Small chance big things can occur in Canada

“Big things can get done in Canada,” is what our prime minister told business leaders from all parts of the Americas gathered in Lima, Peru, last week.

The good news is Justin Trudeau delivered the line dressed in a business suit and not in some outlandish garb suitable only for the llama herdsmen of the high Peruvian Andes.

The bad news is the words didn’t stick in his throat, because if we are indeed doing big things, then I for one am at a loss to figure out what they can possibly be.

Now in most countries, building a new pipeline near a similar one that was laid more than half a century ago to ship a basic commodity such as oil wouldn’t be classified as much of a “big thing.”

Sure, it might take a while and cost a fair amount, but most of the world’s population would simply shrug, then wonder what’s for dinner.

The next “big thing” it surely would not be. Yet here in Canada, not only is laying such a pipe a monstrously huge thing, it is also something we are increasingly unable to actually accomplish.

Big things can get done in Canada? Even in his drama-teaching days, Trudeau could never have uttered such a farcical one-liner.

To be fair, soon after delivering his speech, the prime minister was hightailing it back to this mythical get-it-done-Canada to sit down with the duelling premiers of Alberta and B.C. in what looked like a hopeless task to forge some consensus on building the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline extension from our province to the shores of the Pacific.

The simple idea behind this is to get Canadian oil to world markets, and thus become less dependent on our increasingly erratic southern neighbour while getting more for our product in the process.

The resulting taxable haul from this more profitable trading would then help fund myriad social programs we hold so dear.

It finally seems to have dawned on Trudeau that a country doesn’t run on apologies and selfies alone, and that when our major export is increasingly threatened by an impossible-toplease environmental lobby, it might actually be time for that rare event akin to sighting Halley’s Comet — leadership from Ottawa.

So in a display of rediscovered federal backbone, the prime minister reiterated that yes, this pipeline is in the national interest and will indeed be built.

And how did that go down among the flotsam and jetsam of aggrieved, agitated and angry opponents of this daunting threat of naughty pipe? Well, there was no linking of hands and merry singing of Kumbaya in Trudeau’s honour, that’s for sure.

Instead, his pledge unleashed a tidal wave of opposition and squealing from every protest group that has dipped their paw into some federal, free-money trough or been on the grateful receiving end of largesse handed out by a rich American family — think the Rockefellers, for example — that’s already made a huge pile and now wants to salve their collective conscience by saving the planet while sharing canapes with Leonardo DiCaprio.

First up was the union head honcho representing half of B.C.’s natives, who immediately pledged the pipeline would never be built.

And there’s no show without Punch, so was it any surprise when the province of Quebec decided to get involved, as their Canadian relations minister warned Trudeau about stepping on provincial toes by ramming projects through despite local misgivings.

Of course, none of this bunch have any misgivings about taking federal cheques without ever stopping to wonder where the cash originally comes from.

But this is Canada, the can-do country where big things get done.

Just ask the prime minister.

Even in his drama-teaching days, Trudeau could never have uttered such a farcical one-liner.