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In 2015, newly minted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in an unguarded moment with the New York Times, glibly declared “Canada is the world’s first post-national state.”

He described Canadians’ “core values” as openness, respect, compassion, willingness to work hard, “being there for each other,” and seeking equality and justice. But Trudeau stated “there is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.”

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At the time, and since, it was easy to dismiss this as the undisciplined and pseudo-intellectual ramblings of an unserious mind. But in recent days there is a darker edge to this.

Perhaps in Justin Trudeau-land there really is no core Canadian identity; particularly in Western Canada nothing that anchors us — from longtime to new Canadians — to a common purpose or strives to unify us behind an ideal.

Intermittently since 2012, near B.C.’s Morice River, blockades have been erected by a tiny group of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs opposing Coastal GasLink’s natural gas pipeline, despite all 20 elected bands along the pipeline route supporting it, including the five Wet’suwet’en bands under the Indian Act. A band-owned business and many band members will work on the project.