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We’ve had warning long before this, at least, from Trudeau, at any rate. In a September article, Tyee columnist Bill Tieleman pointed out the Prime Minister had stated his preference for a Kinder Morgan pipeline as early as January 2014, when still an MP and leader of the Liberal Party. Trudeau said, as Tieleman quoted him: “I am, however, very interested in the Kinder Morgan pipeline, the Trans Mountain pipeline that is making its way through (government consideration). I certainly hope that we’re going to be able to get that pipeline approved.”

In contrast, Trudeau has always made clear his opposition to the Northern Gateway pipeline, and his preference for the Trans Mountain route can hardly be made any clearer than the statement above. As for local sensitivities about the shipment of Alberta bitumen through Vancouver harbour, he pointedly did a boat tour of the harbour during a campaign stop here in May 2015. It wasn’t to announce his undying opposition to a seven-fold increase in oil tankers through it.

(Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi) scolded us for putting narrow regional concerns above the national interest … as opposed to Calgary’s concerns, or Alberta’s concerns, which are, of course, not narrow

I attended. Despite his public opposition to Northern Gateway, all he would say was that it was not the federal government’s job to be a “cheerleader” for any one project, but to be a “referee” — which was an odd statement, given the setting in which he chose to say it, and his own previously stated preference. After his tour, when he came ashore, rather than speak to his own interest in Trans Mountain, he announced dockside that a Liberal government would reinstate the local Coast Guard station and commit to a reinvestment in oil-spill response capacity on the coast — both of which have come true. Would British Columbians, I asked him then, have cause to worry that we might have to use those reinvestments here in Vancouver harbour because of a possible bitumen spill? He wouldn’t say, but rather answered in vague generalities that gave nothing away. You could hear a shoe drop.