Horgan: a friend of Trump, an enemy of climate action?
EDMONTON B.C. Premier John Horgan must be rolling in his political grave.
The latest development in the pipeline dispute with Alberta has him being cast as a friend of U.S. President Donald Trump and an enemy of the fight against climate change.
For a left-leaning, tree-hugging, progressive West Coaster, there could be no greater insults.
But that’s where this strange political journey has taken us.
After weeks of deriding Horgan’s attempts to delay or kill the expansion of the $7.4-billion Trans Mountain pipeline expansion as illegal and unconstitutional and a threat to the jobs of hardworking Canadians, Premier Rachel Notley added more derision Friday.
During a scrum with journalists, she, in so many words, called Horgan an unwitting dupe of Trump. Actually, the words aren’t hers. They belong to former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna, now a member of Notley’s “retaliatory” task force in the trade war with B.C.
Notley said McKenna brought up an interesting point at the task force’s first meeting Wednesday. He said Horgan’s blockade of the Kinder Morgan project prevents Alberta from getting its oil to the world market and thus forces the province to sell more of its oil to the United States at a discount.
“For every day that this pipeline is delayed, for every day that we are forced to sell our resources to the United States at a huge discount price, tens of millions of dollars of Canadian wealth evaporates,” said Notley, quoting McKenna. “Do you know where it reappears? That wealth reappears south of the border in Donald Trump’s America.”
Tellingly, it’s not called “America,” but “Donald Trump’s America.”
And then the rhetorical question: “Why would we do that?”
To add insult to injury, Notley also accused Horgan of undermining the federal government’s pan-Canadian plan to fight man-made climate change. “They are also taking dead aim at the national climate change plan, a plan that rests on the successful completion of this pipeline.”
This one needs a bit of explaining, but it’s not as much of a stretch as calling Horgan a Trump booster.
It comes from a comment by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in an interview this week with the left-leaning news outlet, the National Observer: “If the Kinder Morgan pipeline doesn’t go through, Alberta will withdraw its support for the national plan on climate change. We will not have them fighting to reach their carbon targets, and we will not, then, have them as partners in reaching our Paris targets.”
Trudeau is using some coded language here. When he says, “Alberta will withdraw its support” for the federal climate plan, he is not referring to the Notley government, but the Jason Kenney government.
The presumption, and it’s a pretty good one, is that if the pipeline is stalled or killed, Notley has no chance of winning the 2019 provincial election.
Meanwhile, political pressure is mounting on Horgan inside B.C. as the opposition Liberals build on opinion polls that indicate many British Columbians support an environmentally responsible pipeline.
B.C. Environment Minister George Heyman sounded almost plaintive in his latest statement: “Our government is merely seeking to consult with British Columbians on proposed regulations to protect our environment, through improved spills prevention, response and recovery measures. We are very supportive of the pan-Canadian approach to climate action.”
That’s no consolation for Notley. She is demanding B.C. back down quickly or face an escalation of the trade war next week. And perhaps an escalation of insulting things she’ll say about Horgan