Not that I’m a fan of Justin Trudeau’s politics but he certainly outperformed the journalists posing questions today. I give Trudeau credit for his thoughtfulness, tact and consistency in articulating positions. He is certainly well spoken. Naturally, the security concerns of Canadians travelling abroad are important, but half the question period was unfortunately taken up by short sighted reporters fixated on the news of the day. Certainly, these reporters should have known they wouldn’t have received any more than what Trudeau was able to give on the topic of the Chinese detention of Canadians.  Instead issues of provincial jurisdiction, taxation, military deployments, veteran’s affairs, government debt, social program spending, and the justice system were not covered.

However; the matter of national unity was actually raised because it’s the knee jerk way of responding to real behaviour of politicians more focused on regional interests than the national interest. The prospect of transporting oil from Alberta to the west coast through pipelines is simple businessand simple economics. Certainly, as a first world country with professionals qualified to construct and maintain a pipeline safely inside an industrial regulatory framework established through decades of first world development experience, this should get done now in the spirit of Canada’s national interest with the enthusiastic cooperation of indigenous people. Just as a reminder…the hard working high tax-paying citizens of Canada grant indigenous people with special exemptions through land and tax not available to non-indigenous Canadians.  Your country also has the right to expropriate your land, garnish your wage, and freeze your bank account. Yet, today your federal government is frozen in time with respect to deploying an asset that you now own, namely the Trans Canada Pipeline.

Apparently, there are some sea mammals that must be accommodated out there on the prospective port. I’m thinking that these sea mammal’s interests could be represented while the pipe is being laid. Lawyers…. well they apparently require a lot more hand holding to save them from their naval gazing and obfuscation through technical legal bafflegab. There comes a timewhen common sense, progress, and economic expansion must supersede bureaucratic bungling.