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While I’m here in Washington, I’m making sure businesses know that we are open for business and open for jobs. Ontario and the U.S. conducted about $390 billion in two-way trade in 2018 and Ontario is #1 trading partner to over 19 states. Let’s keep Ontario’s economy thriving! pic.twitter.com/7NMFAWG313 — Doug Ford (@fordnation) February 7, 2020

Ford’s meetings included top guns from pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly, TEVA and Amgen as well as tech stalwarts PayPal and Cisco. There was even an appearance by General Mills, the maker of Cheerios, Betty Crocker and other iconic brands. Kenney’s meetings focused on the Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute.

These are the types of meetings we need premiers to be having — we need them to be selling their regions as places for foreign investment and expansion.

Yet how much of the premiers’ work is being undone by the PM and his policies?

Did you hear that the cost to build the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion has shot up by 70% in large part due to government delays? This is the pipeline that Kinder Morgan was going to build with their own money. The Trudeau government bought the project, and an existing pipeline from the company, after government indecision and other delays saw the company walk away.

Now the build costs have jumped from an estimated $7.4 billion to a new estimate of $12.6 billion. And we still don’t know that the pipeline will actually get built.

Meanwhile, Reuters is reporting that Trudeau’s Liberals are looking to put together an “aid package” for Alberta because they are seriously considering rejecting a new oil sands development. You read that correctly, the federal government is considering an aid package to Alberta, like we send to poorer countries after a natural disaster, because they may turn down a viable energy project that has been approved by the National Energy Board after meeting strict environmental and scientific hurdles.