In 1953, the same year as the original Trans Mountain Pipeline started pumping, Louis St. Laurent was prime minister of Canada Dwight Eisenhower was president of the United States. Global warming wasn’t on the radar. Pollution was considered a reasonable price of progress. 

To cut through Michigan, Line 5 had to cross the Straits of Mackinac, which run between Michigan’s Lower and Upper Peninsulas. It’s an environmentally sensitive point in one of the greatest reservoirs of fresh water on the planet. The pipeline temporarily splits into two parallel pipes that run across the bottom of the strait, completely exposed, where they’ve been gashed and dented by anchors.

By now every Canadian knows what COVID mitigation looks like: imprecise lockdowns with no real targets followed by ill-timed openings that result in more exponential grief.

And then politicians, who look as dazed as Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, call for another round of lockdowns with no strategy and no goals.

It’s a policy of constant déjà vu — all pain, no gain and more COVID-19.

"Telling your story is an important tool for healing, which is why I’m telling mine. Together, we have 435 stories and we need to tell them because every time a Republican gets on television and tells us to forget, these stories are reminders of what they’re trying to absolve." - AOC