Keystone XL

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Wednesday, January 29, 2014By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday, January 29, 2014

State of the union audience will see Harper in anti-Keystone ad

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will make a cameo appearance on an international stage Tuesday night — though it’s hardly one he would have chosen.

The prime minister will be cast in the villain’s role in an anti-Keystone XL pipeline ad airing during the U.S. broadcast of President Barack Obama’s state of the union address.

The ad is designed to build pressure from elements of Obama’s political base who want him to reject the pipeline, and it will be broadcast to the mostly left-leaning audience of the MSNBC network before and after the president’s speech.

Harper’s recession plan of attack in 2009

Harper’s image appears at the beginning and the end of the ad. It shows him shaking hands with the ex-premier of China, Wen Jiabao.

The message of the spot is that the proposed pipeline would benefit Chinese companies heavily invested in the oilsands far more than it would help ordinary American consumers.

“It’s a sucker-punch to America’s heartland,” says the narrator, while the Chinese and Canadian leaders are seen pressing palms.

“(The Chinese are) counting on the U.S. to approve TransCanada’s pipeline to ship oil through America’s heartland and out to foreign countries like theirs. …Keystone’s a sucker’s deal for America. Just say no to Keystone.” (Source: CBC News)

Thursday June 27, 2013

Thursday June 27, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday June 27, 2013

Obama muddies the debate on Keystone Pipeline

Observers are trying to figure out just what President Barack Obama is signalling when it comes to the Keystone XL pipeline, but some still expect it will get the go-ahead.

What the president said yesterday is that the massive project will be approved only if it “does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.”

What he meant depends on who you listen to, given that supporters and opponents alike said they were buoyed by his comments on the proposed pipeline, which would carry some one million barrels a day of Alberta crude to the Gulf coast.

Which suggests, of course, that the situation remains as confused as it ever was.

“In short, the speech raised more questions than it answered about a piece of infrastructure that is undoubtedly of tremendous importance to the Canadian economy and to ongoing U.S. energy policy – and one whose future is still a matter of public policy debate in the U.S.,” said economists Derek Holt and Dov Zigler of Bank of Nova Scotia.

As The Globe and Mail’s Paul Koring and Steven Chase report, Keystone XL figured prominently as the president unveiled his climate change policy in Washington.

A decision on the TransCanada Corp. project is expected later this year. It has already been rejected once, forcing the Canadian company to change the planned route to skirt an environmentally sensitive region in Nebraska.

Analysts say the project is crucial for Canada amid stubborn pipeline constraints. Economists at CIBC World Markets calculate that Canada would lose out on a potential $50-billion over a three-year period because of those troubles. (Source: The Globe & Mail)