…(Conservative Prime Minister Stephen) Harper, far from not having time for (Liberal Premier Christy) Clark, has met with her on non-hockey matters a half-dozen or so times over the past year. Thursday, he not only made the gesture of stopping by her son’s hockey game, he stayed for all three periods, suggesting a level of mutual com-fort beyond what is necessary for public relations purposes.
Image-making aside, the week also brought more substantive evidence of the budding relationship between the two and their administrations.
Earlier Thursday, Clark had announced the appointment of a former senior adviser to Harper, Ken Boessenkool, as her chief of staff.
His prime objective, as described by Boessenkool himself in a confidential missive announcing he was joining the upper echelon of the B.C. Liberal administration:
“Keeping the NDP away from the reins of power in B.C.,” as a way of “keeping Western Canada strong” and “keeping Canada on course,” meaning the one charted by Harper’s Conservative government.
“So when Premier Christy Clark recently asked me to play a bigger role in making sure her free-enterprise coalition stays in power, I said yes,” he wrote in the letter distributed to friends and supporters….
Not invited to the event in Halifax: As reported by CBC Halifax, NDP Premier Darrell Dexter, who lobbied hard for his province to win the larger of the two contracts up for grabs. (Though the government did maintain all along that lobbying would not influence the contract decisions.)
Also not at the event in North Vancouver: B.C. Premier Christy Clark, who also did her best to make the west coast case for their share of the procurement…
