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But he slipped up by acknowledging the real reason the Liberals are intent on driving the bill through parliament, in the teeth of fierce opposition: “It follows from an election promise that was made.”

Voters should generally commend governments for fulfilling the promises on which they were elected. But not if they were made in haste and don’t make sense in a shifting geopolitical landscape.

Over the past year, I have spoken to a number of people involved in the 2015 Liberal election campaign while researching a book on Justin Trudeau. More than one person used the phrase “third-party promises” to describe the Liberals’ electoral commitments. “This sprawling platform was created by a third-place party that had been out of power for a decade and was throwing stuff at the wall,” said one person with close knowledge of the campaign. “When someone asked: ‘How are we going to do all this stuff?’ the response was: ‘We’ll only have to if we get elected.'”

The tanker ban, announced by Trudeau at Jericho Beach in Vancouver at the end of June 2015, fits that description. At the time, the Conservatives criticized the Liberal leader for “not understanding the implications of his policies.”

Once in government, the announcement of the moratorium killed the Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat, B.C..

But since then the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion has faced all kinds of difficulties and the Energy East project to ship Alberta crude to Atlantic Canada has been abandoned.