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The federal government has long insisted the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion will be built. Now it has to match its good intentions with results. At stake is nothing less than the fate of the Canadian federation.

The refusal of the government of British Columbia to recognize the legal approval process for the project means this test is about much more than a pipeline — it’s about the ability of the federal government to regulate the economy of Canada in the national interest.

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Failure would mean we might as well Balkanize the country into a scattering of provincial fragments.

Kinder Morgan, the proponent of the expansion to a pipeline carrying Alberta bitumen from the oilsands to an export terminal near Vancouver, said Sunday it is suspending activity on the pipeline until May 31. The news was delivered to Justin Trudeau on Saturday evening, just as he was planning to head to a vigil in Saskatchewan for the victims of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash. The insensitivity of the timing was a reminder that this is a foreign multinational, motivated solely by maximizing returns to its shareholders.