WHO BLINKED? WHO FOLDED?

Graham Thomson analyzes pipeline detente

What is the meaning of life? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Did B.C. Premier John Horgan blink in his pipeline dispute with Alberta?

Two of these, of course, are philosophical questions unanswerable by mere mortals. The other deals with hypothetical dancing angels.

Trying to figure out if Horgan blinked in his eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with Alberta Premier Rachel Notley is the cliché-ridden existential question occupying political observers this week.

There is no definitive answer. Did he back down? Pipeline supporters say he did, while pipeline opponents say he didn’t. It all depends on your perspective. He blinked and didn’t blink simultaneously.

It would seem Horgan is the Schrodinger’s cat of Canadian politics — the object of a thought experiment in quantum physics where the cat is alive and dead at the same time.

I imagine that pretty much sums up how Horgan has felt the past few weeks after his government’s major misstep. On Jan. 30, it claimed, in so many words, constitutional jurisdiction over interprovincial pipelines. It seemed a clumsy attempt to further delay the $7.4-billion expansion of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline, which would pump more of Alberta’s oilsands bitumen to the West Coast for shipment to Asia.

Horgan won immediate applause from the anti-pipeline crowd, but drew criticism from Ottawa, which rightly claimed it is the only level of government with powers over trans-provincial

pipelines. More dramatically, an irate Notley invoked a boycott of B.C. wine.

Notley’s move proved wildly popular in Alberta, where her government has been chronically trailing the Jason Kenney-led United Conservative Party in opinion polls. (She also endeared herself to headline writers everywhere: The War of the Rosés, Pinot Grudgio, Alberta’s Grapes of Wrath.)

Then came Thursday, when Horgan announced he would put the jurisdictional question to the courts. Minutes later, a smiling Notley declared victory and lifted the wine boycott.

You could almost hear the celebratory bubbly bottles being popped in premiers’ offices from Edmonton to Victoria.

But not so fast, Alberta.

We still don’t know the wording of the question Horgan will put to the courts. Will he massage it to make it more about his rights over the environment than his non-rights over pipelines?

Will he even bother to go to court?

Or will he revert back to his pre-Jan. 30 stance of doing all he can passive-aggressively, and legally, to kill the pipeline by a thousand delays?

If that’s the case, Notley made a huge mistake Thursday by lifting the wine boycott.

By declaring a truce in the trade war, Notley has lifted the pressure off Horgan.

That’s the argument being made by Kenney, who has rediscovered his voice after being politically silenced the past four weeks by a tough-talking Notley, who happily stole his anti-B.C. thunder.

“In the face of more delay tactics by their fellow New Democrats in British Columbia jeopardizing our economic future, Premier Notley and her

NDP government folded,” a reinvigorated Kenney said Friday.

Alberta officials argue Notley had no choice but to lift the wine embargo because Horgan lifted his threat to the pipeline expansion.

But did he?

Horgan probably realized his government went too far, something he won’t do again. But he’s not exactly laying out the welcome mat for Kinder Morgan. He’s still determined to use “every tool in the toolbox” to stop the project. He’ll just be sure not to make himself an easy target for any more retaliatory measures from Notley.

Notley’s officials also argue Kenney’s foot-stomping tantrums are simplistic and unhelpful.

Foot-stomping might not be helpful getting a pipeline built, but it can be helpful getting votes in Alberta.

The province has a long history of popular foot-stomping premiers, including Peter Lougheed, who reduced oil exports to Central Canada during a fight with Ottawa, and Ralph Klein, who did so much foot-stomping, you’d think he was a square-dance caller.

Notley did win a victory of sorts Thursday by getting Horgan to tacitly admit he might not have jurisdiction over interprovincial pipelines. And for that, she can count on the vote of every constitutional expert in Alberta.

Many other Alberta voters, though, might not be so supportive as they continue to wait for the beginning of construction of the Kinder Morgan pipeline, currently a year behind schedule.

The latest existential question in Alberta politics: will it ever be built?

We still don’t know the wording of the question Horgan will put to the courts.