Article content continued

The timing of Morneau’s visit has elicited extraordinary interest, with The Calgary Chamber of Commerce confirming the event, set for May 30, sold out within hours.

Morneau, who has been negotiating with Houston-based Kinder Morgan Inc., for Ottawa, will be speaking the day before the company’s Thursday deadline to resolve the pipeline dispute that has ignited a trade war between Alberta and British Columbia.

Kinder Morgan gave the federal government that deadline last month, when it announced it would suspend all non-essential spending on the pipeline expansion between Alberta and B.C. and asked Ottawa to guarantee the project could proceed without constant delays.

Kinder Morgan said it was aware of Morneau’s speech in Calgary but would not comment on whether the two parties were close to resolving the dispute, or whether the company would be directly involved in, or even attend, the event.

That’s really an indictment of the ability of our regulatory process to get these things through and once we get beyond this, that certainly needs to be addressed Cenovus spokesman Brett Harris

“We will provide an update when there is one to give,” said Trans Mountain spokesperson Ali Hounsel, who repeated the company’s previous statement that it would not negotiate in public.

There is massive public interest in the pipeline fight, which many oil and gas executives say has now come to symbolize the rule of law in Canada.

“I can’t think of any other single issue that was as tense, watched as closely and probably as important” as the decision on Trans Mountain, said Tim McMillan, president and CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.