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“We are this close, this close to getting that pipeline back under construction,” Notley told students at a pipeline training school in Edmonton. “In fact, we expect an approval from the federal government by the end of the month.”

LISTEN: This week on In The House, Mike Smyth and Rob Shaw dig into new legislation that bans ticket bots. Will the changes help you get a better price on your favourite concert tickets? They also delve into the politics around B.C.’s money-laundering scandal, parties flip-flopping over gas taxes and criticism of the carbon tax, and the Speaker’s attempt to clean up heckling at the legislature.

Photo by JASON FRANSON / THE CANADIAN PRESS

The Trans Mountain pipeline from Edmonton to the Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby has been owned by the federal government since it bought-out Kinder Morgan last summer. Kinder Morgan had been trying for several years to get permission to increase the pipeline capacity from 300,000 barrels a day to 890,000 barrels a day. The pipe carries a variety of petroleum products, including crude oil from Alberta’s oilsands.

The Alberta government claims it needs the extra pipeline capacity so it can export more crude oil to Asia and beyond. The B.C. government and the cities of Vancouver and Burnaby are opposed, due mostly to the risk of environmental disaster and the impact on marine life and some First Nations bands, but also because of the economics of the project. Bitumen is expensive to extract from the oilsands and demand from Asia has so far been sporadic.