Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau seems to be in favour of Kinder Morgan’s plan to twin its pipeline. He is in favour of the Keystone XL project currently being poo-pooed by U.S. President Barack Obama. Trudeau is not in favour of the Northern Gateway pipeline project.
It’s difficult to follow the reasoning behind these stances from the man who wants to be prime minister. The three-point checklist for his approval, according to the Liberal Party of Canada website:
• does it get Canadian resources to market?
• is it environmentally responsible?
• does it have community approval?
All three pipelines pass on the first point, obviously.
The Kinder Morgan pipeline starts in Alberta and ends in Burnaby. You may remember the recent arrests related to Kinder Morgan’s exploratory work on Burnaby Mountain. Protesters from the community and elsewhere were dragged away from the mountain, claiming the pipeline has no support locally and is an environmental disaster waiting to happen, either through a potential rupture or through its contribution to the bigger picture of climate change.
What’s more, the City of Burnaby has officially announced its opposition to the pipeline.
Even if he could put a check mark beside “environmentally responsible” in regards to Kinder Morgan, how does Trudeau possibly check the box beside “community approval?”
It calls into question any and all of his stances related to pipelines. There’s really no sense to it. And it makes one wonder how someone who plays this fast and loose with his own policies would perform if it comes to pass that he is leading more than just his own party.
Trudeau’s stance on both Keystone (he’s in favour) and Northern Gateway (he’s opposed) is easily called into question when his apparent policy toward Kinder Morgan — it has been foggy at best, in our view — is considered.
We get that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is not exactly universally loved. Leaders seldom are after some time in office, and the word change, no matter how empty, can be a powerful motivator for the electorate. It should also be said it would not take much time to find inconsistencies in the policies of the Conservatives, either.
We do hope voters take some time to look a little deeper than the surface next year when it comes to choosing our next prime minister.
— Editorial by John Harding
