor does it appear the NDP are getting any breaks from the Conservatives on the Clean Air Act.
A committee struck to rewrite the legislation could drag on for months because of the number of witnesses being called by the Conservatives and Liberals.

The Tories and Liberals reportedly want to hear from 81 witnesses – almost four times as many as the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois combined.

“We’re going to talk to both of the parties about this and get their heads screwed on straight,” Cullen told the national press. “If what they’re interested in doing is affecting some change and having something positive happen, putting up roadblocks and delays is irresponsible and hypocritical.”