TRUDEAU'S POLITICALLY MOTIVATED PIPELINE DECISIONS

   FP:  In 2014, TransCanada filed regulatory applications for the Energy East pipeline project to move Alberta oil to refineries in Montreal and New Brunswick, while providing vital access to Atlantic tidewater. The project would have replaced the hundreds of foreign-flagged oil tankers that sail up the St. Lawrence each year carrying half a million barrels per day to Montreal, and would use existing pipelines formerly carrying natural gas. The project had all the hallmarks of a win-win nation builder. But, in the face of strident opposition from politically influential Quebec, the Trudeau government imposed an “upstream emissions test” on Energy East, blatantly ignoring the emissions emanating from foreign oil suppliers and those hundreds of tankers carrying their oil. The government then required a restart of the entire NEB regulatory hearing process with newly appointed board members. Realizing that the Quebec votes were more important to the Trudeau government than their project, TransCanada abandoned the project after spending $1 billion.
    The Trudeau government’s cynical and politically motivated elimination of Northern Gateway and Energy East left the Trans Mountain expansion as the lone route left to getting Alberta oil to tidewater. But it should have been perfectly clear that the project would face vastly more strident opposition than the other two projects.