Rex Murphy: Were I an Albertan today, I'd be asking: What's the point? - National Post

I’d be asking, how long are we going to put up with being mauled and mocked and stymied and blocked, by forces within Canada and without?

Joe Biden didn’t let the sun set on his first day as president before coming down like a ton of bricks on Alberta. Almost with his first breath, he smashed Keystone XL.

And Justin Trudeau didn’t let 24 hours go by to assure Mr. Biden he understood. Ever so kindly he “acknowledged the new president’s decision to fulfil his election campaign promise on Keystone XL.” The promise to kill it on the first day. ...

Were I an Albertan today I’d actually be asking: What’s the point? Why are we in this thing? When will it ever stop? Does anyone in Ottawa have any idea of where this is driving us? ...

Did Trudeau not consider that if so vital a Canadian interest as its oil and gas industry was being shuttered by the new guy, so quickly, then maybe — just to show solidarity with Alberta and its oil workers and as a province of the Confederation — he should tell Mr. Biden he can take his first phone call and — in Doug Ford’s exemplary formulation — place it in his “ying-yang” department?

Ooh, but that would not be diplomatic. It might upset many wise mouths on the TV panels. It might — fearful thought — show evidence of spine and independence.

And after all, it’s only Alberta. It’s not like it’s an attack on our auto industry, or, good heavens, Bombardier, which of course pose no “threat” to our planet, and besides have the good grace to be positioned in real provinces, like Ontario and Quebec.

By the way if anyone buys the idea Biden killed Keystone because of his fears about global warming I can find you a real bargain on beach property in Siberia. I remind readers the U.S. has three million miles of pipeline. ...

if anyone thinks the Trudeau government mourns this decision, they have not been listening to every pious global warming sermon from the PM and Catherine McKenna these past five years. They are Greener than Kermit.

We have in Ottawa the Greenest government ever, and the Fata Morgana of apocalyptic global warming is their creed, their Bible, their one and dearest idea. And whatever few timid words of “regret” we may have heard, they are mere vapours.

Have they not, in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, the massive hit to the economy we are enduring, after every blow that has fallen on Alberta oil and gas in the past five or six years, the fire in Fort Mac, the downturn in prices, the flight of headquarters and investment — after all these and more, have they not escalated the senseless carbon tax?

It’s not only Joe Biden who has it in for Alberta oil and gas. ...

And out in Alberta, it is becoming more and more difficult, perhaps even impossible, to answer the basic question: If you allow the savaging of our economy, if you ignore what we in Alberta have contributed to you during the good times, if you side with rabid environmentalism, pour on carbon taxes and fuel emission standards, if you bar every effort to build even one damn pipeline: Why are we in this thing? ...

 

Read full article Here.

Comments