Why the prime minister still doesn’t understand Ottawa’s role on pipelines

When in early december he announced his decision on several pipelines, approving two and vetoing another, Prime Minister Trudeau clearly thought he was showing how these decisions ought to be reached. Others, like the NEB, hold hearing and then make recommendations but the final decision should rest with the government. He couldn’t be more wrong. As I wrote in my December 9th, 2016 column for the Gobe’s ROB, his job is to be neither cheerleader (what he criticised Stephen Harper for) *nor* referee (the hat that Trudeau donned), but rather impartial rulemaker. Just as parliament makes laws and the hands them over the judges to apply, the government should be setting the tests pipelines must meet to be in the national interest and then handing it over to the NEB and environmental assessment agencies to hold the evidence-based proceedings that determine if those tests have been met. In the long run the last place politicians want to be is holding the bag on these decisions.