Final U.S. State Department review on Keystone could come by end of month: Oliver

WATCH ABOVE: Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver sits down with The West Block’s Tom Clark to discuss the future of Keystone XL

A final U.S. State Department study on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline—and the next signal of whether the project will be approved—could come by the end of this month, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said, just as Canada appears to be losing patience.

“This has got to be one of—and probably the—most studied and analyzed natural resource project in the history of the world,” Oliver said Sunday in an interview on The West Block with Tom Clark. “So the question is, when will a decision be made?”

In a process that’s been described as drawn out, Canada is waiting for a final recommendation from the State Department on whether the project meets national interests. Although the department has to issue a recommendation, the final decision lies with President Barack Obama.

WATCH: Washington bureau chief with Maclean’s magazine Luiza Ch. Savage discusses Canada’s tone on Keystone XL

The State Department’s earlier environmental impact assessment, published in March 2013, was largely favourable of the proposed project, a nearly 2,000-kilometre long pipeline that would carry upwards of 830,000 barrels of crude per day from the Alberta oilsands to the Gulf Coast.

“The facts are overwhelmingly in favour of this project … It will create tens of thousands of jobs in both countries, it will address a national security issue for the United States,” Oliver said. “So we’re hopeful that when the final State Department review comes in, which could well be this very month, we would expect it to be consistent with its previous statements.”

The lengthy process in deciding whether to approve one leg of TransCanada Corp’s proposed pipeline drew some firm comments from Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird last week, who told a business lunch crowd in Washington “the time for a decision on Keystone is now, even if it’s not the right one. We can’t continue in this state of limbo.”

Those words stood in contrast to the message Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered to a business audience in New York last September.

“My view is that you don’t take no for an answer. We haven’t had that, but if we were to get that, that won’t be final. This won’t be final until it’s approved, and we will keep pushing for it,” he said.

While either quote might seem pushy, Oliver insisted Canada is not trying to tell the United States, where environmentalists are pressuring leaders to nix the project, how to do its job.

“What we’re expressing is the desire that we get on with a job-creating project,” he said.