Winning policy, winning strategy

As promised, I'll take a few minutes to discuss the NDP's plan to release a greenhouse-gas reduction plan this week:

Opposition parties will step up their attacks this week on the Conservative government's increasingly unpopular environmental position, with the pro-Kyoto New Democrats going so far as to release daily elements of a plan for the government to tackle climate change.

NDP Leader Jack Layton said this weekend his party will roll out "key elements" of that plan "virtually every day" this week...

"We can at least show that there are things that the government could be doing now as we head into smog season," Layton said at a conference of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in Montreal. "Are we just simply going to twiddle our thumbs for six months and reneg (sic) on commitments we've made to the rest of the world? It's not where Canadians want to go."

From a policy standpoint, obviously it's a plus to try to highlight the options available to address global warming, particularly at a time when the Cons are supposedly collecting ideas for their plan this fall. But the political reasons for the NDP move strike me as ultimately more important than the likelihood of any action being taken, or even the content of the plan.

After all, the NDP has had a thorough Kyoto strategy available for public viewing for ages already. It doesn't seem all that likely that the NDP's philosophy has changed too much since the existing plan was drafted, though a few new ideas may work their way into the mix. And while I'd like to think the current wave of Kyoto support will force the Cons into action, there still isn't much chance that a government determined to undermine Kyoto will adopt much of a platform explicitly aimed at meeting the Kyoto targets.

But as things stand now in Parliament, the NDP is making the right move in differentiating itself by promoting policy first, particularly in an area which has often been in the public eye. The Cons have the machinery of government to keep themselves in the news, hampered only by their ideological bent against government getting anything done; the Libs can count on their leadership race to draw media attention to at least the party's personalities. That leaves an all-too-typical void in the department of presenting innovative policy options, and it only makes sense for the NDP to fill in the gap.

Mind you, that always leaves the danger that the NDP may be seen as overly interested in developing policies for other parties to co-opt. But in the wake of the last election, there's a rare opening for policy to be seen as more of a strength than a liability. After all, much of the media narrative from the past election suggests that the Cons succeeded by putting their policies in the public eye early and often. And with that mindset dominating the current political CW, it can only help the NDP in the eyes of the punditocracy to get the jump in the midst of the perpetual campaign that is a minority government.