Rex Murphy: Deliverology, where are thy successes?

Has Trudeau delivered on his promise to strike the perfect balance between Energy and the Environment? Why no, it looks like a real bust

Sir Michael Barber, a hired government coach of sorts, is flanked by Heritage Minister MŽlanie Joly (L) and Environment Minister Catherine McKenna as they head to morning meetings at the Delta Lodge at Kananaskis west of Calgary, Alta., on April 26, 2016.

An utterly unreliable source, nowhere close to the prime minister and his inner circle, who wishes to remain anonymous, and in whom I have hardly any trust whatsoever, tells me the Trudeau government may be seeking a refund from their Deliverology Guru.*
The shaman of Deliverology (a barbarous and most uninspired coinage) is Mr. Michael Barber. A shortcut for understanding what he does is to think of him as a kind of Tony Robbins for immature governments. A deliverologist is a slick confidence booster for the unprepared, for those who sweep into public office (sometimes much to their own surprise) and who promised the moon and most of the outlying planets in the hope to get there, and are now in desperate need of a hired astronomer (or consultant) to get them off the hook.
Trudeau and his top advisers brought Sir Michael into the game to teach them how to deliver (how to promise they needed no help on; Liberals promise as salmon go upstream — it’s their innate compulsion and gift). But now, at mid-point in the Trudeau term, where’s the beef?

Trudeau brought Sir Michael into the game to teach them how to deliver

Did Trudeau deliver on a new electoral system by getting ride of first-past-the-post? Nein. No delivery there. Perfect failure. As were the vaporous hearings on electoral reform, which were scuttled by the very minister who set them up. 

Has he repaired the country’s relationship with First Nation’s people? Uh Uh. The MMIW inquiry might be compared to a drawing room farce, were the subject matter not so sensitive. It has appalled the very people it was set up to serve, brought tears from many who once saw it as an instrument of mercy, and has lost the best people to conduct the inquiry through their resignations. Huge, messy, sad flop on a very sensitive file. I guess Mr. Barber and the crackerjack wisdoms of Deliverology, here, once again, failed, yes, to deliver.
Tax reform. There is no need to detail this chaos. The video file from the Oakville town meeting with the finance minister provides all you need to see on how well this is not going over. Deliverology failure once again.

And now to the biggest file of all. Energy and the Environment

And now to the biggest file of all. Energy and the Environment. Striking the Balance. Social Licence and the Carbon Dioxide Tax. Has Trudeau delivered on the promise to strike the perfect balance between Energy and the Environment? Well, if your idea of the perfect balance is one end of the scale hitting the roof (that would be the Green end), and the other collapsed on the floor (that would be the Energy and Pipelines end), then he has. However, if you’re more inclined to see balance as two scales more or less in equilibrious harmony, then it’s a real bust.
Thursday, TransCanada, having spent close to a billion dollars already trying to move Energy East forward, announced it was not going ahead with the project. It rightly, though diplomatically, put the blame on the overreach of the National Energy Board, with the expanded scope of its regulations and requirements. A huge $15-billion project cancelled. This, mere weeks after Petronas walked away from any even more gigantic enterprise of some $36 to 39-billion. Some five or six major outside investors have left the Alberta oilfields. All of this after Fort McMurray almost burnt to the ground, oil prices dropped, and jobs lost have run into the tens of thousands. 
And then there’s Trans Mountain, which the government has “approved.” I drop the scare quotes because, while Trudeau has indeed offered approval to Trans Mountain, he is at his most tepid, formulaic, dutiful and uninspiring when doing so. Catch him at a WE day hootenanny if you want to hear him really make a pitch. Or at a Women of the World séance in full trumpet blast on the wonders of male feminism. In such settings, the accents of commitment, determination and enthusiasm are at full pitch. On Trans Mountain, he whispers. On the environmental side of this famous balance, he’s Elmer Gantry on steroids. On the oil industry, he’s a silent spectator, bringing to my mind the phrase from Hamlet: “you who are but mutes and witness to this act.” 

This is stirring very real and drastic tensions within the Confederation

Plus, the B.C. pipeline is under the gun of its new NDP government and the three Greens who are keeping that party in power. They have pledged to “kill” the pipeline. Those who think the Western pipeline has a better chance than the Eastern one (now cancelled) are feeding on the fumes of exhausted optimism. Deliverology, where are thy successes?
Energy East’s withdrawal is close to putting a seal on any break from the (effective) barrier to Alberta getting its product to outside markets. The regulatory fences that have been erected, and this Liberal government’s emphatic embrace of vague environmentalism and the cloudy cause of global warming amount to a witting or unwitting boycott of that province’s principal resource. The huge investments in energy that Canada could and should be receiving are going to other countries, and jobs and prosperity with them. The industrial policy of the Trudeau government on oil is almost masochistic. And if we think of the opposite — its support of Bombardier, a jet fuelled enterprise — it is schizophrenic as well.
And that is stirring very real and potentially drastic tensions within the Confederation. We had one bout of Western alienation under Trudeau 1. It would be wise to avoid another under Trudeau 2, although it very much looks like we will not.
* Mr. Barber is not actually a guru — a spiritual, usually Indian mystic or wiseman. But then again, Deliverology is not exactly an “ology” either.