Cohen: Canada's environmentalists, feminists must stop demanding political perfection

By Andrew Cohen, Ottawa Citizen, April 23, 2019

When Voltaire wrote that perfection is the enemy of the good, he was surely speaking of Rachel Notley and the environmentalists. Or Justin Trudeau and the feminists.

Of course he was, even in 1770. Two hundred and fifty years ago, you see, Voltaire could predict the political future of Canada, even as he dismissed it as “a few acres of snow.”

But perfection is what critics demand. In Alberta, the environmentalists went after the New Democrats who imposed a carbon tax, promised to phase out coal and wanted to expand a pipeline broadly supported by Indigenous Peoples.

As Tristin Hopper writes in The National Post, this brought lawsuits, street protests and threats from the government of British Columbia. And what did that yield? Why, the defeat of the New Democrats and the election of the Conservatives, who will repeal said carbon tax.

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/cohen-canadas-environmentalists-feminists-must-stop-demanding-political-perfection

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