CALGARY, ALBERTA—Laying the blame squarely at the feet of those who pushed the state-of-the-art pipe system towards self-sabotage, Canadian oil company TC Energy held a press conference Friday to announce that the Keystone Pipeline’s 9,000-barrel leak was due to protestors making it lose confidence in itself. “Having to endure so many people screaming and yelling about how bad the pipeline was for months on end began to take a real toll on the system’s psyche and has put us in the unfortunate position we’re in today,” said CEO Russell Girling, telling reporters that activists constantly warning about the potential for spills and catastrophic environmental damage had caused the pipeline to spiral into depression and turned their warnings into a self-fulfilling prophecy. “I mean, think about it. How would you feel if you had to go about your day, just trying to mind your business, with thousands of people telling you to get out? This pipeline was simply never built for this kind of sustained social pressure coming from these tribal leaders and activists who bullied it into harming itself.” Girling added that spills like this would keep happening more and more unless everyone came together in the aftermath of this incident and showed some real forgiveness.

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