Political climate change

While the CP does its best to spin the story into a negative, Jack Layton's call for agreement on environmental legislation should nonetheless play a huge part in shaping Parliament on its return - not to mention Canadian political dialogue in the meantime:

Layton, speaking at a year-end news conference Monday, challenged the other federal parties to help him rewrite the (Clean Air Act) that's currently before a Commons committee.

"This Parliament could completely reconstruct - in fact construct anew - legislation that would get the job done," he said.

"I'm in direct touch with the other party leaders to convince them that early action...is not only essential, but it's something that we can do. There's no reason for delay."

Layton maintains it's possible to amend the Tory bill, debate the changes and pass the legislation within weeks once MPs return to work at the end of January. That timetable could make it law before Finance Minister Jim Flaherty delivers his next budget.

Given what I wrote a week ago, it shouldn't come as much surprise that I'm glad to see Layton make the move.

Of course there's never a guarantee that the parties will be able to ultimately agree on a bill in the end. (Nor for that matter that the Libs will be interested in paying attention to what can be done now.) But thanks to Layton, there's now a real possibility of effective action on the environment as soon as a couple of months from now - perhaps even with an all-party consensus in Parliament if the Cons are smart enough not to try to challenge an agreed opposition bill. And that surely has to be a far better outcome than waiting for another change in government before moving forward.