A ‘just watch me’ moment for the PM

Is Justin Trudeau a hostage or a leader?

Given the four-term MP from Papineau has twice earned the title of prime minister, the answer should be obvious. But the drift plaguing his second mandate suggests hostage is becoming the more apposite description. Trouble is multiplying across our land and Trudeau isn’t even around, let alone in command of his brief.

The prime minister is certainly not in control of the agenda. While #ShutDownCanada activists have been busy paralyzing legislatures, bridges and railways across Canada in protest of British Columbia’s Coastal GasLink pipeline, Trudeau has been overseas shelling out money in search of support for Canada’s United Nations Security Council bid. Trudeau has apparently decided that a temporary seat at the end of an increasingly ineffective table is a better use of his time than taking his country off the boil.

And Canada has indeed reached the boiling point; there is a fundamental – and unresolved – tension between resource development, environmental protection and the rule of law. If legally approved and First Nations-supported projects such as Coastal GasLink can’t go ahead without lawless disruption, then Canada’s future prosperity will suffer. Canada is either a country of clear regulatory processes and enforceable laws or it isn’t. There is no middle ground, and Trudeau should be the one to say so.

Were it just GasLink causing the stink, the problem might eventually go away.

But the prime minister is also faced with another potential foul smell in the form of the recently approved

Teck Resources Frontier oilsands project. The jackedup climate crowd the prime minister depends on to keep him in office isn’t likely to accept that any oilsands project could ever be beneficial to Canada, no matter how many regulatory hurdles it manages to clear. But if the prime minister says “no” to Frontier’s potential job-creation in the job-hungry province of Alberta, there is every chance the heretofore fringe #Wexit movement will metastasize into the mainstream.

And so it’s time for Trudeau to pick a lane. Will it be resources and the rule of law? Or will it be mob rule, demobilization of the oilsands, and the attendant national unity battle?

If past is prologue, Trudeau will look to punt. And while the prime minister isn’t going to pull out the company credit card to buy up Frontier like he did the Trans Mountain expansion – at least not yet – he does have the option to delay. One even suspects the Alberta-born Chrystia Freeland is already being lined up to catch that particular hospital pass.

But what if Trudeau went another way and took the chance to make Frontier and Coastal GasLink his career-defining moment?

The Wet’suwet’en protesters aren’t the FLQ but the time has still come for Trudeau to have his “Just watch me” moment. Either Trudeau sees off the vocal minority and approves the resource projects that meet his strengthened standards, or he accepts that further development is a planet killer and states that truth plainly, despite the huge short-term cost to the Canadian economy. A clear choice would put Trudeau on the front foot and give his government a sense of direction. Forget the Security Council; it’s at home that Trudeau will define his legacy. And while it’s not fair to compare Trudeau père et fils, it’s hard to imagine Pierre Trudeau being afraid to take on an unruly mob, let alone be held hostage by one.

Whichever way he ultimately blows, Justin Trudeau must accept that, five years into his tenure, he can no longer please both crowds. An approval on Frontier will be the final straw for climate activists, no matter how thorough the approval process has been. And they will never come back. But if Trudeau goes the other way and shuts Teck down, as at least one downtown Toronto Liberal MP would like him to do, then no amount of rhetoric will be able to convince investors looking to Canada that their ducats will be safe here.

It’s an unenviable choice but, hey, that’s leadership. In politics there are few easy calls and no pleasing everybody.