By KERRY DIOTTE
Like father, like son.
Daddy dearest, Pierre Elliott Trudeau (P.E.T.), crippled Alberta’s energy industry in the early 1980s with his National Energy Program, now his “sunny ways” son Justin is following in his father’s infamous footsteps.
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
Albertans and Canadians have a right to be plenty peeved with the newly elected Liberals’ snub of the energy industry – a kick in the teeth to the people who feed their families from it.
Trudeau junior set the tone early in his term as prime minister. Where was his first major foreign trip after the October 19 election? None other than Paris, France, with more than 300 of his best friends — to attend a summit on global climate change.
That’s where he hobnobbed with Hollywood celebrities and posed for selfies as our unemployment rate soared in energy-producing provinces and thousands of Canadians were being laid off from their livelihoods.
In Paris, Trudeau lite even posed for pictures and had a chat with House of Cards actor Kevin Spacey (who plays the role of a U.S. president in a fictitious political drama). That encounter had a colleague of mine chuckling cynically. “It would be tempting to stand up in Question Period to ask Justin how his bilateral talks with President Underwood went,” quipped my colleague.
Each day, when I look across the House of Commons floor at the ruling party and hear their rhetoric about climate change and alternative energy I cringe.
Canadians could be forgiven for thinking they elected the Green Party. Heck these Grits are greener than Kermit the Frog.
The Liberal spin on why they’re not standing up for proposed pipelines and for the families fed by them? Well, they claim, Conservatives are to blame. Now how can that be?
In their distorted world view, Liberals claim Canada, under Conservatives, didn’t do enough to prove we can develop energy (including oil sands) in a sustainable way to get public support for pipelines.
Grits chirp that Canada must do more to prove we’re developing our resources and pipelines in sustainable sunny ways, saying it as if all our previous pipelines were built with no consultation or environmental safeguards. It’s downright disheartening. No, let me correct that. Actually, it’s sickening.
So they come up with concepts such as having to have “social licence” to proceed with new ones. They talk about the need to get buy-in from each and every stakeholder on such projects.
Yet they conveniently forget that Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline through British Columbia (B.C.) was duly approved in June 2014 subject to a whopping 209 conditions recommended by the National Energy Board, as well as an understanding that further talks with aboriginal communities would continue.
The approval came after copious amounts of hearings and input. But Pierre Trudeau junior scuttled all of that good work by arbitrarily declaring he and his fellow Grits won’t allow overseas shipping of Alberta’s diluted bitumen to occur off the coast of B.C.
So much for the value of studies and public hearings. What then does Justin and company expect to accomplish by having even longer public consultations on future pipelines like Energy East?
The bottom line is these greener-than-green Grits, just don’t like the oil and gas industry and they just don’t care about the good jobs and wealth it creates for Canadians.
Like Democratic President Barack Obama, they don’t want to be seen to be supporting anything that promotes fossil fuels, so their stated desire to add increased public consultations on future pipelines is nothing but a stalling-tactic ruse.
As an Edmontonian, an Albertan and a Canadian, I’m livid with this. It’s just not right. It’s a disservice to all of us and there will be a steep price to be paid. As Trudeau and his coherts deride oil-bearing tankers, it will be our economy that will continue to tank.
This unicorn-vision of the world has to stop. Kermit the muppet has famously croaked, “It’s not easy being green.” But the amiable amphibian obviously isn’t a Liberal, ̕cause being green seems to come naturally to them.
If you think the federal Liberals should stop pandering to the professional climate change activists and start standing up for sustainable and safe pipelines, fire off a note to me.
I’ll personally see that your message gets forwarded straight to the Prime Minister’s Office. Click here.
The only hope we have to restore some balance and sanity to this sad situation is to speak up loudly. As an elected Official Opposition Member, I’ll continue to do so, but I need your help.
Again, if you want to tell Justin and his cronies to stand up for new pipelines and the good jobs they provide to Canadian families, click here.
I’m counting on you to voice your views. It’s vital you do so. Stand up for our country. Canada’s very future is at stake.
