I told yah! In a recent column, I wrote that Trudeau was stalling for time, just hoping that the pipeline problem would go away.
Steve Kean from Kinder Morgan has finally had enough of the stalling from the Alberta NDP, the Federal Liberals and the obstruction from the BC NDP governments.
On Sunday April 8, they delivered an ultimatum.
They would spend no more money on the project for now, and the governments had until May 31st to give the company a clear go-ahead to start construction, or they will abandon the project.
This is exactly what BC wanted, but the ball is clearly in Trudeau and Notley’s court now.
They are being forced to ‘get off the pot’.
Neither of these two really wanted the pipeline to be constructed because it goes against their basic climate change policy.
Trudeau and his progressive government have made very little progress in getting pipeline construction underway.
I think he thought he could get away with killing the project with a slow death like he did with the Energy East Pipeline, however, he thought he could stall it with his the pipeline will get built statements until after the next election which he was confident he could win.
He did not anticipate the ultimatum.
The pipeline must get built now or he will pay a political price.
If this pipeline goes the way of the Dodo bird like the Energy East pipeline did his government will be portrayed as a do-nothing government.
The Kinder Morgan ultimatum has also created a political problem for Rachel Notley.
All of her tough talk is now meaningless because now she has to follow through with some real action.
She now has only six weeks to come up with something drastic enough to force Premier John Horgan and his green sidekick to back down.
She made a tactical error when she withdrew a ban on wine being imported from BC.
She thought that when Horgan changed his tactics and took the issue to court she had won.
Well all that accomplished was to encourage the protesters.
She should have told him that the wine ban would stay in place until construction of the pipeline was underway.
In fact, what she should have done since his taking the issue to court was frivolous, was impose more economic sanctions on him which is what she will be forced to do now if she really wants the pipeline to be built.
The pipeline is her only hope of resurrection.
I don’t think she will win an election anyway but getting the pipeline built would be a legacy for her.
I really don’t understand what is so difficult for Trudeau and his do nothing government to get pipeline construction underway anyway.
It has received regulatory approval and the government did give it federal approval as it is in the national interest.
BC may not like it, but BC has no constitutional authority to block it. We cannot have national decisions decided by protesters.
If Trudeau would exercise some authority instead of acting in front of a camera I think he could have already had pipeline construction underway.
He should simply tell Kinder Morgan to start construction and guarantee that the government would make sure that there would be no obstruction from protesters etc.
Rather than taking the RCMP away from their responsibilities, use the army.
That would be a far more useful place for them to keep peace than sending them over to Mali where some of them would probably face certain death.
Tasking the army to protect construction workers would have more political support and cost less money than sending them on a lost cause to a dangerous area in Africa.
by Herman Schwenk
