Stop the presses—Naomi Klein and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation see eye-to-eye on Kinder Morgan bailout

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      I never thought I would see this in my lifetime: left-wing icon Naomi Klein agreeing with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation on an important public-policy matter.

      But this seems to be the case when it comes to using public funds to bail out Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project.

      This morning, I posted a commentary on Straight.com by CTF federal director Aaron Wudrick, who's an ardent right winger.

      While Wudrick supports Kinder Morgan's $7.4-billion project, he says "it's a terrible idea for the government to bail out—apologies, 'invest in'—Trans Mountain for a whole host of reasons". Not the least of which is its potential impact on the public debt.

      Later this morning, I noticed a tweet from The Leap, which was cofounded by Klein, also arguing against government bailouts of the Kinder Morgan pipeline project.

      "This company has its hands out," Klein says in the tweet. "What it wants is taxpayer money from Alberta [and] from the federal government that eliminates its private risk and offloads that risk onto taxpayers. This is a very familiar tactic for oil companies."

      It appears that Georgia Straight readers agree with both of them.

      As of this writing, an online poll on Straight.com shows that 90 percent oppose any federal tax dollars being invested in the pipeline project.

      With numbers like that and sharp opposition from the left and the right, it's hard to see how Justin Trudeau could justify taking an equity position in such a controversial proposal just over a year before the next election will be held.

      But then again, as Straight contributor Martyn Brown has written, "There's dumb, and there's Alberta dumb—and Rachel Notley's Bill 12 is both."

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