The Michigan government-imposed deadline has come, and Enbridge – with more courage than our federal government – has said no to shutting down their Line 5 pipeline, despite what Michigan Governor Whitmer demands.
What will Governor Whitmer do now? She has threatened to “seize company profits.” In an age of interventionist government action, who knows? Maybe she will try.
The two sides are supposed to be in mediation and are next scheduled to meet on May 18th. Until then, we appear to be witnessing something of a standoff.
But in the midst of this stand-off, we have a real crisis unfolding: the consequences of a cyber-terrorist attack on another major pipeline, the Colonial Pipeline, throughout the US Eastern Seaboard.
The Colonial Pipeline shutdown is a dress rehearsal for what would happen with a Line 5 shutdown. As we write this, millions of Americans can’t get the fuels they need. As of yesterday (Wednesday) morning, over 70% of the gas stations in Raleigh, North Carolina were without fuel. Photos abound on various social media sites of people filling gas cans, and terrifying messages like “don’t put gasoline in plastic bags” are actually being circulated.
Meanwhile, the governments of Canada and the United States – because of willful blindness or ideological zeal, are ignoring these lessons of a pipeline shutdown. Two national governments refuse to step in to try to avoid a second pipeline shutdown. Instead, they advance their radical green agendas, throwing billions of dollars in Canada, and trillions in the US, at absurd green projects. A real energy infrastructure problem that affects the lives of millions is not enough to prompt them to try to avoid a second such crisis.
Why don’t both governments get involved in the Line 5 issues?
Why don’t both governments work together and say “no, we can’t let this pipeline be shutdown, let’s work this out”?
Instead, the Trudeau Government waited until the 11th hour to even put a brief in to the Michigan Court tasked with looking at the dispute.
And the Biden Administration – you know the one Trudeau is so close to – does nothing. And the Trudeau government doesn’t object to their close friends doing nothing.
The reality is we have a bunch of green idealogues in power: they don’t want a hydrocarbon energy industry, they don’t want any pipelines, they don’t want a successful industrial society.
We have all, as citizens, reached a level of comfort that we have lost sight of the fact that so many of the benefits of day to day society are contingent on some fundamental things working well. One of the most fundamental is reliable, affordable, energy infrastructure. And there is no more reliable, affordable energy infrastructure than pipelines. That’s why the environmentalists target pipelines. And that’s why activist ideological governments let them.
Canadians need to realize what’s at stake: the well-being of millions of our fellow citizens will be affected.