At Toronto rally on climate change, embattled prime minister tries to keep things from overheating
(The Star Toronto Raptors)

As the capper to a two-pronged day of rallies to cheer on the Liberal climate agenda, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Monday night stop at the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto had already been slightly upstaged by the resignation of Jane Philpott from his cabinet earlier in the day.If the fallout from alleged interference by the Prime Minister’s Office in criminal proceedings against SNC-Lavalin and last week’s testimony from former attorney-general Jody Wilson-Raybould on the matter to the Commons Justice Committee looked to be ongoing, however, Trudeau resolutely stayed on message at the Music Hall. (“It shouldn’t be free to pollute anywhere in the country�). But he did acknowledge the elephant thundering about the room off the top of his speech.“While I am disappointed, I understand her decision to step down and I want to thank her for her service,� he said of Philpott, who removed herself from her position as Treasury Board president on Monday, saying she had “lost confidence� in the Trudeau government over its handling of the SNC-Lavalin matter.Trudeau was praising her efforts in removing boil-water advisories on reserves, pursuing “next gen� solutions for Phoenix pay system and for her work on climate change when the first protester of the evening piped up to call attention to a potential crack in the Liberal’s climate-action plan: the Canadian government’s acquisition of the soon-to-be-expanded Trans-Mountain pipeline. Those pipeline plans have caused a disconnect between the government’s professed desire to repair institutional relations with Indigenous peoples, and the unwillingness of many of those peoples to let pipelines pass through their territories.“I remember when you bought a pipeline!� “Stop Canadian genocide!� Such cries erupted often during Trudeau’s speech, and a proper shoving match ensued on the floor when a protester thr ...