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When there is a national crisis, and there is a national crisis, to whom do we justly look for a resolution? Why the prime minister of the nation. Instead of leadership in this case however, we get a statement that surely implies he thinks the “resolution” is in some other hands. Further in the same statement — and I love this — he called for “all parties to dialogue.” Whenever in any really tense situation a politician hauls out the infinitive “to dialogue,” you may take it to the bank he has not a clue about how to handle it.

What’s “to dialogue?” Is it defying court injunctions? Is it barring your deputy prime minister from pursuing her duties? Do you want to have a chat about shutting down a provincial legislature? Bringing the commerce of a nation to a standstill by rail blockades? Threatening a great energy project that has gone through all the tests and assessments and which holds vast promise of economic benefits and jobs? Watching the police forces of the nation stand by in perfect impotence before eco-radicals? Making a joke out of the so-highly-touted rule of law while the country seizes up under pressure from zealots?

Photo by Liam Richards/Postmedia News

How did Canada get to this point? Easy. The elevation of the doomsday cult of global warming, the insistence that Canada has some unique and precious role in saving the planet, the hostility to the oil industry that is the logical extension of that attitude has given vast licence to anti-oil types to more or less do what they want. And now they are. The steadfast refusal to defend the industry, always bending to the other side to placate the protesters, the demonstrators; muttering on constantly about carbon dioxide “pollution;” caving in on every occasion there is an interruption in a legal development: all of these things were a bugle call to those who like to think their cause is above normal politics, above normal protest, and most of all, as we have seen this week, above the courts and the legislatures.