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If it was an attack on the federal Liberals, however, the most noteworthy response came from Edmonton. “I think Jagmeet Singh is absolutely, fundamentally, incontrovertibly incorrect in every aspect of that tweet,” Alberta Premier Rachel Notley told reporters later that day. And so on the most important political file in Western Canada, the country’s three most prominent New Democrats — Singh, Horgan and Notley — turned on each other while the cameras rolled.

The NDP should be riding high, taking advantage of what is for them a rare opportunity. The party holds power in two of Canada’s four largest provinces for just the second time in its history, and barely more than half a year ago New Democrats across the country voted decisively for a young, charismatic new leader in Singh, in the hope he would rejuvenate the federal party after its disappointing showing during the 2015 election.

But for a political faction so often united in violent agreement, the Trans Mountain pipeline project is instead revealing the fractures. As Notley and Horgan’s feud has grown increasingly bitter, Singh has been left to try and strike a position that keeps the family together — leaving him, until Wednesday, peddling what one NDP insider bluntly called a “position without a constituency.”

The NDP’s federal and provincial wings are more tightly integrated than those of the Liberals or the Conservatives, with membership in most provincial NDP wings automatically conferring federal membership as well. So as New Democrats find themselves governing provinces with dramatically opposing interests, called on to represent both Canadians who believe their livelihoods depend on a pipeline and those who will risk arrest to stop it, the party that sees itself as one family is reckoning with a threat to its sense of unity, and identity.