Thursday, November 27, 2025

Peace, Order, and Good Government?

Not Lately.

Pipeline dialogue moves to MOU

Rt. Hon Brushy Hand Dismisser decimates his Cabinet over oil, meh.

The Canadian Constitution opens with a modest promise: “Peace, Order, and good Government,” but after a decade of Liberal rule (first under Justin Trudeau, now under Mark Carney), that promise feels like a relic of the past, which wasn't all that long ago.

The existing list of grievances is long and fact-based: Federal debt roughly doubled from $616 billion in 2015 to well over $1.2 trillion by 2025, with deficits run even in boom years. Housing supply collapsed relative to population growth, turning home ownership into a generational punchline. Ethics violations piled up at a pace no previous government has matched: the Aga Khan vacation, SNC-Lavalin, WE Charity, ArriveCAN’s $60-million app, the SDTC green slush fund, and more.

Three separate Conflict of Interest Commissioner findings against the prime minister himself. RCMP investigations into fraud, breach of trust, and obstruction that, so far, have produced no charges but plenty of blocked documents. A carbon-tax regime that exempted Atlantic heating oil while hammering Prairie natural gas, widely seen as vote-buying rather than principle.

Today, Nov 27, 2025, Steven Guilbeault resigned in a furious departure from Mark Carney’s cabinet hours after the PM signed an energy deal with Alberta that effectively suspends the oil-and-gas emissions cap, relaxes clean-electricity rules, and opens the door to a new Pacific pipeline. The former Greenpeace activist-cum-inhouse WEF Mole/Activist, called Carney's move a “serious mistake” and a subsidy to Big Oil.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith called it the end of a decade of federal strangulation.

Can both be right at the same time? One's punted out of government. The other is able to declare some kind of victory.

The MOU is naked realpolitik: Donald Trump is threatening tariffs that could cost Canada $50 billion a year. Ninety-three percent of our oil exports flow south. Carney wants to reroute hundreds of thousands of barrels a day to Asia, and he needs Alberta’s cooperation to do it. In exchange, Alberta gets regulatory relief and a promise that Ottawa will stop treating its primary industry like a pariah.

If private capital shows up, if the pipeline actually gets built, if First Nations are properly consulted and B.C. doesn’t torpedo the whole thing in court, this could be remembered as the moment Canada chose pragmatic survival over ideological purity. Jobs, revenue, and energy sovereignty might finally return.

But if it fizzles (if the money never materializes, if the courts stall it, if it becomes another Trans Mountain-style taxpayer sinkhole), the consequences will be brutal. Western alienation, already white-hot, could tip into something uglier. Carney’s reputation as the adult in the room would evaporate. The Liberal brand, already battered, might not survive another broken promise.

Canadians have put up with a lot since 2015. They have watched ethics reports stack up like unpaid bills. They have watched their cost of living explode while their government lectured them about climate morality from private jets and luxury islands. This energy deal is the kind of play that looms as the Liberals’ last chance to show they can still deliver something that looks like “good government.”

If it turns out to be another act on a stage of smoke and mirrors, the audience is done clapping.

Enshrining "Peace, Order, and Good Government" (POGG) as the federal government's north star, is a promise of stability, predictability, and competent stewardship that's meant to bind this sprawling nation together. Under the Liberals—from Trudeau's decade of scandals to Carney's whirlwind first months—it has been more like chaos, caprice, and cronyism.

The ethics breaches we unpacked were symptoms of a deeper rot: a kakistocracy-like apparatus prioritizing the wealth and well-being of the greedy Laurentian elite, putting those interests over the raw needs of energy workers in Fort McMurray or families cleaning fishing nets by in St. John's.

And now, this Alberta energy deal lands like a lit fuse in a powder keg of unmet expectations. We predict dire consequences if the MOU talk is a ruse. If this fizzles, there will be no more kicking the Canadian energy crisis down the road. A reckoning awaits in our opinion. This MOU talk had better deliver real order, not more performative politics.

