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After U.S. President Donald Trump was elected in 2016 in part on what turned out to be the largely empty promise to “build a wall and make Mexico pay for it” and to ban Muslim immigration to the U.S., tech billionaire Peter Thiel spoke of the disconnect among media and voters as the difference between taking Trump “seriously” and taking Trump “literally.” Reporters analyzed the literal feasibility of constructing an actual wall and the literal legal ramifications of his immigration ban, without taking seriously Trump’s underlying message. By contrast: “I think a lot of voters who vote for Trump take Trump seriously but not literally,” he said, so “their question is not, ‘Are you going to build a wall like the Great Wall of China?’ or, you know, ‘How exactly are you going to enforce these tests?’ What they hear is we’re going to have a saner, more sensible immigration policy.”

This looks like the mistake people are making with Kenney’s promises — whether to turn off the taps (that’s unconstitutional!) or to cancel the carbon tax (the feds will just impose theirs!), or renegotiate the unfair equalization arrangement (the rest of Canada will refuse!), or to end the emissions cap Notley imposed on the oil sands. University of Alberta economist Andrew Leach just published a piece in Maclean’s explaining that Kenney’s promise to “roll back” Notley’s climate policies will mean that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won’t build Trans Mountain because some grand bargain would be broken. Leach has also been tweeting about how turning off the taps to B.C. would violate “92a of the Constitution (since) such laws may not authorize or provide for discrimination in prices or in supplies exported to another part of Canada.” It’s every bit as boring as it sounds — and it’s likely almost no one here cares. Not only because Leach is the architect of the NDP’s very carbon taxes and climate policies that have so many Albertans in revolt, but because the last thing Calgarians are interested in right now are some nerdy economists telling them they shouldn’t bother taking action. (Besides, Justin Trudeau already isn’t building Trans Mountain, and an undetermined but certainly significant number of Albertans don’t believe he ever will.)