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POLITICIANS AND ACTIVISTS

In 2006, then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper boasted Canada would soon become an “energy superpower.” Canada was producing 2.6 million bpd, which moved smoothly to U.S. refineries through pipelines. Since then, production has nearly doubled, but pipeline growth has stalled.

Both Conservative Harper and Liberal Trudeau squelched opportunities to complete pipelines just as opposition to more lines multiplied. Two projects were killed, and legal setbacks have stymied the development of TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL and the government-owned Trans Mountain expansion.

A year after taking office in 2015 Trudeau proposed a bargain aimed at satisfying both environmentalists and the oil industry – a national carbon-pricing plan to reduce Canada’s emissions while approving pipeline expansions.

It's become dire now because the writing is clearly on the wall. The issue is market access Jihad Traya, manager HSB Solomon

The strategy has inflamed both sides.

When a court overturned Ottawa’s approval of the expansion of Trans Mountain in August, the deal was off and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley yanked support for Trudeau’s carbon plan just hours later.

Indigenous and environmental opposition to pipelines has forced Trudeau to push for tighter regulations on future pipelines. The changes are necessary to “depoliticize” the system, Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi said.

“We need to fix the broken system that we have now so we are able to build the pipeline capacity that is so necessary.”

But Trudeau has already shelved Enbridge’s Northern Gateway proposal, which would have run through northern Alberta to the Pacific coast, and the National Energy Board in 2017 toughened its review of TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline while it was underway.