Progressives the bane of our progressive PM

Jason Kenney must get a happy glow every time someone mentions progressives.

Three years ago, Albertans elected a government that claimed the most “progressive” agenda in the province’s history. The ensuing troubles have enabled Kenney to swiftly resuscitate a party considered dead in the water on election night. Kenney looks like a lock to become premier next year. It also seems unlikely voters will be quick to risk another flyer on a government like Rachel Notley’s.

Justin Trudeau is likewise in serious trouble thanks to his embrace of the progressive cause. His inability to deliver on his pledge to ensure construction of an oil pipeline to the Pacific derives from the success of progressives of various sorts in erecting legal, social and political blockades. Notley and Trudeau find themselves allied in a disheartening struggle to untangle themselves from the very doctrines they still profess to champion.

Progressives used to call themselves liberals, until U.S. right-wingers turned that word into a pejorative term. So they became progressives instead, which is vague enough to admit a broader range of affiliates, from radical left-wingers to moderate centrists and many in-between. It’s a more satisfying description at any rate, as it dismisses others as anti-progress, while reflecting the sense of moral superiority to which its proponents are so prone.

The whole point of progressivism is progress, of course. Advancement. Betterment. A steady march to the high plains of enlightenment, conveniently accompanied by prosperity and fairness for all. Those who aren’t for progress are by implication lesser individuals. Cranks. Unbelievers. People willing to sign covenants at Trinity Western University.

Justin Trudeau signed on in a big way. His 2015 campaign was one long paen to progressive propositions. There would be war on climate change, reconciliation with Indigenous Canadians, fealty to “social licence.” A Trudeau government would be inclusive, balanced and open-minded. Government actions would default to transparency and access. Fairness would be brought to the middle-class. Cynics, naysayers and pessimists of every sort would be spurned.

Fortune hasn’t been kind, however. And it’s not Tories or other heretics who are causing the real trouble, but progressives themselves, and their highfalutin sense of righteous indignity.

Liberal big-thinkers evidently failed to appreciate that many progressives took their slogans seriously, as beliefs to which they fully intended to adhere. And the broad nature of “progressive” beliefs makes them particularly difficult to counter, as they encompass such an extensive range of generalized discontent.

The Liberal pipeline — they own the thing now, poor dears — has been successfully foiled by Indigenous opposition, environmental fervour, lack of social licence and a British Columbia premier willing to stake his version of progressivism against all comers. Trudeau figured he’d outflanked critics when he struck a de facto bargain with Notley, an NDP premier who was a progressive darling after her shock 2015 victory. Notley would bring a carbon tax to oil country, impose a death sentence on coal and offer vital support for Trudeau’s climate plan in return for one lousy pipeline.

Who would have thought fellow New Democrats would get in the way? B.C. Premier John Horgan bet his bona fides against Notley’s and Trudeau’s, and Horgan’s is winning. When the Federal Court of Appeal crushed hopes for the project last week it was only adhering to the progressive precedents set by previous courts, based on the progressive values a string of judges have claimed to have identified in the Constitution, which apparently not only demands Ottawa consult with native communities, but do so in accordance with a specific manner set out in the latest ruling.

Trudeau was playing to the crowd when he accused the previous Conservative government of fatally weakening the National Energy Board, and pledged Liberals would do better.

Yet in halting the pipeline the court explicitly trashed the government’s performance in consulting First Nations communities — which fell “well short of the mark” — and in adequately assessing environmental impacts, which it ruled should include increased tanker traffic. Trudeau may have felt he’d adequately addressed coastal concerns when he announced a $1.5 billion spill protection plan, but, once again found himself out-progressived by progressives unwilling to accept half measures, or three-quarter measures, or any measures other than death to oil.

It has been a summer of painful lessons for the prime minister, who discovered mere weeks ago that in presenting himself as the country’s leading feminist, and adopting a policy of zero tolerance for all males accused of sexual misconduct, he’d led the public to assume the same standards applied to him as well. It was only after he’d been accused of groping a young woman at a B.C. festival years before becoming prime minister that he concluded “the same interactions can be experienced very differently from one person to the next.”

He’s also discovered his government’s desire to see Canada’s social values included in international trade arrangements is not universally shared among other trading nations, which reserve the right to their own views on labour rights or gender equality without being preached at by Canada. After embarrassing experiences in China and Vietnam, he now finds himself struggling to rescue a deal on NAFTA from a U.S. president whose gender protocol consists of paying off porn stars and strippers before they can sell their tales to the press.

When Trudeau took office, Liberals anticipated the dawn of a new enlightenment. Just a single premier was willing to identify himself as Conservative, and he fell within weeks. Trudeau and Barack Obama struck up an immediate bromance. Even Alberta was onside. Now Notley has spurned Ottawa’s climate plan and made common cause with dissenters. Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne has been ousted, and Quebec’s Liberal premier is attacking Trudeau’s performance on refugee arrivals and the dairy business, both on the “progressive” grounds that everyone deserves protection from whatever threatens them. It’s one thing to endanger thousands of jobs in Alberta, but “if someone believes they can ram through Quebec and make a concession on dairy without our consent, politically it is going to be a disaster,” he warned.

Good intentions are killing Trudeau’s Liberals. Successful governance depends on skilfully managing competing forces. Compromise is required. Trudeau’s team evidently felt progressives would understand that need. They’ve discovered otherwise.

A SUMMER OF PAINFUL LESSONS FOR THE PRIME MINISTER.

Kelly Mcparland