Notley pushing to create a national crisis

Horgan was playing political theatre for the benefit of the folks back home. A tad melodramatic perhaps, but anything to boost his shaky rating with the Greens.

At least I hope he knew what he was doing. That would at least shade his actions with a degree of shrewdness.

If he really is as innocent and naive and, to be blunt, as politically ignorant as he’s tried to appear in the past week, the people of B.C. should give their heads a shake. Or, more to the point, they should give their premier’s head a shake.

A first year political science student could have predicted Notley’s reaction, never mind an NDP premier who is a personal friend of Alberta’s NDP premier.

Or maybe Horgan suspected Notley would indeed retaliate, thus allowing him to play the role of “cooler head” to Notley’s hothead by refusing to escalate the trade war that has seen Alberta boycott B.C. wines.

“I’m not responding in any way other than saying I’ll defend our wine industry. I’m here for B.C., not for Alberta,” said Horgan. “The interests of British Columbians are my priority, nor will I be distracted by the events happening in other jurisdictions.”

Except that the “events happening in other jurisdictions” (the wine boycott and Alberta suspending negotiations on buying B.C. hydro electricity) have a direct impact on his province.

He must realize his initial threat to regulate trans-provincial pipelines kicked off that war in the first place. And he must have known he ran the risk of being slapped down by Ottawa, which approved the Kinder Morgan pipeline in 2016 and is the only jurisdiction with constitutional authority over projects that cross provincial borders.

Maybe he thought Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t make a fuss.

And you have to wonder about Trudeau over the past week with his measured, even docile, response to what could become a constitutional crisis.

Notley seems to being doing her best to make this a crisis. She is trying to shame Trudeau into acting. Politically, she can’t afford to let the war with B.C. settle into a stalemate. She has to keep the pressure on Trudeau and to do that she will keep turning up the heat on B.C. After being politically sucker-punched by Horgan last week, Notley seems ready to wallop B.C. again.

She is trying to trigger a national emergency in the hope it will force Trudeau to get involved and end this brawl.