If you want to see rule of law, come to Alberta

Anatomy of a blockade in Alberta: Rail blockade begins in the morning. Justice minister says he won’t put up with any crap. Premier takes questions about the blockade at a press conference. He supports his justice minister, telling the public CN Rail is seeking an injunction and he expects Edmonton police to do their jobs and enforce it. Injunction granted. Papers served. A posse of helpful Alberta working guys show up with a pickup truck to assist with “clearing debris from the tracks.” Media start posting pictures of the tracks cleared. And just like that, it’s over before the afternoon commute.

Then the social media outrage begins.

Conservative party leadership candidate Peter Mackay voices on Twitter exactly what most people are thinking: “Glad to see a couple Albertans with a pickup truck can do more for our economy in an afternoon than Justin Trudeau could do in four years.”

That tweet didn’t earn the favour of Toronto columnist Andrew Coyne, who weighed in: “Did a leading candidate for Conservative leader just endorse vigilantism as a response to railway barricades?”

Much lively commentary and condemnation ensues.

Duly chastened, Mackay deletes the tweet.

Conservative trans tweeter Tiffany (one of my favourite follows @tiffanyrg9) tweets: “Mackay’s original tweet was my favourite thing I’ve seen from him in the leadership race. Really not impressed with him deleting it after a little bit of media pearl clutching. We need a leader who can stick to their guns on this stuff.”

She’s right. I think most people were watching videos of those Alberta men with more than a little pride at how quickly and peacefully it all went down.

I would have preferred to see Mackay follow up with a tweet that doubled down and said something like, “Average Canadians have had enough. We are going to see more of this type of citizen action unless Prime Minister Justin Trudeau starts to back the RCMP to do their job and clear these illegal blockades.”

Instead, Mackay has angered the politically precious progressives and made himself look like a wimp to law and order conservatives.

Jason Kenney, meanwhile, was pitch-perfect. He dealt with the blockaders as a law enforcement issue, not as a litmus test for Indigenous reconciliation.

He rightly pointed out that the Coastal Gaslink pipeline is supported by all 20 elected bands along the route, most hereditary chiefs and 85 per cent of the residents of the community.

Unemployment, poverty, hopelessness and dependency on transfers are the modern-day scourge of Indigenous communities. There are $1 billion worth of contracts and community benefits agreements with First Nations on this project. For the private sector to bring work and money and hope to the families and youth living in the region is what reconciliation is all about.

Anyone comparing this to early white settlement decimating Indigenous populations has it exactly backward.

Those who are advocating that this pipeline be blocked are the modern-day community-destroying colonialists. If Extinction Rebellion and the other eco-activists opportunistically trying to kill this project get their way, the First Nations communities will go back to looking at a future of poverty while Extinction Rebellion will move on to its next campaign of gluing themselves to the pavement or each other.

I appreciate that Kenney and Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer are willing to face the political heat from the Twitterati for calling it out and saying so.

The Edmonton Police Service should also be commended for how it managed this confrontation too. The protesters desperately want images of police officers removing blockaders so they can resist arrest and send out viral videos of supposed police brutality.

Other groups, like Canada Proud, roundly embarrassed the RCMP last week with a viral video showing an officer arresting someone doing exactly what these Alberta men in the pickup truck were doing: “clearing debris” from an illegal blockade on the highway.

I don’t know if it was a deliberate strategy of the EPS to stand back and monitor while citizens did the work, but it was brilliant. The blockaders seemed astonished that the police weren’t going to help them and there were no embarrassing police videos.

Instead, the main image that will stay with me is the picture of the track cleared within hours of the court giving the go-ahead. This is what the rule of law looks like. Take note, Canada.