OTTAWA—The federal Liberal government is reportedly nearing an agreement that could see Ottawa buy the troubled Trans Mountain pipeline expansion from Kinder Morgan to ensure the controversial Alberta-B.C. project gets built.

The deal, designed to kick-start construction that was suspended last month by Kinder Morgan’s jittery investors, could be announced as early as Tuesday morning, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has scheduled an urgent cabinet meeting.

Ottawa first offered to indemnify the expansion project but is now likely instead to buy it in full, Bloomberg reported Monday night, citing sources familiar with the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The federal government plans to sell the project — the existing line and its expansion — as soon as is reasonable once it’s guaranteed that it will be built, Bloomberg reported.

A spokesperson for Finance Minister Bill Morneau told Bloomberg he wouldn’t comment on “speculation.”

CBC reported that an agreement in principle with Kinder Morgan would allow construction on the pipeline to begin this summer.

Trudeau has declared the pipeline expansion is a vital strategic interest for the country — one that will create tens of thousands of jobs in B.C. and Alberta, and ensure Alberta’s landlocked oilsands exports are no longer sold at a discount mainly to U.S. refineries. On Monday, he pegged that as a $15-billion annual hit to the Canadian economy.

But just as important to Trudeau’s government is the fact that a guarantee of the pipeline’s expansion is key to the Alberta government’s participation in Trudeau’s plans for a national carbon tax to fight climate change.

Still, the notion of Trudeau — the Liberal leader who said pipeline projects need “social licence” to proceed and who championed consultation with Indigenous people — now buying a pipeline is as incongruous as it was for former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, a longtime opponent of corporate welfare, to bail out two auto giants during the 2009 global financial crisis.

Trudeau summoned his cabinet to a rare 7:30 a.m. meeting Tuesday, two days before his government faces a crucial deadline on the Trans Mountain project.

Trudeau and Morneau had already offered to cover or insure Kinder Morgan, a company with headquarters in Houston, against costs due to delays caused by B.C.’s NDP government, which promised to use every tool it has to stop the project.

Kinder Morgan had said while it “appreciated” the offer, the two sides were not “in alignment.”

In the end, it appears not to have been enough to secure the project.

Trudeau’s other options included buying an equity stake, taking over the project outright or taking it over on an interim basis while it seeks other private sector owners.

Morneau has insisted the twinning of the pipeline, despite opposition from B.C., is a “commercially viable” project and that there are “plenty” of other investors interested in it.

The controversial pipeline expansion would triple the capacity to ship Alberta’s heavy bitumen to the west coast — and on to Asian markets — by twinning an existing pipeline along a 1,150-kilometre route, adding about 980 kilometres of new pipeline underground.

Opposition Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said earlier this month: “I think everyone can agree, regardless of their political stripes, that the federal government investing tax dollars in an energy project is not the optimal solution.”

But Scheer did not completely rule out backing government investment in the pipeline. “We’ll wait and see,” he told the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.

The federal NDP, meanwhile, opened a new front in the pipeline wars Monday by painting Kinder Morgan as a Canadian corporate tax dodger.

The New Democrats challenged the Liberal government, saying the company has declared net income for the past three years of more than $340 million. “Do you know how many taxes were paid? $1.1 million in three years. Can the prime minister explain why it would be in the national interest to give a blank cheque — for how much? $5 billion? $1 billion? — to a company like Kinder Morgan that finds a way, and has an interest in not paying its fair share of taxes?”

The NDP made the charge in the Commons, where its MPs’ statements are protected from the application of libel laws.

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Trudeau offered no direct answer about the company’s tax obligations to Canada but defended his government’s approach, chastising the NDP for trying to block the pipeline “at any price.”

“It is in the national interest to go ahead with it and that’s why the pipeline will be built,” Trudeau said.

Companies use many complex — and legal — accounting procedures to defer or reduce taxes owing.

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