National Post (National Edition)
KEYSTONE SCRAPPING A BLESSING FOR TRUDEAU.
U.S. relations bigger than just one project
OTTAWA • U.S. President Joe Biden’s move to scrap the Keystone XL oil pipeline, while a blow to Canada’s energy sector, is a blessing in disguise for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is eager to embrace the new administration, two sources familiar with the matter said.
Biden rescinded the permit to build the pipeline on Wednesday, killing the $10-billion project to pump oilsands crude from Alberta to Nebraska.
“At first glance this is bad news... but at least now the matter is settled and won’t be souring bilateral relations for months to come,” a diplomatic source from a major allied country said.
“Canada hasn’t had to expend any serious political capital with the Biden administration on the pipeline and can now focus on the many other areas where Trudeau feels the two nations should cooperate,” the source said.
Trudeau was the first world leader to congratulate Biden after the November election, and hopes to be the first to meet with him in a bid to turn the page on the Donald Trump era, when relations between the two countries were often turbulent.
Trudeau said on Tuesday that Canada was making the case for the pipeline to go ahead.
But the Canadian leader is also weighing a possible snap election this year, and he has much riding on his relationship with Biden.
“The relationship is much bigger than one project,” said a Canadian source familiar with the matter, adding that vaccines and fighting COVID-19 were key issues to discuss.
Trudeau told Reuters last week that he was looking to Biden to re-engage with allies around the world, and that he wanted to discuss climate change and China with the new president.
The troubled project had been revived by Trump after initially being scuttled by Barack Obama in 2015. Keystone XL was meant to carry 830,000 barrels per day to the United States, but it ran into fierce opposition from U.S. landowners, Native American tribes and environmentalists. During his campaign, Biden promised to again quash the pipeline, but Trudeau has supported it since before he became prime minister in 2015. Keystone owner TC Energy said the decision would lead to layoffs for thousands of unionized construction workers.
Seeing the Keystone project killed on Day One “is not the best way to start off” with a new U.S. president, said Roland Paris, a former foreign policy adviser to Trudeau and University of Ottawa international affairs professor.
But “this issue should not be seen as a litmus test to the relationship because there are many other areas where Canada will be able to cooperate with the new Biden administration,” Paris said.
Biden’s ambitious climate change plan includes US$2 trillion in investment for clean-energy infrastructure over four years and “opens up opportunities for collaboration” with Canada, said Sara Hastings-Simon, a Calgary-based researcher for the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines.