[Here’s the news story: Canadian Government to Buy Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline]

That move had a familiar ring to any of us who have taken even a high school course in Canadian history. In 1956, a Liberal government’s efforts to use public money to make sure the construction of a major pipeline could begin by a June deadline ended up in a legendarily raucous parliamentary debate — and became a key factor in the Liberals’ defeat in the next election.

There wasn’t a word about the environment or the land rights of Indigenous people during the great pipeline debate of 1956. Nationalism and using public money to help a private business venture were the points of contention.

Back then, the government of Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent brought in a bill to spend 118 million Canadian dollars — 1.1 billion in today’s money — to build part of the Trans-Canada Pipeline from Alberta to Eastern Canada, and also to lend money to the group of companies set up to run and own the project. (TransCanada, as it’s known today, is also the outfit now behind Keystone XL.)

John Diefenbaker, the Conservative leader at the time, was known for his jowly speaking style, which allowed him to summon righteous indignation like few Canadian politicians before or since.