Jen Gerson on Canada’s fundamentally unserious Prime Minister Photo-Op grandstanding at the climate love-in in Glasgow:
In a rare moment of unity, both Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and NDP opposition leader Rachel Notley objected to Trudeau’s announcements.
“I don’t know why they would make an announcement like this without consulting with the province that actually owns the overwhelming majority of Canada’s oil and gas reserve,” said Kenney.
I mean, yeah. He’s right.
When asked for actual details about this brave new plan at COP26, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault didn’t have much to share … because the plan doesn’t exist yet. It’s a plan to make a plan.
“We will need to be developing this, and that’s exactly what we will be doing in the coming months,” Guilbeault said, according to the CBC. Both he and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson have asked the net-zero advisory board to help them come up with a plan. “Specifically, we seek your advice on key guiding principles to inform the development of quantitative five-year targets,” they said in a letter sent on Monday.
There’s no path, here. There’s been no discussion; no consultation, nothing. There’s not even a draft of an idea.
So why is Trudeau getting on a stage in front of the world’s leaders half-cocked with ambitious promises for an emissions cap before he’s worked out the details at home?
To quote Line co-founder Matt Gurney during our weekly meeting: “To ask that question is to answer it.”
Trudeau is signalling what he cares about and what he doesn’t. He’s more concerned with how the audience abroad perceives him than he is about the finer points of governing. It’s about getting back-pats by the Davos set, not actually running our embarrassing, open-pit G7 backwater.
It was hard to avoid the sense during the last election that Trudeau didn’t have his heart in the fight; that he’s more invested in acting the part of prime minister than being it.
I put little stock in rumours that the Liberal leader will soon leave his role — if you’re going to act a part, after all, there are few better. And what a great platform it provides for a launch to better things. But I do wonder: If someone offered him a ranking job at the UN or the WEF or something else with a suitably impressive acronym and a travel expense account, how long would he stick around?
