Just before Pierre Trudeau was elected Prime Minister of Canada, the British PM Harold Wilson had already declared : “A week is a long time in politics,”and about the same time a satirical television show was launched in U.K. called ‘That Was The Week That Was’.
Those words from yesteryear must be haunting Trudeau’s son right now, as one weekend he was in Nanaimo, barely able to contain a gleeful sneer when the news broke of Max Bernier quitting the Conservatives to form his own party. Apparently, timed by Bernier to throw the Conservative convention in Halifax into disarray and chaos, which never really happened, and the next weekend the disarray and chaos was threatening to sink Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party.
How quickly the worm has turned, the Federal Court of Appeal quashing Ottawa’s approval of the Trans-Mountain Pipeline expansion, then simultaneously the Kinder-Morgan shareholders gleefully finalizing our government’s $4.5-billion offer to purchase their existing pipeline and facilities. A day or two later crucial NAFTA negotiations failed to meet the presidential deadline, and are being extended; it really was the week that was to throw Ottawa’s government for a lopsided loop.
Economists and supporters of the pipeline were not enthused, but could accept the judges’ advice of further consultations with Indigenous interests that will probably take place sooner rather than later, so pipeline construction could eventually get under way. The ruling about tanker safety and orca vulnerability may require larger crystal balls, but Ottawa’s apparent forgetfulness to put a holdback clause for permit approval is a lot harder for ordinary Canadians to swallow.
It looks as if Canada’s Emperor has no clothes, and those controlling the nation’s purse strings are nowhere near as smart as they would have us all believe. Those same politicians claim to be the bee’s knees when dealing with the Americans over NAFTA, but maybe their knees should be shaking a little when the ‘Art Of The Deal’ author is really controlling their marionette strings in Washington.
Bernie Smith
Parksville