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Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, the front-runner to be Canada’s next prime minister, says he won’t favor or oppose TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Energy East pipeline, even as one of his top campaign officials resigned for advising the company on how to lobby for it.

Campaign Co-Chair Dan Gagnier said late Wednesday he would step down after the Canadian Press reported he’d written a letter advising his client, TransCanada, on how to lobby the next government. Trudeau, whose Liberals are leading in polls, distanced himself from Gagnier, calling the advice “inappropriate,” and declined to say where he stands on the project, which would carry Alberta crude to Canada’s east coast.

“It’s not up to government to support one project or another. It’s up to government to set a framework within which communities can choose, or not, to support projects,” Trudeau said. “We support a process that will actually work to get social license, and see whether or not it does.”

Trudeau said if he’s elected, his government would overhaul approval rules for pipelines in a bid to get more community and First Nations input before allowing a project to go ahead. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose Conservatives are second in polls, has “steamrolled” environmental concerns and therefore failed to get new projects built, Trudeau said.

“The process whereby the public trust needs to be established for any project, be it Energy East or any other, has been completely corrupted and destroyed over the past 10 years. We need to restore people’s confidence in a government’s ability to set a level playing field to evaluate and assess projects like this and that’s what we’re committed to,” Trudeau said.

Gagnier was a volunteer with the Liberal campaign who had no input on energy policy, the party said Wednesday.

TransCanada Corp. said it sought from Gagnier “insight into how we might best navigate the different political scenarios in Ottawa that could arise post-election.”

— With assistance by Rebecca Penty