The Trans Mountain saga is nearing its end — the larger debate will go on

In November 2018, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went to Calgary to speak to the chamber of commerce. A crowd gathered outside the venue and chanted, "Build that pipe."

Trudeau might have responded that he was trying to do just that — at least in regards to one pipeline. Trudeau's government had actually purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline six months earlier, with the stated purpose of ensuring its expansion could be completed.

Five and a half years later, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland used her budget speech to celebrate the fact that the Trans Mountain expansion is nearing completion — an achievement she held out as evidence of what an «activist» federal government can accomplish.

Rising to respond a few minutes later, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre begged to differ. The lesson, he said, was the opposite — if the government had just gotten out of the way, a private company would have built the pipeline.

The pipeline is almost complete. The debate, obviously, is far from over.

Freeland's framing is a stretch. The federal government didn't set out to buy a pipeline — it was just willing to do so when that seemed to be the last remaining option.

But when Poilievre says the government should have gotten out of the way, he's aiming at the wrong government. It was the efforts — however futile — of British Columbia's provincial government to stymie the project that led to Kinder Morgan's decision to walk away.

And though it was suggested at the time that the federal government should have somehow compelled or cajoled the NDP government in B.C. to get out of the way, it's worth remembering that the New Democrats were dependent on a confidence-and-supply agreement with Green MLAs that committed the provincial government to