Roundup: Inflating the Line 5 drama

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There was a lot of performative nonsense around Enbridge Line 5 yesterday, considering that today is the deadline by which Michigan’s governor gave to Enbridge to shut it down. And plenty of media outlets were playing up the drama around this, despite having been told repeatedly that it’s pretty certain that nothing is going to happen because that pipeline is under federal jurisdiction in the US, and the governor has no authority or power to shut it down. She has since shifted her rhetoric, saying she’ll go after Enbridge’s profits if they don’t follow her requests, but all of this is now in the courts.

Which brings me to my particular complaint, which is how things were characterised. The federal government filed an amicus brief in the case yesterday, which is basically just presenting its reasons for why they support the continued operation in the ongoing court case, and yet, both Erin O’Toole and most major media outlets treated this as though the federal government had applied for an injunction. An amicus brief is not an injunction – far from it. But this was the how the narrative was applied, as though that’s the only thing that happens in courts. It’s not particularly helpful for media outlets to treat it as such, but hey, it’s not like I have any say in this.

Regardless, it’s almost certain that Line 5 won’t be shut down because it’s frankly too important to both sides of the border, and this is largely a stunt on the governor’s part. It’s a stunt that the Biden Administration is handling with kid gloves, mind you, but I’m sure she’d love nothing more than the prime minister of Canada throwing a public tantrum over this, as the Conservatives are demanding, as it would be a propaganda victory for her, which we probably don’t want to give her. Let’s all keep a level head over this.

Good reads:

  • While Justin Trudeau is touting the “one-dose summer, two-dose fall” talking point, Dr. Theresa Tam says it’ll be up to provinces to come up with re-opening plans.
  • Ontario paused first doses of AstraZeneca citing an increase in VITT cases, while Alberta paused their citing uncertain future supply.
  • The Star takes a dive into what we know about the travel numbers in Ontario.
  • Steven Guilbeault is being called out for “Trumpian tactics” after he tweeted criticisms about the opponents of Bill C-10 as being paid by web giants.
  • The federal government announced funding for new GTA transit projects.
  • Former armoured officer Leah West told the status of women committee about how double standards were applied to her in the military around misconduct.
  • Lt. Gen Jennie Carignan, in charge of reforming the military’s culture, told the same committee that she plans to tackle how complaints are handled as her first task.
  • A trauma support retreat for women in the military who had faced sexual assault turned out to have a “peer mentor” who was a registered sex offender. Yikes!
  • All parties voted to send Bill C-19, on holding a safe election in a pandemic, to committee, with only Derek Sloan voting against it.
  • Conservative MP Diane Finley resigned her seat. The party already decided to allocate this seat to Leslyn Lewis when Finley decided not to run again.
  • Alberta’s justice minister has now apologised for saying that the federal government, the provincial NDP and media want Alberta to burn.
  • Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column posits that the back-and-forth over Bill C-10 and its amendments show that the system is actually working.
  • Adnan Khan has questions about how often Canadian Special Forces are deploying in Iraq, and we have no idea about it because of the secrecy that surrounds them.
  • Heather Scoffield talks to Jimmy Jean, the new chief economist of Desjardins, and the first Black chief economist of a major financial institution in Canada.

Odds and ends:

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5 thoughts on “Roundup: Inflating the Line 5 drama”

  1. What’s the latest possible date for a by-election caused by Diane Finley’s early resignation and when must the by-election’s date be announced by?

  2. The Liberals’ opponents and the media (who overlap in a Venn diagram) have really jumped the shark if they’re seriously comparing anyone in the LPC to The Former Guy. Particularly since it’s the Cons who have *at least* forty percent of MAGA mad hatters in their ranks, according to polls. The rest just shrug and tolerate the MAGA fanatics in hope of lower taxes or other libertarian get-out-of-jail-free bromides like “freeze peach”.

    I just read Campbell Clark’s column in the Globe. C-10 is a two-solitudes Kobayashi Maru Rorshach test just as I had suspected. A legislative Lavghazi. The Cons substituted an Alberta handmaid for their QC lieutenant at committee and attacked a barely-bilingual Liberal MP in English RW media just to score dunks and create controversy where none existed. Guilbeault was blindsided. Trudeau explains it much better in QP. Geist, as Clark points out, is an absolutist who’s against any regulation whatsoever. Which is why he’s being trotted out as the next Petersonian crank to whine about the very Anglo-American canard of “muh freeze peach” and O’Toole’s favorite GQP talking point about cancel culture. I shudder to think what would have happened had C-16 come up under a Liberal minority. The crustacean charlatan would have hijacked the committee at the Cons’ behest. And we still have no traction on the conversion therapy ban because O’Toole is trying to keep the Gilead cultists on side by letting them constipate Parliament.

    The more I see of this brouhaha the more it becomes clear that this is a culture and language issue. Guilbeault struggles in verbal English, but like Trudeau, is more articulate in French and is a pretty good writer. Trump is barely *monolingual*. He has no ideas besides what’s good for Trump. Guilbeault at lest raises a valid question of who’s watching the watchmen. Peterson wasn’t necessarily paid to be a troll until he struck it rich riding the wave of freeze-peach fundamentalism, bolstered by Fox Republicans in the United States. Geist seems to be aiming for the same trajectory. The problem isn’t Guilbeault. It’s the entitlement of the “digital fundamentalists” with their move fast and break things mentality, who really don’t like the idea of having to follow any rules at all.

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