Strangers in the northern land

There we were, a couple of quiet northern Canadian Territories, participating in a nice polite way in the 2011 Canadian federal election.

Then, the strangers showed up and everything changed.

But first, to give an idea how polite things up north are one just had to pop into last week's arts and culture debate in Whitehorse.

Not only did all the Yukon candidates attend they all essentially agreed on everything.

The most contentious issue was how to get a Yukon painting in the National Gallery.

Apparently the Yukon is the only Canadian jurisdiction without representation in the permanent collection.

The NDP and Conservative candidates seemed to be very firm that one should be put in there.

The Green party candidate pointed out that politicians should not be interfering with the independent boards that do this sort of thing. However, he was prepared to write a letter lamenting this omission.

The Liberal incumbent agreed with the Green position, but pointed out that he had actually written a letter on this issue. No word yet on the quality of penmanship involved.

There was even one heckler who shouted a question at the Conservative candidate as he was in mid-blather.

Not only did he answer the question, but the heckler shouted back a thank-you at the end.

Rough and tumble and bruising it was not. And from what one can gather the campaigns across the other territories have been similar.

But then the strangers started showing up.

First, it was Stephen Harper flying in to Yellowknife.

No one is quite too sure why he visited as he only met with Conservative party faithful.

No undecided voters got to meet him, and even the protesters outside his hotel did not get a glimpse.

So his visit might have convinced those who were going to vote for his party anyway to not switch their votes.

Not exactly a way to build momentum.

Next up was Michael Ignatieff who had a much more open meet-and-greet schedule.

Still, this might not guarantee any voters moving into the Liberal camp because the rumour mill is swirling that Jack is coming.

By Jack one means Jack Layton.

This man does have momentum and combined with the popular NDP incumbent in the Northwest Territories it looks like this riding should be a cinch for them.

To the west, the Yukon also had a stranger popping in to stir the political waters.

Gwynne Dyer gave his Climate Wars lecture to an audience of over four hundred people in Whitehorse, and over eighty in Dawson City.

Putting those numbers, large by Yukon standards, in context is that only about fifty people showed up for that arts and culture debate.

Now the Climate Wars talk had been scheduled well before the election was called.

And it was entertaining to watch Mr. Dyer deliver a rather funny monologue on the possible realpolitik behind Harper not getting greenhouse gas emissions down.

The Yukon audience lapped this up, along with the message that there is an urgent need to get greenhouse gas emissions down, otherwise things will become bleak indeed.

But even though the talk had been scheduled before the election call, everyone noticed that the individual chosen to introduce Mr. Dyer, and moderate the question-and-answer session afterwards, is a well respected Yukon-based climate change researcher.

This researcher also happens to be the Green Party candidate for the Yukon in this election.

Now no mention was made of his political ambitions during Mr. Dyers talk.

But it did revive the whole issue of climate change in the Yukon context of the election, which surely does not hurt a Green Party candidate. Nor the Liberal or NDP candidates, for that matter.

Combine that with that the Conservative platform that is almost purely focused on economic issues.

This is not getting them any converts in the Yukon, because the local economy up here is fine thanks to the ecologically and socially unsustainable resource development boom being driven by Asia, not Ottawa.

The environment, housing and healthcare issues that need to be addressed are Green, Liberal and NDP strong points, not Conservative.

It still looks like the Liberal candidate will take the Yukon riding but the Greens are pushing really strong and the NDP will get spillover benefit from Layton's visit to Yellowknife.

There is always the danger of vote splitting, but I suspect that the Conservative support is so static while the other parties are picking up all the undecided voters that there is the very real possibility of Harper's party falling to third place or lower.

"Now wouldn't that be nice," concluding with a quote from The Human Race, one of Mr. Dyer's many excellent television documentaries.