Article content

U.S. President Barack Obama has some less-than-laudatory words for Canada’s oil industry in a new example of his increasingly critical take on the oilsands.

He was asked about the Keystone XL pipeline during a town-hall session Friday — and he launched into an explanation of why so many environmentalists oppose it.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Canadian oil extraction is ’extraordinarily dirty’ process, Obama says Back to video

“The way that you get oil out in Canada is an extraordinarily dirty way of extracting oil,” Obama said during the event at a South Carolina college.

“Obviously,” he added, “there are always risks in piping a lot of oil through Nebraska farmland and other parts of the country.”

Obama has recently taken to dismissing the Keystone XL pipeline, playing down its benefit for the American economy. But his remarks Friday at Benedict College were notable in that they were aimed at the industry itself.

It came during a question-and-answer session where a student saluted him for vetoing a bill to build the pipeline: “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” said the questioner. “You are what we hoped for.”