When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was recently asked how far the government would go to assert federal authority over the expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline, he had a wonderful opportunity to say: \u201cJust watch me.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was the answer his father the former prime minister Pierre Trudeau gave in 1970 when asked how far he\u2019d go to defend Canadian society against FLQ kidnappers in the October Crisis. Unfortunately, Sunday\u2019s question at the press conference<\/a>, following Trudeau\u2019s meeting with Rachel Notley and John Horgan, the Alberta and British Columbia premiers respectively, was an add-on to a longer one about the state of financial negotiations with Kinder Morgan and so the PM was able to ignore it.<\/p>\n Memo to the press: If you want questions to have impact and be undodge-able, make them short and to the point and ask just one at a time. <\/p>\n In effect, however, \u201cJust watch me\u201d is what Trudeau said. What kind of legislation would he be bringing forward to confirm federal jurisdiction over the pipeline? The legislation is being written \u201cas we speak\u201d and will be introduced in due course (though why legislation is necessary if jurisdiction is as clear as everyone says it is no journalist asked). How much will the government spend to allay Kinder Morgan\u2019s concerns about the uncertainty now beclouding the project? Those negotiations are taking place in Ottawa, Calgary, Houston and New York and when an agreement is reached the press will be the first to know. In other words, all will become clear in good time: Just watch me. <\/p>\n I wrote last week that Trudeau had missed his Margaret Thatcher moment<\/a> on the pipeline. Well, ready the handbag: maybe he hasn\u2019t. His repeated, unqualified declaration on the weekend that the pipeline will be built was unambiguous. If he eventually backs down, the short and sweet video clips it generated will be first up in opposition ads focusing on the government\u2019s broken election promises. Trudeau has to know \u2014 his focus groups must tell him \u2014 he has developed a credibility problem regarding his promises. To be so unequivocal in promising that the pipeline will be built is a political risk with consequences he must surely understand.<\/p>\n He also presumably understands the political precedent. The country\u2019s first experience with Trudeaumania in 1968 was more startling, historic and intense than its loud echo in 2015 but, even so, his father won his second election, in 1972, by only two seats, 109-107. And that was despite the fact \u2014 or maybe because of it \u2014 that Progressive Conservative leader Robert Stanfield was widely regarded as uninspiring, as is today\u2019s Conservative leader Andrew Scheer. Disappointment at unfulfilled high expectations, albeit impossibly high expectations, was the main driver of Pierre Trudeau\u2019s diminished seat count in 1972, as it may well be of Justin Trudeau\u2019s in 2019. <\/p>\n The PM\u2019s unequivocal declaration that the pipeline will be built also gives great advantage to Kinder Morgan, his counterparty in the current negotiations. A prime minister has just identified completion of your investment project as being in the national interest and in so doing has also placed it in his very strong political interest. Who\u2019s over a barrel now? And how many billions do you suppose that barrel is worth? If I were advising Kinder Morgan, I\u2019d say \u201cAmp up the reluctance.\u201d <\/p>\n The national interest, allied with political self-interest, is making for very strange bedfellows. On Sunday, we saw a federal prime minister in policy lockstep with a premier of Alberta, asserting federal supremacy over a petroleum project. Pierre Trudeau would have been astonished. Marc Lalonde, father of the National Energy Policy, may also well have been. The 2018 version of the famous 1980s bumper sticker will be: \u201cLet the B.C. bastards drink warm, white wine in the dark.\u201d <\/p>\n The showdown with B.C. isn\u2019t over yet, however. Premier Horgan indicated that if an upcoming court case goes against it, B.C. would abide by the result. Ottawa presumably will, too, if the decision goes the other way. \u201cI would have built the pipeline but the court wouldn\u2019t let me\u201d may be a legitimate argument for Trudeau but, in view of those unequivocal video clips, probably not a persuasive one. <\/p>\n If the courts say the pipeline is good to go, the next confrontation will be a \u201cSister Souljah\u201d moment for all three leftish politicians. Sister Souljah was the rap singer who after the Los Angeles riots of 1992 recommended a week of killing white people. Then presidential candidate Bill Clinton condemned<\/a> her statement and, in so doing, established his centrist cred.<\/p>\n If pipeline construction does begin, acts of civil disobedience, which may be widespread and certainly will be widely YouTubed, will come mainly from the left. Notley, Horgan and Trudeau will have to stand up to their ideological allies. That will be very painful for them but very good for the country. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Promising that the pipeline will be built is a political risk with consequences Trudeau must surely understand<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5714"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5716,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5714\/revisions\/5716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}