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OTTAWA — Finance Minister Bill Morneau says if Kinder Morgan wants to abandon plans to build the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, there are plenty of other investors out there willing to take up the cause.

And Morneau says the federal Liberal government is willing to “provide indemnity” to those investors to ensure the controversial Alberta-B.C. project is able to proceed.

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Amid mounting opposition from the B.C. government, environmental groups and protesters, not to mention skittish investors, Kinder Morgan halted all non-essential spending on its $7.4-billion plan to double an existing pipeline between Edmonton and Burnaby, B.C., and gave Ottawa until the end of May to broker some calm.

Morneau says investors need certainty in order to back a project that the government has repeatedly insisted is in the national interest.

The finance minister had been engaged in intensive talks with Kinder Morgan officials up until Tuesday, but the two sides have yet to declare any common ground on the amount of federal money involved.

Today’s hastily called news conference comes on the same day as the company’s annual meeting in Calgary.

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