Interim federal Liberal leader Bob Rae exhorted his party to turn its eyes westward Wednesday even as the country was consumed with navel gazing over the never-ending Quebec sovereignty question.
Liberals had been positioning themselves as the party of national unity in anticipation of Tuesday's Parti Quebecois election victory in Quebec, but Rae pitched a far more pan-Canadian message as the 35 MPs and 40 Liberal senators sat down for their fall planning session.
In a clear effort to spread his embattled party's federalist credentials beyond the rancorous old French-English divide, Rae used Alberta's olive branch on a national energy policy to pillory Prime Minister Stephen Harper's long-standing animosity toward first ministers' meetings.
Harper has met with the premiers en masse only twice since coming to office in 2006 and has indicated he intends to keep it that way.
Rae likened Harper's attitude to actor Clint Eastwood's much-lampooned address at the Republican convention last week, where Eastwood rambled on at length to an empty chair.
"Imagine a prime minister in any other jurisdiction saying, 'I will not meet with the leaders of the federation as a matter of principle.' It's ridiculous. What, are you going to have 11 empty chairs?" Rae said to laughter.
Alberta Premier Alison Redford has spoken of the need for a national energy strategy, an idea to which the Conservative government appears cold, Rae noted.
"Wake up, Canadians!" he almost shouted.
"You have the premier of the largest energy-producing province in the country who says she wants to be part of a national dialogue. And the prime minister of the country, who comes from the same province as she does, says, 'I don't know what she's talking about.'
"Well, why don't you pick up the phone, Mr. Harper?
Who do you think you are, Clint Eastwood?"
Rae made an impassioned pitch for a west-toeast pipeline, using the argument about "ethical oil" to question why Central Canada, by inference, is forced to consume "unethical" foreign oil.
"See this as a national project," Rae said of his west-east pipeline pitch. "We're not building pipelines, my friend; we're building a country. It's called Canada."
