the Walnut Diary

Various journalists have written about methods to undo the knotted rope of obligation which is the Kimberly-Morgan Pipeline conflict. I would like to suggest a modest proposal which could free up the wheels of commerce and progress, once again foster amity between the western provinces, and leave Quebec out of the discussion before they over-reach their special status in Canada and provoke a backlash from the other nine provinces and three territories, and most of all, cost the taxpayer not one dollar.

The proposal would also allow the First Nations who are still holding out for a better deal to blame Ottawa for their intransigence and extract whatever largesse these moans might generate.

John Horgan feels a deep personal need for power. In order to gain it after the last election he formed a coalition with the B.C. Green Party to turf the ruling Liberals. Those three Green Party seats have put him and the B.C. Government into the position of blocking the K-M pipeline on questionable legal grounds and damaging the economic prospects of his own province’s interior and the entire province of Alberta.

Horgan must see that this arrangement with the Greens is running away from him. Protestors are turning out to be the professional radicals who are opposed to everything. He is well on the way to appearing the dupe of the most corrupt elements of B.C. politics. Jobs for thousands of B.C. construction workers are being sacrificed each day so that Liberals rich enough to own seaside estates can continue to look out their windows over the Pacific without the sight of grimy tankers interfering with their view. Is David Suzuki’s window the hill on which John Horgan is prepared to allow his political career to die?

What if there were another way, a political move often used in western provincial politics, to dissolve this blockage? Would not a grateful public flock to the leaders who saw the way to eliminate this conflict? Would John Horgan not emerge as the statesman-premier who cooled down Rachel Notley’s rage and ensured jobs for a vast number of potential NDP voters from the interior of his own province?

John Horgan needs reassurance that his government can survive the no-confidence vote he would face if he calls the Green Party’s bluff. Why not arrange a floor-crossing of let’s say five Liberals to the NDP? Who knows? Perhaps more would be delighted to find a berth as backbenchers in government again. One would hope the groundswell wouldn’t be as dramatic as the one that did in the Wild Rose Party in Alberta a couple of years ago, but the shuffling of a few seats could definitely change the political map over a weekend, reassure the Houston billionaires, gladden the Prime Minister, and give status to the beleaguered Notley.

For this boon to Western Canada I can claim no personal benefit, seated as I am on a tree farm in Eastern Ontario, drawing an indexed pension, and with no desire to enter politics at this late stage in my life.