U.S. midterm elections: Here’s why the stakes for Canadians are much the same
It’s not every day that a Canadian prime minister gets name-checked in a political debate in the United States. But in a hyper-polarized midterm election season, it’s not surprising it would happen to Justin Trudeau.
It came during a heated, hyperbolic showdown between Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Republican challenger Tudor Dixon, who attacked her rival’s yearlong bid to shut down the cross-border Line 5 pipeline.
“Justin Trudeau, who I would say is the most radical environmentalist in the entire world, came out and invoked a 1977 treaty telling Gretchen Whitmer she could not shut down Line 5,” Dixon said.
“Line 5 has not been shut down, but that’s not because Gretchen Whitmer hasn’t tried.”
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Whitmer’s administration has been battling in court for the last year to shut down the pipeline, fearing an environmental disaster in the Straits of Mackinac, the ecologically sensitive corridor where Line 5 crosses the Great Lakes.
Her Oct. 25 debate-night defence of the state’s ongoing lawsuit against Line 5’s owner and operator, Calgary-based Enbridge Inc., was hardly strident evidence of how vulnerable Democrats are feeling when it comes to energy prices.
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