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The prime minister just doesn’t get Western alienation. Either that or he is so obsessed with his green image he doesn’t care. After rejection by two-thirds of voters, with support from less than 22 per cent of the total electorate and only four out of 62 seats in the Prairie provinces, Trudeau is downplaying regional “frustrations,” saying they do not amount to a national unity crisis.

As if to flaunt his indifference, Trudeau reaffirmed Liberal hostility to resource development with two fateful decisions, both of which — paradoxically — undermine his avowed mission to combat climate change. The first relates to the government’s stance at the failed UN Conference on Climate Change (COP25) in Madrid and the second, its commitment to adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

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As I recently wrote, selling Canadian oil and gas to Asia will reduce net global emissions by enabling importing countries to decrease their use of higher-emitting coal. Canada can be a big contributor to the international climate effort by exporting oil and gas or it can concentrate on domestic emissions and penalize its economy.