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“We don’t want, for example, aquifers that are adversely affected. Folks in Nebraska obviously would be directly impacted. And so we want to make sure that we are taking the long view on these issues,” Obama said at the time.

“I think folks in Nebraska, like all (those) across the country, aren’t going to say to themselves, ‘We’ll take a few thousand jobs if it means that our kids are potentially drinking water that would damage their health,’ or if rich land that is so important to agriculture in Nebraska ends up being adversely affected.”

The tension between Canada and the U.S. over the pipeline comes amid signs in recent months of other problems between the two governments.

A long-promised announcement on a perimeter security deal for the Canada-U.S. border has been stuck in limbo.

Harper and Obama announced with great flourish at a White House ceremony in February that the two countries had begun negotiations on a plan to improve security and speed up the flow of cross-border traffic.

In June, Harper said an action plan for the deal would be released by the end of summer. Instead, negotiations dragged on into the autumn, and the two governments discussed the appropriate venue for an announcement when it is ready. No announcement has been made yet.

Also this fall, the Obama administration angered Harper’s government by tabling a “Buy American” jobs bill that failed to exempt Canada. Harper and his senior ministers publicly complained that the U.S. was resorting to trade protectionism and that both countries would suffer.

This weekend, Harper and Obama will attend an APEC summit in Hawaii of Asian-Pacific nations. They will also sit down for a separate “three-amigos” summit, in which the leaders of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico discuss key issues of shared concern.

Harper has been a strong advocate for the Keystone XL pipeline and has publicly argued in favour of it this autumn.