Announcing her intention to propose an oil pipeline that would run across northern British Columbia from Alberta to the Pacific Ocean, Premier Danielle Smith declared that this would be "a test of whether Canada works as a country."
It's at least not obvious why the fate of any single, specific infrastructure project should necessarily count as a test of whether Canada can rightfully consider itself a properly functioning federated nation state and a respectable liberal democracy.
And if one did want to place such emphasis on a single pipeline, it would likely not be the mere construction of the project that would count as the test, but rather whether it could be constructed in a way that was both environmentally responsible and broadly acceptable to those Canadians who will be most impacted.
But Smith's preferred framing creates a challenge and a potential trap for Prime Minister Mark Carney.
The Alberta premier seems to have in mind something like the previously proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, which would ha
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