Bad week

The Federal Court of Appeal's decision last week to yank the permits and halt any continuing construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline was not only a bad week for the Trudeau Liberals, it was a bad week for Canadians.

The court ruled that the National Energy Board's okay of the pipeline's expansion was not only seriously flawed, but it failed to adequately consult with First Nations opposed to it running through their reserves.

This means Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has vowed to see Trans Mountain completed, has to appeal the decision or start over with the consultations.

Or, if he wants to play hardball, he can introduce legislation, and see it pass all roadblocks with his majority in the House of Commons, and ram the pipeline through regardless of who the detractors are.

This, of course, would take the kind of spine our prime minister has yet to display.

So, as it stands today, Canadians are on the hook for the $4.5 billion the Liberals agreed to pay Kinder Morgan to take the pipeline out of the hands of its shareholders.

Like it or not, we now own a pipeline to nowhere.

Until this wrong gets righted, billions in revenues are being left untapped in the landlocked oilsands of Alberta until the day comes it can get to more lucrative markets on the other side of the globe.

As it stands today, the United States is our only market for oilsands bitumen and, because it is our only market, the Americans get to buy it cheap.

This leaves us with more billions lost.

Part of this is the price we have to pay for Trudeau talking out of both sides of his mouth. He claimed when running against the Harper Conservatives that environmental issues and pipelines were not necessarily at odds, yet he has failed to produce any positive results.

We have unmined oil and gas resources that would be the envy of the world but if special interests continue to throw wrenches into the works and the pipeline doesn't get built, we will never reap the rewards.

Right now, we are $4.5 billion more in debt than we were the week before.

Did we buy a pipeline, or did we buy a sinkhole?