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A would-be leader of the B.C. Conservative Party pledged to build a new pipeline to carry Western Canadian oil to the coast if he was elected.

Dan Brooks, who quit as leader of the party in January only to announce five months later that he wanted the job back, said in a statement Wednesday that he would create a publicly owned B.C. Energy Pipeline Corporation.

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The Crown agency, which he said would have a mandate similar to B.C. Hydro, B.C. Ferries and B.C. Rail to improve the provincial economy, would build and operate a pipeline to take Alberta and Saskatchewan oil to the coast for export to the Asian market.

Brooks did not say how his project would differ from two existing pipeline projects — Enbridge’s proposed new Northern Gateway and the expansion of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain — which are already deeply unpopular with some British Columbians.

But he said later that both projects are “in a quagmire” and that the public would benefit from having a pipeline built by a publicly owned institution.