Justin Trudeau – GOLDSTEIN: Trudeau values style over substance

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Since coming to power in 2015, Trudeau has asserted that under his leadership, Canada has achieved every one of the conditions he claimed would lead to the approval of Keystone — which Biden rejected on day one of his presidency.

In the real world, what led to the revival of Keystone after Obama killed it in 2015 had nothing to do with Trudeau.

It was the election of Donald Trump in 2016, who reversed Obama’s decision a year later and approved the pipeline, because he believed it would be beneficial to both the U.S. and Canada.

That was until Biden killed it last week with Trudeau expressing mild disappointment.

In reality, the approval or rejection of Keystone never had anything to do with Trudeau’s style of government, or for that matter, Harper’s.

From beginning to end, the fate of Keystone was held hostage by U.S. presidential politics, with two Democrats — Obama and Biden, who was Obama’s vice-president when Obama killed it the first time, opposing it — and one Republican, Trump, supporting it.

lgoldstein@postmedia.com