Eco extremists are threatening the economy and even Confederation with their opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline project
For now your straws and swizzle sticks are safe. Prime Minister Trudeau is not (yet) going along with Britain’s Theresa May in her fierce campaign to ban the drinking straw.
It is a tribute to the wily manoeuvres and insidious influence of the international straw lobby that our PM “refused to be pinned down” and remained “noncommittal” on the menace of the common drinking straw to the planet’s ecosystems. On so grand a question he felt it better to defer till at least a full convocation of the world’s great economies, the G7. Wise man.
It was a severe disappointment to those hoping for Trudeau leadership on the straw cartel. After all, straws are, as one environmentalist noted, just small pipelines for CO2-saturated, atmosphere-degrading soft drinks. “Anyone can stand up to the oil lobby, but the gnomes of the international straw trade … ?” Well, that’s a different set of emissions.
This tidy drama was of course playing out in London, to which Mr. Trudeau had flown from Paris after flying from Ottawa to Lima and from Lima to Ottawa and from Ottawa to Paris.
The sheer volume of venues prohibited any serious dip into the international wardrobe closet, the prime minister austerely confining himself to the grim stylings of the business suit.
For the rest of this column: http://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-environmental-extremists-are-threatening-canada