In 2015 I voted for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals primarily to end the dreary decade of rule by Stephen Harper. As Trudeau brilliantly said, borrowing from Sir Wilfrid Laurier, “Sunny ways my friends. Sunny ways.”

And the ways were much sunnier—I had no complaint there. And I supported much of the Liberal program, including its environmental measures even though they weren’t as strong as I would have liked.

My favourite plank in the program was the promise to change the electoral system. Trudeau had promised repeatedly that another election would never be held with first-past-the-post voting. His government set up an all-party electoral reform committee whose diligent efforts and advice were then ignored. It had failed to recommend the PM’s preferred system—ranked ballot, the system that would most favour the Liberals. The whole process was nothing more than a cynical exercise to produce a pre-ordained result. I felt betrayed.

In 2025 I again voted Liberal, in part at least to avoid electing another dreary Conservative as PM. And again, I largely supported the Liberal program. Most importantly, I liked that Mark Carney was a man with solid environmental credentials who recognized the gravity of the climate crisis.

Once again I’m feeling betrayed. The PM recently negotiated two memorandums of understanding (MOUs) that include a 90-percent taxpayer-funded pipeline from Alberta to the west coast. Carney (and his co-signer on the Alberta MOU) had assured us a pipeline would only be built if the private sector paid for it. So much for his promise, and so much for his credentials.

Since becoming prime minister, Carney has consistently weakened the government’s climate policies, claiming the Trudeau era plan was “too divisive” and “too expensive.” Politics, it seems, has corrupted the PM’s environmental virtue.

He has, however, achieved considerable political success. He has brought the premiers of Alberta and BC into agreements with the federal government that have all three parties smiling. This is no small accomplishment considering these two provinces have been very much at odds environmentally and Alberta’s premier is profoundly anti-Ottawa. Premier Smith gets her pipeline and Premier Eby keeps a pristine northern coast, along with other goodies for both.

One inadvertent treat is the Alberta MOU putting the lie to the separatist claim of economic bliss if the province departs. The agreement makes it clear that there are no pipelines without Ottawa largesse.

The MOU’s promise of that largesse is a major concession to the bitumen industry and its chief cheerleader. The PM has put fossil fuel production ahead of environmental sanity. Perhaps he sees it as putting the country’s unity first in a “ruptured” world, a perfectly understandable response to economic and other assaults from our big bad neighbour. And then there’s Alberta separatists threatening their own rupture.

His goals may be worthy and deserving of our support, but not if they mean retreating in the face of the greatest threat of all—global warming.

There is more than enough retreating already. There is a general slacking off across the globe on commitments to climate goals. Everyone seems to have an excuse to do less.

Of course this might be a task humanity simply isn’t up to. If wealthy countries such as ours cannot meet the challenge, maybe it can’t be met. Perhaps the goals of the Paris Agreement were purely aspirational, the economic and social transformations necessary beyond the capacity of our limited species. Nonetheless, it’s sad to see Canada becoming a slacker, a fossil fuel fan.

Meanwhile, here in Alberta we can bask in the glow of pipeline dreams, only slightly dimmed when summer days fade into the haze of greenhouse gas-fuelled wildfire smoke.