Dion heads to heart of oil country to push green strategy

globeandmail.com: Dion heads to heart of oil country to push green strategy

CALGARY — Federal Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion rode into the heart of cowboy country Friday to lasso support for his green plan in a province that snorts at any whiff of the old national energy program.

The policy brought in by the Trudeau Liberals in the early 1980s is still despised by many in Alberta who felt it siphoned oil revenue from the province and sent it to Central Canada. It's a spectre that has been raised by Prime Minister Stephen Harper as Mr. Dion travels the country selling a green plan that includes a carbon tax.

“The carbon tax in Alberta is right up there with the NEP. On the mantelpiece you put them side by side,” warned Peter McCormick, a political scientist at the University of Lethbridge.

“It's going to be a hard sell in Alberta because Alberta feels it's being made the target again.”

Mr. Dion's arrival coincided with the start of the Calgary Stampede — the annual 10-day celebration of cowboy culture in the heart of Canada's oil country. His visit raised some eyebrows even before he arrived. One political cartoon in a newspaper showed him on a spit roasting over a fire. “If Westerners are so upset, why have I been invited to so many of their barbecues?” read the caption.