Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he is hopeful construction on the Trans Mountain pipeline will resume next spring.
But he still isn’t committing to any real timeline for when renewed consultations on the pipeline will wrap up.
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Speaking at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, Trudeau was asked whether Albertans can expect to see pipe in the ground come spring.
“I certainly hope so,” he responded.
However, he remained unwilling to provide a clear time frame for when construction will resume despite acknowledging that the price differential currently plaguing Alberta oil is “very much a crisis.”
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Trudeau arrived for his 20th visit to Alberta since being elected prime minister on Thursday alongside two Liberal MPs from the province, Kent Hehr and Amarjeet Sohi, and faced protestors outside his speech as well as boos at an earlier event.
During his talk with business leaders, he repeatedly stressed that the timeline of any future construction “depends an awful lot on how the process unfolds.”
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That process in question is a review by the National Energy Board into the marine impacts of increased tanker traffic that will come from expanding the pipeline.
The original review by the National Energy Board did not look at that aspect of the project and a Federal Court judge ordered the government to redo the review in August, halting work on the project indefinitely.
The government later ordered the National Energy Board to wrap up that review by mid-February 2019.
As well, the judge also ruled that the Liberal government had not adequately consulted with First Nations during Phase 3 consultations on the project.
Rather than appeal that ruling, the Liberals appointed former Superior Court justice Frank Iacobucci to lead renewed consultations with more than 100 Indigenous stakeholders. The government has so far refused to provide an end date to the consultations akin to that placed on the National Energy Board Review.
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