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Canadians of every political persuasion should be dismayed by U.S. President Barack Obama’s cowardly rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline.

After seven years of review involving massive documentation, scientific justification and some $3 billion in spending by proponent TransCanada Corp., Obama offered weak and questionable reasons Friday for the denial.

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tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Obama betrayed America’s closest ally over Keystone XL to prop up climate change legacy Back to video

Meanwhile, he betrayed Canada, America’s closest and loyal friend and ally, to feed his vanity project – a climate change legacy he hopes to cement at the UN climate summit in Paris in the coming weeks.

As Obama put it in his eight-minute statement from the White House after conveying the decision to a disappointed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: “America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change, and frankly approving this project would have undercut that global leadership.

“Three weeks from now I look forward to joining my fellow world leaders in Paris when we come together around an ambitious framework to protect the one planet we got while we still can.”