Much is at stake politically and policy wise as MPs rush back to Ottawa, excited to see their friends, show off their new suits and, for all I know, their new lunch boxes with a picture of their favourite former leader on the side. OK, maybe those lunch boxes don't exist, but if they did the Conservatives would be divided between the Preston Manning and the John Diefenbaker. The NDP would split between the Tommy Douglas, the Jack Layton and, egad, the Rene Levesque lunch box. Thomas Mulcair would have the Thomas Mulcair. The Liberals would dust off and duct tape together their 1984 Pierre Trudeau. Of course both the NDP and Liberals are in the process of looking for new leaders right now, and at least some of that will play out in the House. Question Period will be a stage for NDP leadership hopefuls hoping to win a prize that looks suspiciously like a stick of dynamite with a lit fuse. The wily Liberals have delayed their leadership race while deputizing Bob Rae and apparently Shelia Copps to be messengers of Liberal renewal. A cunning strategy or absolute disaster? I'm thinking … disaster. The Conservatives will watch all of this with great interest but they have work to do. Given what's happening in the world, Stephen Harper will need to bring to bear all of his leadership skills to keep Canadians working. Unfortunately, Greece has adopted the annoying habit of trying to go bankrupt every other week, the Americans have a $ 14-trillion debt and 25 million Americans don't have jobs. Canada is doing much better but our last jobs report was worrying. It's time the government unveiled a new kind of job creation agenda. No, I'm not talking about government-funded stimulus packages. I'm talking about knocking down internal trade barriers, ending monopolies and encouraging foreign investment in the airline and communications sectors. To its enormous credit, the government now has free trade discussions underway in 50 different countries. They are ending the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly on wheat and barley marketing which will lead to secondary industry and jobs on the Prairies. Just as important, the government has fought attempts to shut down development in the oil sands, currently the single biggest source of new jobs in the country. My favourite new initiative is the push to slash red tape. Maxime Bernier, minister of state for small business, recently released "What We Heard," a report outlining how excessive regulation is a hidden job-killing tax that especially hurts small business. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business tells us that filling out government forms costs business more than $ 30 billion a year. Bernier should bring a sharp knife to the job and he should move quickly. Given the likelihood it's going to take a decade for the world economy to recover, we need to pull every lever to strengthen Canada's competitive position. This fall, many of us will be caught up in the drama of provincial elections and leadership races, but Stephen Harper's focus has to be on making Canada a beacon of economic sanity in a world drunk on debt and big government.
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