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That price doesn’t include the construction costs — which finance minister Bill Morneau refused to reveal at Tuesday morning’s press conference but which one investor estimated at $6 billion — or the loan guarantees to get the project back up and running during this construction season.

On the additional costs, the government’s logic was that not talking about estimates Tuesday was good for taxpayers, because future investors in Trans Mountain would use them to beat down the price of any potential purchase. But the lack of transparency on the sticker price will make it harder to sell to Canadians dubious about any government getting involved in a business it knows nothing about — far less a government so recently accused of systemic “incomprehensible failures.”

Federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer accused Justin Trudeau of using taxpayers’ money to buy his way out of his own failure. And there is something in that. If the Trudeau Liberals had not shut down all other options to move Alberta’s oil — by fiat, unachievable regulatory targets and a tanker ban — we wouldn’t be in this mess.

“The message being sent is that to get anything built, the federal government has to nationalize it,” Scheer said.

All of that is true. But so, perhaps more by accident than design, is the fact that the feds may have snapped up a bargain.

Morneau and his officials kept emphasizing that the transaction represents a “sound investment opportunity.” He said there have been expressions of interest from “multiple investors” in buying the project, and that the federal government has no intention of being the long-term owner.