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During the boom, many Canadians headed to Alberta to make a living. For every Canadian who landed one of the once-plentiful, well-paying jobs in the energy sector, many more benefited from the money they sent back to their families. And many of those families were in my home province of Nova Scotia.

They used that money to help pay their bills, including their energy bills — energy that was generated using foreign oil and dirty coal. You see, the money Atlantic Canadians were making in the energy sector could easily be flown back home, but the energy they were producing could not. Canada, the biggest supplier of oil to the United States, could not, and cannot, supply its own oil to four of its own provinces. For the sake of energy security and economic prosperity, how can we let this continue?

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The economic argument for a national pipeline, juxtaposed with jurisdictional challenges raised by a collection of municipal leaders in Quebec, as well as environmental and indigenous concerns, has created a public discussion full of rhetoric and emotion. Lost in the rhetoric is a simple fact: without access to tidewater, Canada will forever be forced to sell Canadian oil and gas to a limited number of markets at discounted prices. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has stated that he wants to be a “responsible referee.” Referees must ultimately make a call. What they must not do, however, is unilaterally change the rules of the game, or run out the clock.