Ottawa plans to approve pipeline, Trans Mountain the frontrunner: reports

OTTAWA, ON. (NEWS 1130) – A major pipeline will be approved by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sometime during his first term, according to Bloomberg. It reports the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline is now the favourite.

This comes at a time as the federal government faces some high-profile decisions by the end of the year, including a final ruling on Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain proposal and a legal appeal that has to do with Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline.

LISTEN: NEWS 1130 reporter Martin MacMahon joins anchors Jim Bennie and Amanda Wawryk for the debrief

 

Werner Antweiler, an economist with UBC’s Sauder School of Business who is an expert on energy issues, says it makes sense given the recent problems with the proposed Energy East pipeline.

“They had to hit the reset button with the whole Energy East pipeline project because the NEB board had to recuse itself after there were problems with the perceived neutrality of the panel,” says Antweiler. “Now, that means the timeline has really shifted out, and there will be no decision on the Energy East pipeline until very close to election time, and that is not something that the federal government would very much appreciate.”

Last week, the three-member review panel for the Energy East project quit after it was revealed two of them met privately with TransCanada lobbyist and former Quebec Premier Jean Charest.

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