Revolutionary Moderation

Reading the tea leaves

Calgary Grit anticipates a small shuffle that's going to get Rona Ambrose out of the Environment portfolio, to be replaced by Jim Prentice. Although I strongly suspect the Clean Air Act proposed in October and widely reviled shortly thereafter was not so much Rona's proposal as it was Rona and the department's details painted onto some Harper/Tory guidelines, she's the lucky Ayn Rand fan who gets to eat it, and that's okay by me.

If Jim Prentice in fact ends up with the position, is that a signal that like the Liberals at their leadership, the Tories are ready to step forward and take the environment seriously in deed as well as in word? There's been a whole lot of ink given over to writing elegies for the NDP in the wake of Dion's win (though the typists like to pretend the Green party is an influence as well, to which I dismissively say, "yeah, right"). Will a serious environmental effort from the Tories add nails to the coffin?