On matters of pipelines, talk is cheap, but Canada needs some action
By Medicine Hat News Opinon on September 7, 2018.
The photo this week of Premier Rachel Notley and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau does indeed tell a long story. Notley looks ticked off, as though she’s given it her all and has hit a brick wall. Trudeau, clasping his hands, legs crossed and a fixed facial expression, looks for all the world as though someone “arranged” him for the taking of a family photo and he is sitting still come hell or high water. For both people the appeal court’s decision on the Kinder Morgan pipeline last week was a shock. Notley has less time to weather the storm, though, with an election next spring, than Trudeau does with an election a year away. The prime minister’s balancing act, that appeared to work in the short term, is starting to wobble. You can’t say the pipeline is going ahead, even using taxpayers’ money to buy it, and then have no plan of action to see it through. You can’t tell the world that your priority is the environment and then force through a pipeline that environmentalists do not want. For the groups lobbying against the pipeline there has been much said about where the financing is coming from. At the crux of the issue, though, is that Canada is importing oil from the Middle East while refusing to allow Alberta to supply the need. It would be very interesting to see how many of these environmentalists still drive a vehicle that is using gas. If they truly wanted to protect the environment then they by now should have switched to walking or using a bicycle. If they are using a gas guzzling vehicle but are happy to use gas from the Middle East they are hypocritical. They are punishing Alberta but then turning a blind eye to human rights violations and environmental standards where the oil is coming from. Looking at the recent photo of Notley and Trudeau it is hard not to think about the many photos where both talked about the pipeline like it was a done thing — shovels in the ground, crews on the job. At the time it seemed like just political talk. It was. If Trudeau is serious about the environment then he too should be presenting viable alternatives to move product and people from coast to coast on electric railways and public transport. We hear none of that and it all comes back to the fact that talk is cheap and it can fool some of the people some of the time but now that time is up. (Gillian Slade is a News reporter. To comment on this and other editorials, go to https://www.medicinehatnews.com/opinions, email her at gslade@medicinehatnews.com or call her at 403-528-8635.) 15-14
