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Meanwhile, the government has launched a new review process that includes a three-person panel to consult the public over the summer. Ottawa has also conducted a broader technical analysis of climate change issues and says it will conduct additional consultations with First Nations.

This review, which according to Hoberg falls short of what the Liberals promised during the 2015 election campaign, “might provide him the rationale to depart from the NEB recommendation,” according to the paper.

But that “won’t make the core political choice any easier.”

The new Liberal government, while flying high in popularity polls, can’t avoid alienating at least one part of the country as it weighs the political costs and risks of helping Alberta move its bitumen to overseas markets.

TransCanada’s Keystone XL project to the U.S. has been given a thumbs down by the Obama administration, while Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat “is widely thought to be dead as a result of First Nations opposition,” Hoberg writes.

That leaves Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain project and TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline to Quebec and New Brunswick.

“If Trudeau turns west, he will alienate many B.C. voters critical to his majority status,” Hoberg argues in the paper, which cites a poll suggesting Quebeckers are even more hostile to pipelines than British Columbians.

“If he turns east and alienates Quebec voters, the electoral damage would be even higher. If he rejects them both, he breaks the commitment he made to Alberta to atone for the energy policy sins of his father.”