HARD TO IMAGINE KENNEY GETTING THIS FAR ON TRANS MOUNTAIN

One of the fascinating aspects of the Trans Mountain pipeline melodrama is the political contortion act performed by United Conservative Leader Jason Kenney.

It’s like watching someone trying to get out of a straitjacket. It’s never done particularly gracefully.

Kenney is trying to be both a reluctant supporter of the government deal to buy the pipeline and a vocal critic of the government deal to buy the pipeline. But he can’t have it both ways.

On April 8, the day Kinder Morgan issued its May 31 deadline to pull the plug on the Trans Mountain expansion, Kenney demanded the project “have the full backing of the Crown, of the treasuries of both the Canadian and Alberta governments.”

His suggestion: “I would be prepared in principle for the Alberta government to take an equity position in this project in the expansion of Trans Mountain, but if we do so, Ottawa has to be there with us.”

Then came the contortions as Kenney tried to back away from his comments.

In a series of statements in April and May, he said he was “not completely opposed to some limited public financial participation” but only “as a last resort.”

On Tuesday, after Ottawa announced it was buying the project (with a possible $2-billion investment from Alberta), Kenney had nothing good to say about the deal even though it looked like the thing he had encouraged on April 8.

“While we continue to support the much-needed Trans Mountain project, it’s the catastrophic failure of the Alberta NDP and the Trudeau Liberals that caused Kinder-Morgan to pull out and forced today’s costly decision,” said Kenney.

This is Kenney’s modified narrative, one that heats up the political rhetoric while it downplays his original call for Premier Rachel Notley and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to use their “treasuries” to back the project.

Another part of Kenney’s contortionist act is blaming Trudeau for killing other potential pipelines to tidewater. “The Canadian government should not have put us in this position by cancelling Northern Gateway,” said Kenney on Tuesday.

That’s Kenney trying to twist himself around historical facts.

The federal Liberals may have cancelled Northern Gateway but only because the controversial project had been fatally wounded by the previous Conservative government (of which Kenney was a part).

A 2016 ruling from the Federal Court of Appeal overturned approval for Northern Gateway because the government of Stephen Harper had failed miserably to properly consult First Nations affected by the proposed pipeline.

“It would have taken Canada little time and little organizational effort to engage in meaningful dialogue on these and other subjects of prime importance to Aboriginal Peoples,” said the court. “But this did not happen.”

Kenney also makes it sound as if he would have been more successful on the Trans Mountain file had he been premier of Alberta during the past few years.

But you could argue that under Kenney there wouldn’t have been a project to begin with.

When the federal government announced its support of the Trans Mountain expansion in November 2016, Trudeau was very clear why. “Let me say this definitively, we could not have approved this project without the leadership of Premier Notley and Alberta’s climate leadership plan,” said Trudeau.

“Alberta’s climate plan is a vital contributor to our national strategy.”

Kenney, on the other hand, is not a champion of climate leadership plans. He is a vocal critic of Notley’s plan and has vowed to scrap Alberta’s carbon tax. And he has vowed to fight Trudeau’s federal carbon tax.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine Trudeau approving the Trans Mountain project if Kenney had been premier of Alberta.

Heck, it’s difficult to imagine Kenney having even a civil relationship with Trudeau. Two weeks ago, Kenney let the world know exactly what he thinks of the prime minister by calling him, “an empty trust-fund millionaire who has the political depth of a finger bowl.”

It took Kenney a week before saying he regretted the comment. But it was clear he was sorry not because he thought his comment was wrong but because he had promised to introduce civility into politics. The petty attack had made him look like a hypocrite.

However, by not offering a proper apology, Kenney continues to look like a hypocrite — promising civility but not practising civility.

He can’t have it both ways.