Chantal Hébert: Results of Alberta vote could drive last nail in coffin of Trudeau´s national climate-change framework
(The Star Fashion & Style)

MONTREAL—Of the premiers of the four larger provinces who signed off on Justin Trudeau’s climate-change framework three year ago, only Rachel Notley is left.That makes her the second most prominent Canadian political leader — after the prime minister — to support the notion that it is desirable to strike a balance between pipeline building and carbon pricing.If, as the pre-election polls predict, she is defeated in Tuesday’s Alberta election, the result will drive yet another nail in the coffin of Trudeau’s defunct national climate-change consensus. But the election of a Conservative Alberta government led by Jason Kenney would not bring a polarized Canadian political class any closer to a resolution on the issue. It would mostly make contrary positions even more irreconcilable.Because regime change in the provinces caused the unravelling of Trudeau’s grand energy/environment bargain, its fate has often been compared to Brian Mulroney’s failed constitutional reconciliation attempts.In fact, the former Tory prime minister had more provincial allies left at the end of the divisive Meech Lake round in 1990 than Trudeau can now count on to continue to advance his two-pronged pipeline/carbon-pricing policy.If anything, the House of Commons is even more deeply divided than at the time of the constitutional wars, with positions on both sides of the debate more entrenched. The NDP, the Greens and the Bloc Québécois would nix any future pipeline proposal.The Conservatives have never seen a pipeline project they did not want to support.One election promise Trudeau has kept is the commitment to gather the premiers at least once a year. They last met in Montreal in December.That means there will be no first ministers’ conference until after the October federal election. By then, a different prime minister could be in office. But whoever wins the Oct. 21 federal vote will find the same unbridgeable gap between t ...