CALGARY- Following discussions with Alberta Premier Jim Prentice in Calgary on Friday, Canada’s Ambassador to the United States Gary Doer said the U.S. should trust science and help blue-collar workers by approving the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
Over lunch, the two discussed issues to do with trade, the environment, ISIS, and oil prices but Doer says they paid special attention to the pipeline issue.
At a press conference after, Doer suggested anti-pipeline activists from Hollywood may be a major reason why U.S. President Barack Obama hasn’t personally endorsed the project.
“There’ll be people in Hollywood opposing us and perhaps speaking to the president but we would hope, at the end of the day, the president would choose blue-collar workers and pipelines over Hollywood,” said Doer.
The U.S. Republican party has said a Keystone bill will be its top priority in January and that it is willing to allow amendments to it in an effort to get it passed. In November, the U.S. Senate rejected a bill to speed up approval of the pipeline.
At a White House news conference on Friday, President Obama said the pipeline would not lead to lower gas prices or have a major impact on jobs and that the pipeline is better for Canadian oilsands companies than it is for Americans.
Doer says he believes Obama is downplaying the importance of the jobs the pipeline will create.
“The state department already has the jobs numbers,” he said. “ I know the president thinks they are temporary but every infrastructure jobs numbers are temporary jobs… they’re very, very important jobs.”
Doer also said the pipeline will be safer than transporting crude oil by rail.
When asked if he’d veto a Keystone bill should it land on his desk in 2015, Obama said, “I’ll see what they do.”
Calgary-based TransCanada Corporation’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline would bring Alberta oilsands bitumen to oil refineries in the Gulf Coast of Texas. Prentice has said the pipeline is crucial for Alberta to get its oil to market and American proponents of the project say it will provide U.S. jobs and help boost that country’s economy. Opponents have argued the pipeline will have a devastating effect on the environment, encouraging more oilsands development and exponentially increasing the oilsands’ carbon footprint.
-with files from the Canadian Press
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