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“That is going to take time. And in the meantime, we have to manage that transition.”

A few days later in Calgary, Trudeau said: “I misspoke — I said something the way I shouldn’t have said it.”

Photo by Lyle Aspinall Lyle Aspinall / Lyle Aspinall/Postmedia Network

But he didn’t say he shouldn’t have said it in the first place.

Recently, a Globe and Mail columnist said Albertans “lost their minds” over Trudeau’s comments. We shouldn’t have been upset “because it’s true” — the oilsands must be shut down.

This is standard national thinking now. Because the oilsands are by definition bad, we should willingly sacrifice this major industry — one that earlier national governments, especially the Liberals, have strongly supported.

What was good is now bad and must be eradicated. We should be grateful, in fact, that our superiors are ready to do this for us.

But no functioning country can expect one province to accept the heaviest burden of change without clearly stating, in detail, what will be done to help with the transition.

There’s no sign of that.

Neither is there any recognition of the fact that oilsands emissions per barrel have been cut 28 per cent since 2000.

Suncor is currently spending $1.4 billion on a project to replace coal-fired facilities with natural gas. The company says the emissions effect will be equivalent to displacing 550,000 cars from the road.

And MEG Energy is planning a pilot project for oilsands extraction with zero emissions.

Has any automaker in Ontario ever done anything similar? Has any Quebec aerospace company? Even though they also make things that produce a lot of emissions?