OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau returns to a House of Commons eager to debate his government’s policies on the economy, energy, climate change and reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples after a week away.
The NDP is asking Commons Speaker Anthony Rota for an emergency debate on anti-pipeline blockades that have shut down swaths of the country’s train system and interrupted traffic on highways and bridges for more than a week.
The blockades are in support of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs who oppose a natural gas pipeline that crosses the First Nation’s traditional territory in northern British Columbia.
Trudeau’s cabinet also has to decide whether to approve a major new oilsands mine called the Teck Frontier project, which a couple of weeks ago seemed to be the government’s biggest headache.
The mine would emit megatonnes of climate-changing greenhouse-gas emissions over its lifespan, but Alberta Premier Jason Kenney warns that nixing it would raise “roiling western alienation to a boiling point.”
A decision on the Teck Frontier project is due by the end of the month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 18, 2020.
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