Trudeau taught math in BC and was also two years into an engineering degree when he made the move into politics. He is not STEM illiterate - that would apply more directly to Stephen Harper.

Mason's article is correct, fossil fuels have to be phased out but it won't be instantaneous. As right wingers are fond of telling us, there aren't many electric airplanes around and we'll have a bit of a problem making plastics and various other things without using oil. There is also the practical fact that both the Alberta and federal governments need revenues and the Sands can provide them in the short term.