We’re reaping what Notley and Trudeau sowed

If it wasn’t so darn important to our city, there’d be some degree of smug satisfaction with the awkward position in which both the premier and prime minister now find themselves embroiled in with this whole pipeline brouhaha.

After all, it was Premier Rachel Notley, when ensconced in opposition with barely a thought of ever getting the top job, who would regale the then-ruling Tories about the urgent need to wean the province off the endless energy rollercoaster.

And it was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who once campaigned on a platform promising Indigenous groups and environmentalists there’d be a new dawn in Canada under his steel-eyed steerage, which would ensure the age of dastardly Big Oil would melt faster than any 21st century Arctic glacier.

Well, Notley is now desperately clinging to that same disparaged roller-coaster with a white-knuckled fervour unmatched in modern-day Alberta politics. If it doesn’t quickly kick into gear and help reduce the recession still lingering in Calgary, then the only coasting her party will do is into the Prairie political history dustbin this time next year.

Meanwhile, those Grits in Ottawa might as well be wording a help wanted ad aimed at anyone with a big shovel and broad back daft enough to try their hand at building a pipeline in this hopelessly divided country.

Reap what you sow springs to mind at this complete and utter farce.

Notley set the scene in the early days of her premiership with all that long-since ditched blather about social license. Believing that the rest of Canada consisted of scrupulously fair folk without an ounce of self-interest, we were

Just like Notley, (Trudeau) believed in this social license silliness.

treated to the strange spectacle of marauding bands of ardent light bulb changing missionaries saving us from environmental Armageddon whether we liked it or not.

But that was then; this is now. (Though, to be honest, I’ve not noticed any real change in my monthly power bill since getting the blessed bulbs, other than the notorious carbon charge.)

Certainly, there’s been no change either among many in the rest of Canada, despite our self-imposed emissions cap and carbon levy. Yep, they’re quietly continuing to enjoy the fruits of those extra taxes Alberta generates, while merrily complaining we’re turning the planet into some big black blob.

Then there’s the prime minister, who happily stuck a stake through Enbridge’s planned $7.9-billion Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat in B.C., while allowing his government to disparage the National Energy Board and let a bunch of loudmouths, grandstanders and liars destroy TransCanada Corp.’s $16-billion Energy East project aimed at shipping Alberta crude to New Brunswick refineries.

Just like Notley, he believed in this social license silliness. In Trudeau’s case, he no doubt expected the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion to get a relatively easy passage as a type of payback for his government’s success in screwing up the other national pipeline projects.

As we all now know, it didn’t quite work out that way. So now the federal government is on bended knee to Kinder Morgan, promising no doubt some huge taxpayer-funded payoff if the company agrees to continue putting up with the relentless sticks and stones of protest in B.C. and actually completes the project.

And if they pull out as they have threatened to do at the end of this month? Well, according to federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau, there are other outfits that could step in to finish the job.

And, pray tell, who could they be? Maybe Morneau is thinking of those experienced Canadian pipeline builders. Yes, TransCanada and Enbridge — the same ones the Grits skewered a year or so ago.

And what would their reaction be, we wonder? Hold on a moment, folks. Can anyone else hear a strange, almost maniacal laughter emanating from those downtown Calgary office towers?