At long last, Danielle Smith’s government has found a proponent for her province’s latest pipeline dream: itself. On Wednesday, Smith announced that the province, with the “support” of a trio of pipeline companies, will draw up plans for a new pipeline that would bring Alberta’s oil to Pacific tidewater. She also effectively dared the federal government to oppose it. “This is a test of whether Canada works as a country,” Smith told reporters in Calgary.

It’s also a test of whether we’re willing to let feelings run roughshod over the facts. For all of Smith’s anti-Ottawa bluster, the absence of a private-sector proponent for her new oil pipeline here might have less to do with federal policies than the reality that — trigger warning, Conservatives — there just isn’t a strong busines

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