The news over the weekend that the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Expansion was in doubt as the company announced that they were halting any "non-essential activities" and giving the federal (and by extension BC) government until May 31^st to give it assurances that the "unquantifiable risks" facing the pipeline would be addressed.  This despite the fact that they have their approval from the National Energy Board, from federal Cabinet who has declared on numerous occasions that the project is in the national interest and that the pipeline "will get built" and from the courts.  Immediately the howls started from both the federal and Alberta Conservatives, insisting that the prime minister has to do something to fix this issue.  The problem?  There's not a whole lot that the federal government can do.

For weeks, Andrew Scheer and his MPs have been demanding that the government provide them with a date that Kinder Morgan work would get underway, insisting that it was a "simple question," followed immediately by some performative incredulity that such a "simple question" doesn't get a simple answer.  Of course, the question is not a simple one, but perhaps should be met by a GIF of Admiral Ackbar declaring "It's a trap!"

To the best of my knowledge, there is no way that the federal government can set a date, or that this is even in their hands.  They've done their part approving the pipeline (which was a change in the law that the Conservatives put into place during their time in government, which inherently politicized all NEB decisions).  They have declared the pipeline to be in the national interest on every conceivable occasion, not that it matters the demands that they do so continue to pile up, right up to the point where one Conservative-turned-Independent Senator tabled a bill to do just that (never mind that such a legislative declaration would cause bigger headaches down the road).

But as with this "simple question" and the others that Scheer and his MPs have also been asking disingenuously (like the "exact" GHG emission reductions that would result from a $50/tonne carbon tax, as though it were an SO₂ scrubber in a smokestack), there is no actual answer, and certainly not one that they can point to.  In fact, if you look back to the Conservative government's record when it comes to approving the Northern Gateway pipeline, it was done by press release with the minister refusing to take any questions from reporters.  In the Commons, Harper would simply defer any and all questions to the NEB.  This compared to Trudeau holding a press conference with Cabinet ministers to announce the approval, taking questions on a continual basis, declaring the project to be in the national interest, and actually visiting the sites in question numerous times.  In the end, Northern Gateway's conditional approval was struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada because Harper's government didn't do their due diligence when it came to proper consultations with the First Nations affected by the pipeline, leaving it up to the NEB and the proponent when it was the Crown that has the obligation to do so.

This of course is conveniently omitted when the Conservatives declare that the Liberals have an "ideological opposition" to pipelines.  Likewise, when they recount how this government "killed" the Energy East project, it's done by omitting the fact that TransCanada had a better option when Keystone XL became viable again and moved its supplier contracts to that pipeline instead not to mention that Keystone XL leads to refineries on the Gulf coast that are built to deal with the kind of heavy crude that Alberta produces, which the refineries in Eastern Canada are not, putting a lie to the notion that Energy East would have somehow increased "energy security" in Canada or that we would stop importing foreign oil to that part of the country.

For someone supposedly "ideologically opposed" to pipelines, Trudeau has staked a great deal of political capital in not only approving them but using them as leverage to get the necessary buy-in from provinces that have been the most reluctant to get on board with the federal climate change framework.  But how much more political capital he can expend to get this pipeline to the finish line is a very real question, particularly as he has already expended a bunch with the approval itself, not only with the ridings his party holds near the pipeline terminus, but also with those First Nations who still oppose the project.  (Note that First Nations communities are not monolithic, and many have signed on both to benefit-sharing agreements, but also the compliance monitoring system designed in concert with Indigenous communities).

And so we get back to Scheer's "simple question."  If it was a "simple question" as to just what Trudeau should do, I'm waiting to know how else he should "show leadership" on this issue.  A number of Conservatives keep pointing to Jason Kenney's insistence that Trudeau invoke Section 92(10)(c) of the Constitution except that it wouldn't actually help because the pipeline crosses provincial boundaries and is already federal jurisdiction (and it wouldn't make sense to declare it to be provincial jurisdiction and then re-declare it federal).  If he sat Rachel Notley and John Horgan down in a room together, what mechanism does he have to insist that they behave?  The federal government, as much as we would like to think so, is not the parent of the provinces.  Sure, they could jointly refer questions of jurisdiction to the Supreme Court of Canada and agree to abide by the decision, but that will not only take the better part of a year (not sure that would mollify the Kinder Morgan deadline), but it doesn't address how this is about a lever that Trudeau wields.  He could send in the army to clear the protesters, but I'm not sure that anyone has that much political capital to burn post-Oka Crisis (unless it's Scheer's calculation that Trudeau take the fall for doing so while he coasts into power on it).  I'm not sure that he has the constitutional ability to withhold transfer payments from BC until they capitulate without touching off an even bigger constitutional crisis, and even if the federal government becomes an investor in the pipeline, that doesn't do anything about the issue of Horgan and the protesters.

As best I can see, the only answer to Scheer's "simple question" is to wave a magic wand something that we seem to be in short supply of, which is why his "simple question" is bogus and should be called out as such.  But I doubt anyone will, given the way we're governing this country these days.

Photo Credit: Jeff Burney