Where are the Ottawa Liberals on the Keystone XL Pipeline?
The staggering hypocrisy on Alberta energy.
“Unnecessary, unwarranted, and entirely unacceptable.”
These words once uttered by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland to describe American tariffs placed on Canadian aluminum and steel can now best be used to describe the absolute disdain and contempt that the Trudeau administration has shown towards energy workers and their families over the past six years. Once again, deafening silence from Prime Minister Trudeau. He has shown that he is willing to be a fierce defender of Canadian interests so long as those interests lie outside the prairies and inside the confines of the Liberal party’s ideological box. When thousands of jobs for Alberta energy workers were deleted with the stroke of a pen by the Biden Administration, Prime Minister Trudeau expressed his “disappointment” in a 206-word press release. When Quebec-based SNC Lavalin had been charged with corruption and fraud by the RCMP and were denied access to negotiating a remediation agreement, the Prime Minister unethically pressured and subsequently removed Attorney General Wilson-Raybould from her post for not bending to his political will.
Even after having been found guilty by the Ethics Commissioner, Prime Minister Trudeau justified his actions by stating, “I'm not going to apologize for standing up for Canadian jobs, because that's my job -- to make sure Canadians and communities and pensioners and families across the country are supported, and that's what I will always do." While SNC Lavalin is now free to bid on federal contracts as before, the thousands of workers who would have been employed by the Keystone XL project will now be stuck trying to figure out how the Prime Minister’s “disappointment” will help them put food on the dinner table, pay their mortgage, and save for retirement.
This attitude, however, does not begin and end with the Prime Minister alone. Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau has stated that he “understand[s] and respect[s] this decision,” while Canada’s Natural Resource Minister Seamus O’Regan said that Canadians must “respect” the decision because it was a “significant campaign promise by candidate Biden.” Minister O’Regan’s own mandate letter calls on him to “support workers and businesses in the natural resource sectors that are seeking to export their goods to global markets;” however, that would require him actually paying more than just lip service to the energy industry whilst helping his boss phase out the oil sands. In the face of steel and aluminum tariffs from the United States, Canada returned fire with $3.6 billion in countermeasures, targeting swing states, and industries as specific as chocolate in the states home to prominent members of Congress. Prime Minister Trudeau went so far as to appeal to the memory of Canada’s fallen soldiers when speaking of steel tariffs implemented under the guise of protecting American national security interests, stating “Our soldiers who had fought and died together on the beaches of World War II … and the mountains of Afghanistan, and have stood shoulder to shoulder in some of the most difficult places in the world, that are always there for each other, somehow — this is insulting to them.” When it comes to defending energy jobs in Canada? Deafening silence. The hypocrisy is staggering.
Canada has the means to put up a genuine fight in support of our energy industry. Alberta’s Premier Jason Kenney, Ontario's Doug Ford, Saskatchewan's Scott Moe and Quebec's François Legault all pushed the prime minister to take action and respond in a meaningful way to this direct attack on Canada’s economic interests. Before this Executive Order was ever signed, I wrote a letter to Jim Carr, Special Representative for the Prairies, reminding him that the Keystone XL project has already invested $207.3 million into Canadian communities, including $15.5 million in Indigenous communities, and that the Liberal government must do whatever it takes to ensure this project goes forward. Unfortunately, no action.
The issues of Albertans and Canadians in the prairies are the issues of Canada as a whole. If Prime Minister Trudeau is truly interested in “building back better” in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, he’d do well to remember that it was the energy sector that helped Canada weather the financial crisis of 2008-09, and that it will be the hard work of Western Canadians in the energy sector who will play a large role in getting us out of this mess too. If the Prime Minister is truly committed to “[making] sure Canadians and communities and pensioners and families across the country are supported,” one would hope that we will be seeing more than a 90 second soundbite on this issue from the PMO. As always, I will continue to advocate for the thousands of families in my riding and across the prairies who depend on Canada’s world-leading energy industry for jobs and financial security.
Canada’s conservatives have a plan to respond and secure our future. Erin O’Toole campaigned explicitly in our leadership race on an East-West energy corridor that would ship our energy product to waiting markets while providing the means for clean hydro-electricity to be transmitted to waiting customers across Canada. For the past 5 years, with a change of American administration we have been first targeted with trade penalties and tariffs and now with damaging energy infrastructure cancellations – our only solution is to secure our future by ensuring critical infrastructure is wholly within Canadian territory and that we have a majority conservative government dedicated to ensuring we provide all the opportunities Canadian workers deserve. As always, I will continue to speak up for our communities and to pushback against those who would write-off our jobs with a pen, whether they be in Ottawa or Washington.
You can watch the emergency debate, secured by the Conservatives, on the Keystone XL pipeline
Trudeau does not care about Alberta, Sask or Manitoba . in reality its been disaster each week in Ottawa with a very inept government as well the cabinet ministers of the ruling Liberals.
May be the next governor general will come from Isis ..this country is behind the eight ball just every day lacking leadership in every way. Media opinions rule without the real facts.