If the pipeline stalls (private cash dries up, B.C. sues, or First Nations blockades erupt), it won't just be Alberta seething; it'll fracture POGG at its core. Western alienation—already at fever pitch after a decade of federal foot-dragging—could boil into sovereignty talk, echoing the '80s National Energy Program nightmares. (cbc.ca)

Carney's "energy superpower" rhetoric rings hollow if it means more debt, delayed emissions cuts (we're off-track for Paris anyway), or greenwashing that invites U.S. mockery amid tariffs. The actors? Carney risks his banker-cred as a climate champ turned oil enabler—polls could tank his 40% approval if jobs don't materialize. (bloomberg.com)

Smith faces blowback from her UCP base if "stricter" carbon pricing bites without pipeline payoffs. Guilbeault? He emerges as a martyr for the eco-wing, potentially rallying Quebec Liberals against Carney's pivot. And Poilievre's Conservatives? They're salivating—framing this as Liberal hypocrisy to steamroll toward a 2026 majority.

Bottom line: This MOU is a tightrope over the abyss. If it lands pipelines, CCUS hubs, and diversified exports without ecological Armageddon, it could restore a hint of "good government." But if it's vaporware—another SNC-style sleight-of-hand—the dire bit hits: Voter revolt, constitutional dust-ups, and a federation fraying at the seams. We've seen the ethics indictments; now watch for the policy ones.

Peace, order, and good government isn’t a slogan. It’s a covenant. Break it often enough, and the country starts wondering whether the contract is still worth keeping.—

Article proposed by Mack McColl, built by Grok by xAI, edited and produced by Mack McColl for McColl Magazine

Premier Danielle Smith announced MOU w/Feds

The Deal: A High-Stakes Gamble or Genuine Reset?

Signed today in Calgary between Carney and Premier Danielle Smith, the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is a five-page blueprint to thaw the federal-provincial freeze that's choked Alberta's oil patch for years. nationalpost.com
On paper, it's pragmatic realpolitik: With Trump's tariffs looming (potentially slashing $50B from Canada's GDP, or $1,300 per person), Carney's pitching diversification—rerouting 300,000–400,000 barrels/day of bitumen to Asia via a new Pacific pipeline, bypassing the U.S. stranglehold that absorbs 93% of our exports. cbc.ca +1
To grease the wheels, Ottawa's exempting Alberta from the oil/gas emissions cap, Clean Electricity Regulations, and even tweaking the coastal tanker moratorium (a Trudeau-era relic that blocked Northern Gateway). reuters.com +1
In exchange? Alberta ups industrial carbon pricing, commits to the $16B+ Pathways Alliance carbon capture hub, and eyes nuclear/datacenter builds for net-zero by 2050. nationalpost.com +1
Carney calls it "Canada working"—a "great day" for prosperity and independence. theguardian.com
Smith hails it as escaping Trudeau's "dark times," unleashing trapped wealth without federal throttling. cbc.ca
The oil lobby's popping champagne; it's a lifeline for 164 billion barrels of proven reserves sitting idle. washingtontimes.com
But here's the rub: No private firm has bitten on building the pipeline yet (echoing Trans Mountain's $30B taxpayer bailout), and B.C.'s David Eby is already sharpening knives over coastal risks. nytimes.com +1
First Nations consultations? Spotty at best, per Guilbeault's parting shot—major environmental red flags on spills, emissions, and sacred lands. theguardian.com
Guilbeault's Exit: The First Crack in the Facade is showing hours after the ink dried, Steven Guilbeault bailed—resigning as Culture Minister, Official Languages lead, Parks Canada overseer, and Carney's Quebec lieutenant, but staying a backbench MP. reuters.com +1
His statement drips principled fury: The exemptions are a "serious mistake," gutting essential climate tools for a fossil-fueled "subsidy" that favors Big Oil over renewables. globalnews.ca +1
Even Carney's nod to "economic context" (Trump's shadow) doesn't sway him—environment "must remain front and center." nationalpost.com
It's a gut punch for Carney's minority Liberals: Losing a Quebec heavyweight (and ex-Greenpeace firebrand) exposes the green flank to NDP/Green howls and Conservative gleefulness. cbc.ca
X is ablaze—conservatives crow "good riddance" and "honourable stand" (even from unlikely quarters like Dan Albas), while enviros decry a "massive setback."
Emissions cap lifted, and Asian market beckons bitumen shipments, which calls for high grade transportation facilities, and new pipeline capacity in Western Canada. Indigenous investment in the initiative comes from O&G affiliated tribes.