Tag: Pipeline transport

Given that Canada’s economy still relies to a substantial degree on chopping down trees, digging up minerals and pumping out oil and gas, it’s perhaps not surprising that pipelines are one of the nation’s hot-button issues. Image When Stephen Harper was prime minister, one of his pet causes was getting approval from the Obama administration for Keystone XL, a pipeline to link the oils sands of Alberta with refineries on the American Gulf Coast. In a move that put him at odds with many voters in his Liberal Party, Mr. Trudeau said that the government would buy the Trans Mountain pipeline, which links Edmonton to suburban Vancouver, from its American owners for 4.5 billion Canadian dollars. In 1956, a Liberal government’s efforts to use public money to make sure the construction of a major pipeline could begin by a June deadline ended up in a legendarily raucous parliamentary debate — and became a key factor in the Liberals’ defeat in the next election. There wasn’t a word about the environment or the land rights of Indigenous people during the great pipeline debate of 1956. John Diefenbaker, the Conservative leader at the time, was known for his jowly speaking style, which allowed him to summon righteous indignation like few Canadian politicians before or since. Members of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, the precursor to today’s New Democratic Party, pushed for public ownership. The volume rose and tensions flared in the House of Commons. But Mr. Diefenbaker took power a year later after a campaign in which he reminded voters, over and over, about what he called the Liberals’ contempt for Parliament. Late in the week, I was in Hamilton, Ontario, the country’s steel capital, to sample its reaction to President Trump’s decision to stick steep tariffs on Canadian exports of the product that made that city famous.