Canada: The Performative Arts

If you believe a pipeline from Alberta to B.C is going to be built, I have the Brooklyn Bridge to sell at at a discount. No money down," The Commentator 

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Since Justin Trudeau took office in 2015, through the COVID years, and now into the Mark Carney era in 2025, one thing keeps coming into focus: too much of Canadian politics feels like theatre.
We have all the institutions of a mature democracy—Parliament, an independent judiciary, regular elections—but somehow the country still struggles to act with cohesion or long-term conviction. Instead, we lurch from one global “current thing” to the next, often clinging to it long after the rest of the world has quietly moved on. We tell ourselves we’re showing moral leadership; more often we just look late to the party that’s already over.The latest production is the pipeline saga.
On paper, Ottawa has decided that new energy corridors are suddenly a great national project—never mind that Canada has been building pipelines for a hundred years. The same government that spent a decade preaching urgent climate action now insists this infrastructure is essential. Alberta, predictably, wants it yesterday. British Columbia, equally predictably, wants nothing to do with it.
So the solution is an MOU—big announcement, lots of handshakes, plenty of talk about “one economy” and “corridor projects.” What wasn’t announced quite so loudly is that British Columbia retains an effective veto, and everyone in the room knows how Premier Eby will use it. When the project inevitably stalls, Ottawa will have a ready excuse and a province to blame. Meanwhile, Donald Trump can still be rolled out as the all-purpose external villain for any economic turbulence.
It’s not exactly subtle.
The ethics testimony didn’t help. Senior officials, including the Clerk of the Privy Council and the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, insisted everything is above board and that Canada’s rules are world-leading. When someone casually invents an OECD endorsement that doesn’t exist, it’s hard to keep a straight face.
Mark Carney is many things—smart, experienced, globally connected—but his deep past (and in some cases continuing) ties to Brookfield and to U.S. energy infrastructure raise legitimate questions. When policy conveniently aligns with personal financial interests, people notice. Even if everything is technically within the rules, the optics are brutal, and the rules themselves feel written for a different era.
There were supposed to be firm timelines and committed investors. So far we’ve seen mostly photo ops.
Danielle Smith is playing the hand she was dealt; she knows an open fight right now would only hand Ottawa the villain it wants. Better to smile, sign the MOU, and wait.
In the end, the pipeline probably doesn’t get built. The announcement will still be counted as a win in some quarters because it bought time and spread the blame around.
That’s the part that stings: we’re a G7 country that can’t seem to lay steel in the ground without descending into the same provincial ritual dance. Meanwhile, parliamentary committees are still trying to figure out basic contract oversight in 2025 (see: Stellantis), as if competent administration is some bold new policy frontier.
Canada isn’t a colony, but sometimes it acts like a country that forgot it doesn’t have to audition for relevance anymore. We have the resources, the geography, the institutions, and the neighbourly backstop most nations can only dream of. What we keep missing is the will to use any of it decisively.
That’s not grift. It’s just drift. And drift at this scale starts to look a lot like decline.