If you think Donald Trump had a rough month, what with his major aides flipping on him, think of Justin Trudeau, what with his major issues flipping on him.
First, his government was bullied and taken hostage by Trump at the trade deal deadline to get Canada to sign on to the U.S.-Mexico pact. Then it was given a large punch in the solar plexus by the Federal Court of Appeal and told to shape up if it might twin the Trans Mountain pipeline.
You should know this pipeline project, because you now own it, thanks to a quick Kinder Morgan shareholders meeting – truly coincidentally, even tragic-comedically, an hour after the court ruling that quashed the construction certificate.
For those who believe that process is important, exhibit A is the ruling last Thursday that the government’s execution against process failed to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. First Nations weren’t adequately consulted – deeply ironic, considering the prime minister’s much-stated intentions on reconciliation and respect – and the impact of tankers on the environment wasn’t adequately studied by the National Energy Board (NEB).
The consequences for the $7.4-billion-and-counting project might not be fatal, but for the time being the body is on life support. Tools are downed for a year or two or longer.
But the jubilance of the opponents might also be hubris. The three-person panel’s decision leaves many open questions about the duty to consult First Nations or how projects of such magnitude must not disquiet the environment, but is by no means a mortal blow.
Clearly the so-called “Phrase 3” of Indigenous consultations, the cabinet-directed note-taking and feedback, was inadequate. But what is? The court didn’t say, just that what happened wasn’t enough.
Clearly the NEB review that avoided exploring the impact of the project on marine life was inadequate. But what is? The court didn’t say, just that what happened wasn’t right.
There are better and lesser ways for the government to navigate. It could attempt to fix what the court says ails the project’s environmental review and send it back to the regulator. It could relaunch the First Nations discussions to meet the test of the court. It could appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada and hope it overturns what the Federal Court determined. It could even do all of the above.
Trudeau would have – or should have – seen this tripwire, with so many court cases cluttering the project’s path. Eventually the courts may offer Trudeau an ultimate excuse if the pipeline twinning does not proceed: he can argue he gave it the college try. But that is for a much, much later day.
Having made a most difficult choice as a national government to proceed, having doubled down in buying the project for $4.5 billion, there is no turning back for Trudeau – nor any seeming time now for surfing sojourns to Tofino.
The context is much more forlorn today than last week, than last month and than last year. If the pipeline was a path to a national climate change action plan, the realpolitik is an Ontario premier who wants no part, an Alberta premier likely to be replaced with one who wants no part and a British Columbia premier who will be an all-in adversary.
The economic context involves immediate job losses on construction in Alberta and British Columbia. To global capital, we are risk writ large, delicate flowers for crucial foreign investment.
The crude oil will still ship, but for now only by rail to America, elements of which have helped finance the opposition to the pipeline but not necessarily the principle of satisfying its domestic energy appetite.
They are smart, but the smartest people in the room are the Kinder Morgan executives who threatened to mothball Trans Mountain because of uncertainties. The government bit on the hook and was reeled in at a Kinder Morgan shareholders meeting to approve the deal.
On the motion to sell to the government minutes after the ruling to quash that government’s certificate to build, I can imagine being in that room for the vote and hearing: “All in favour, say, ‘Duh.’”
Kirk LaPointe is editor-in-chief of Business in Vancouver Media Group and vice-president, editorial, of Glacier Media.
