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In a speech to the Calgary Petroleum Club last week, Trudeau said he supported Keystone XL because, “having examined the facts, and accepting the judgment of the National Energy Board, I believe it is in the national interest.”

“On balance, it would create jobs and growth, strengthen our ties with the world’s most important market and generate wealth,” Trudeau said. “It would offer much-needed flexibility to a constrained continental energy delivery system.

On balance, it would create jobs and growth, strengthen our ties with the world’s most important market and generate wealth

“Most of all, it is in keeping with what I believe is a fundamental role of the government of Canada: to open up markets abroad for Canadian resources and to help create responsible and sustainable ways to get those resources to those markets.”

Those comments came about a week after Trudeau told an audience at the Centre for American Progress in Washington that he was in favour of Keystone XL.

In contrast, Suzuki has been an outspoken critic of Keystone; the 77-year-old environmentalist was part of a delegation of Canadians who travelled to Washington on Oct. 11, where he spoke out against the pipeline project.

In both Calgary and Washington, Trudeau couched his support for the pipeline by maintaining the need for adequate environmental protections and action while taking aim at those who are on the extreme ends of the issue.

“[Keystone] will not eliminate all of our economic problems, as its most ardent supporters suggest,” he said in Calgary. “Nor will it precipitate the end of the world as we know it, as its most vocal opponents contend.”

Several industry associations were reluctant to discuss Trudeau’s position Monday.

Gray said there is space for a more nuanced approach to oilsands development and the environment, and he would support any and all parties developing and adopting such a policy.

“But we’re just not really seeing that,” he said. “We’re seeing a lot of support for expansion of the tar sands and the pursuit of a strategy that overall is failing.”