Taking a cue from Bananarama

THE EDITOR, Madam:

On May 25 Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters that Premier Danielle Smith’s referendum question on whether to hold a vote to separate her province of Alberta from Canada, was a “dangerous bluff”.  

As an economist, PM Carney knows very well that uncertainty always frightens away investors, and he also knows a fair bit about bluff, if truth be told.  Only recently a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) was signed saying that Canada will give priority status to a privately-funded pipeline from Alberta’s Oilsands to tidewater in British Columbia; in return for Alberta’s agreeing to carbon pricing, and other stipulations.  

Ms. Smith and Mr. Carney signed and held up the MOU with grins from ear to ear, but that great camaraderie has dampened rapidly with his comment about “dangerous bluff”. I supported the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline proposal about 15 years ago, although favoured Prince Rupert as a port terminal rather than Kitimat. 

I’m sure that Mr. Carney also remembers that Northern Gateway was finally overturned by a federal Appeal Court decision that BC’s First Nations were inadequately consulted. This came after years of expensive planning between Enbridge, the governments of Alberta, BC, and the federal Conservatives then led by PM Stephen Harper.  

The Liberals returned to power in Ottawa in 2015, and soon after the Appeal Court ruling doomed Northern Gateway, an Oil Tanker Moratorium Act was introduced banning tankers from berthing along BC’s north coast. Even though the public opinion in BC has recently changed somewhat concerning pipelines, Mr. Carney knows that federal courts and those in BC will be flooded with cases from environmental and Indigenous groups which regularly receive favourable legal rulings. 

An axiom that perfectly fits our PM is: “If you stand for nothing, you'll fall for everything”, and that’s certainly the case with the very real probability that Alberta’s pipeline plans will again be held hostage in courts, with no private venture capital forthcoming. It really looks like Mr. Carney is the one playing a “dangerous bluff”, making him even less trustworthy as a leader already shouldering myriad unfulfilled campaign promises.  

Maybe he should listen to the lyrics of an 1939 jazz standard: “T’Ain’t What You Do, It’s The Way That You Do It”, revived in 1982 by the Irish-English pop group Bananarama.

BERNIE SMITH

Parksville, BC

Canada