On multitasking

Can anybody remember the last time a federal leader turned a campaign flight into more than just a means of getting from point A to point B? Because it looks like the NDP managed to make Jack Layton's flight to Fort Smith into an opportunity for the press on board to find out just what kind of environmental damage is being caused by the Alberta tar sands:

In a pitch that seemed more in tune with voters in environmentally sensitive Central Canada, particularly Quebec, Layton vowed to shut down further expansion of Alberta's tarsands development.

He is also promising to force big oil companies to clean up and reclaim vast swaths of land that has been strip mined for petroleum production.

"This development has to be brought under control, otherwise we're going to have a legacy for the next generation that's too toxic to clean up," Layton said as his campaign plane swooped low over a portion of the 47,832 hectares of land ripped up by tarsands development.

With the national media already a captive audience, Layton saw the flyby as a perfect opportunity to make a point...

Over the cabin speaker, Linda Duncan - the party's candidate in the riding of Edmonton-Strathcona and a long-time environmentalist - gave an aerial guided tour of the scarred earth below. She pointed to gaping brown holes in the landscape and huge, inky-coloured, man-made lakes of waste water...

Duncan said the gouging of the ground isn't the worst environmental damage. Oilsands development requires a huge amount of water that eventually ends up in gigantic toxic holding ponds that communities downstream from the development say are polluting their waterways.

Of course, there's only so much awareness a party can raise with a direct audience limited to its campaign plane. But it's still a creative and worthwhile move to ensure that the media covering Layton's campaign gets a close-up look at some of the most immediate dangers which his environmental message is intended to deal with. And if the rest of the campaign is similarly well-planned in highlighting the New Democrats' causes even during what would normally be idle time, then the press closest to Layton may be far more inclined to see the party as ready to take on the responsibility of governing the country.