They're desperately still trying to make this happen. Is there a reason why Canada needs this?
I think they've spent a lot of prep money for this (billions) and don't want it going down the tubes. Maybe we should try to work out some sort of joint projects with Canada. Economy of scale and so on.
Alberta is oil crazy. Think of it as Canadian Texas.
It's not about re-cooping the investment,
@InCali. Alberta is the Canadian equivalent of the worst of Texas, West Virginia coal country, and the Deep South all mixed in together. Under 50 years of Conservative government at the provincial level and most recently aided and abetted by the Harper government at the federal level, Alberta has gone all-in on oil and gas, and the Tar Sands specifically, as the basis of its economy. Tar Sands oil is a lot more expensive to produce than the purer stuff coming out of the Middle East and in recent years, the OPEC countries have depressing prices, which as been killing Alberta oil. Alberta is desperate to prop up its oil and gas industry as a result. A direct pipeline to US refineries and markets would be a huge boon for Alberta.
Alberta is highly alienated from the rest of Canada, which doesn't subscribe to its obsession with oil or its conservative politics. They are even talking separatism lately. The Liberals did not win a single seat in Alberta in the last election.
Trudeau's government is worried about alienating Alberta further and a hard push away from oil and gas in the province is not financially viable for a lot of hard-hit Alberta families. Consequently, the Liberals seem to be taking the approach of trying to wean Alberta off oil and gas slowly by supporting pipelines and other ways of propping up the industry in the short-term while pushing the country as a whole towards renewable resources through carbon taxes and related policies.
Part of me wants to say to Alberta, it's good that you are suffering, you all deserve it for putting all your chips on a dying industry trying to exploit one of the dirtiest, most environmentally unfriendly sources of oil in the whole world. If a ton of your citizens bought big, ridiculous pickup trucks and SUVs and house outside of their means, I don't care. But that is no way to run a country and will probably only cause further problems.