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TORONTO – Canada’s reputation as an investment destination could be severely dented if big-ticket oil pipeline and natural gas projects do not proceed, industry executives warned Tuesday.

“Canada sells itself as a safe and reliable place to invest, but we have seen different kinds of risks in trying to get projects going,” Alfred Sorensen, CEO of Halifax-based Pieridae Energy Ltd. which has proposed a liquefied natural gas project on Canada’s East Coast, said at an energy conference in Toronto.

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“We don’t have good leadership at the government level to ensure that the process of approval is understandable,” Sorensen said in an interview on the conference sidelines. “There is a lot of reluctance from investors from the perspective of what the defined terms are and when construction is going to occur.”

British Columbia is promising significant “cost-certainty” assurances to the Petronas-led consortium proposing a natural gas export project on the West Coast, even as rising opposition from First Nations threatens to sour the plan.