Bob Layton: Pipeline or snipe-line?

That loud scraping sound you hear coming from the direction of the legislature is Premier Rachel Notley dragging a great big credit card across the floor, getting ready to head to the pipeline store.

That huge credit card already has over $40 billion on it and she’s considering running up another $7 billion to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

The new bill for $47 billion will go out to each of us and our children and maybe our grandchildren. As interest climbs, you can watch Alberta’s debt grow right here on the provincial debt clock.

But, there is such a thing as good debt.

If we owned the pipeline, how soon would all the new oil pay for it? Would an Alberta-owned pipeline make any difference to British Columbia, or would our Kinder Morgan just ignite tinder under B.C. Premier John Horgan?

Would Green Party MP Elizabeth May use Alberta’s pipeline purchase as another excuse to snipe at us from what is supposed to be forbidden ground?

The main piece of the pipeline puzzle is in Ottawa, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau serenades Alberta with his favorite Bee Gees song, Words. “It’s only words and words are all I have …”

Infrastructure Minister Amarjeet Sohi and Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr seem to prefer Simon and Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence. Neither will give a hint about what the next move might be. They just keep reiterating the pipeline will be built.

As we wait for some Liberal leadership, and as Premier Notley ups the ante from incoming wine that is bottled to outgoing oil being throttled, you have to give her credit for trying to use that big credit card.

If she is finally successful, and protest gives way to pipeline, we may have to change the Alberta version of NDP from “No Dang Pipelines” to “Notley Does Pipelines.”

Let me know what you think.

Bob Layton is the news manager of the Corus Edmonton group of radio stations.