BUILD THE PIPELINES

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is right: Canada’s pipeline approval process is flawed. We don’t believe, however, the solution is to allow the system to come to a standstill — certainly not when it is becoming more apparent every day that Canada must secure pipeline access to tidewater. The latest reminder is a report by the DBRS credit-rating agency that warns of the perils of relying on essentially a single customer for our oil, the United States.

The problem is that, despite the rhetoric of U.S. President Barack Obama about climate change, his country is increasing its oil production, and is even exporting product after having built thousands of kilometres of pipelines.

“If pipeline infrastructure is not built, Canada’s energy sector increasingly risks the eventual loss of global market share and will remain confined to a North American market that is increasingly dominated by U.S. producers,” says the DBRS report.

The drive to expand Canada’s capacity was dealt another blow last week, when all three of the National Energy Board officials reviewing the Energy East project stepped aside because two of them had met in 2015 with former Quebec premier Jean Charest, then on the payroll of the pipeline’s applicant, TransCanada Corp.

The meeting was reportedly part of extensive consultation with business and community leaders — a good thing, one would have thought — but it was cleverly portrayed as a shortcoming of the review process by those who will seize any means of thwarting Canada’s economic prosperity.

“All three panel members have decided to recuse themselves in order to preserve the integrity of the National Energy Board and of the Energy East and Eastern Mainline review,” the board said in a news release Friday. “The members acted in good faith and have pledged not to discuss these two applications with either other board members or board staff.”

So this is where we’re at. Unruly protesters had already been successful in suspending the Energy East hearings in Montreal.

Now pipeline critics have achieved another coup — the departure of the professionals tasked with reviewing the application.

The Trudeau government has an obligation to live up to its duty — to approve pipeline applications that are in the nation’s interest.

His administration has previously stated a green light was a political decision; one it alone would make notwithstanding the best scientific advice.

Here is Trudeau’s chance to be a leader instead of a panderer to environmental extremists: start getting pipelines built. It would be good for the economy and his reputation.