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Finance Minister Bill Morneau has a new chief of staff, former newscaster Ben Chin, but it’s going to take more than a one-time television personality turned political operative to talk the Trudeau government out of the Trans Mountain pipeline crisis. Nor is the route to safety clear for Prime Minister Trudeau, who will be jetting back from Peru to Ottawa to meet with Alberta Premier Rachel Notley on Sunday.

Ottawa and Alberta are said to be looking at all options — financial, regulatory and legal. There is talk of government participation in the ownership of the project.

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Ownership is unlikely to come cheap. The battle over the project has many angles, political and economic, but the Trudeau government is now caught in a tangled web that includes two risky elements: NAFTA’s investor protection chapter and B.C. Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver.

The first element is the international legal risk created by British Columbia’s attempt to shut down a project that has the approval of Ottawa and Alberta and has passed all the required regulatory hurdles. If the pipeline expansion does not proceed, Canada sets itself up for a potential multi-billion-dollar NAFTA dispute with Kinder Morgan, the Texas energy giant that has already invested $1 billion in the project. It also raised $1.3 billion in a Canadian share offering last year.