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Liberal ministers have begun using the phrase “climate emergency,” not just climate change. You can agree with the Liberals that climate change is occurring, that it is manmade and dangerous, but even if you think it’s urgent, it is simply fear-mongering to insist it is a present state of emergency.

The Liberals’ rhetoric is bad for public policy.

Consider Trans Mountain and the Liberal government’s upcoming decision about whether to let it proceed. This week McKenna scolded Alberta Premier Jason Kenney for axing the carbon tax his government’s top priority. “You have to have a climate plan to get your (oil and bitumen) to market.”

But if at the same time, McKenna and others are cranking up the alarmism, what are the chances that any plan Alberta can devise will placate environmentalists and “green” politicians enough that they will let pipelines move forward? If on one hand, the Liberals are shrieking about a climate “emergency,” how can they simultaneously also think West Coast “kayak-tivists” will be persuaded to let Trans Mountain proceed?

It’s amazing to us, too, that they Liberals are still pushing the “social licence” fairy tale – the belief that if governments will impose carbon taxes, close coal-fired power plants and limit oilsands development then eco-activsts will return the favour by agreeing to let pipelines and refineries be built.

What rubbish. The Liberals and the former Notley government tried that for four years and, if anything, it only made environmentalists bolder to demand more and more concessions and be even more obstructionist.

There can be little doubt that this new emphasis on environmentalism is part of a Liberal campaign strategy and that the over-the-top rhetoric is an effort to distance the Liberals from the opposition Conservatives.

But it is dangerous for the country’s economy. That means that – yet again – the Liberals are putting their party’s electoral fortunes ahead of the nation’s best interests.