Rob Russo

of whether or not he's a progressive.

A lot of these people who call themselves progressives are looking at environmental policy as a test of whether or not the prime minister is really a progressive.

Primarily, they're looking at the pipeline and whether or not he's going to approve a northern pipeline rather than a twinning of the TMX pipeline to the Burrard Inlet.

For a lot of them, that might be a bridge too far, a northern pipeline, particularly if it doesn't have the approval of a substantial number of Indigenous people, of First Nations.

And so...

That's the side of the progressive.

So the reality is it's abundant by what we're seeing lately.

That oil is going to be around for a long time.

Security of supply has become paramount.

And security of supply, even within members of the Liberal caucuses, is supplanting sustainability.

Why?

Because Canadians are losing jobs and it's now become evident that in many parts of the country, not just Alberta, economic survival versus climate change is a real debate.

And by the way, there's a referendum coming in Alberta.

We saw that with the certification or looming certification of the signatures for a petition calling for a referendum.

So all of those questions are swirling around and I think

that if the prime minister had a mechanism where he regularly met with MPs from his caucus, not in the caucus room, but in a setting, the way other prime ministers have done, where once a month he might invite them for lunch to Rideau Cottage or something like that, he might find that that might be useful.

Apparently he's not doing that sort of thing, and MPs are having trouble meeting with him.

And I think that's causing problems as well.

The reason why that explosion isn't going to happen, and this is from some people who are concerned, let's say, call them progressives, is because even they recognize this is a guy with an approval rating of 60% plus.

And how are you going to try to nudge a guy who has that kind of political muscle?