Alberta’s premier has offered another sharp rebuke of the U.S. president’s decision to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline, extended to accuse him of showing disrespect from America’s closest friend and ally.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has criticized the newly inaugurated president Joe Biden’s decision to block the US$8 billion cross-border energy project on his first day in office.
Kenny said that they didn’t start this dispute and added that it was the president who on day one had decided to show disrespect for America’s closest friends and allies.
Biden’s decision to block the pipeline has fulfilled one of his campaign promises and was also one of the several executive actions that he had made to reverse the policies that were thereby put in place or green-lighted by Donald Trump’s administration.
The news of the cancelation of the pipeline has sparked a wide admonishment of Biden from several leaders across Canada and included the premiers of Alberta and Saskatchewan who are reportedly in charge of the economies most likely to be negatively impacted by its blocking.
As for Alberta, the implications of Keystone XL’s cancellation have cut even deeper as the provincial government has invested about $1.5 billion into numerous phases of its development process.
Kenney had called for retaliatory sanction s against the U.S. unless Biden revisited his made decision.
On Thursday, a First Minister’s meeting was held being dominated by discussions on the president’s order with some aides who have attended the call by saying that some premiers wanted to go to war with the U.S. over the Keystone XL decision.
On his first official chat with Joe Biden, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his disappointment over the decision.
Kenney said that the president’s actions were a bad starting point for that administration and said that they have to stand up for Canada’s economic interests despite their close alliance between the two countries.
Kenney said that just like Donald Trump ran on a commitment to tear up NAFTA and to impose tariffs on the steel exports, they didn’t say that it was his campaign committee and must move on. He said that the federal government with Alberta’s support fought back to re-negotiate NAFTA and to impose countervailing tariffs in response to their action on steel.
A close friend doesn’t rip up the approval and cause a multi-billion dollar loss without at least offering compensation and without their national government responding in a meaningful manner.
As per the reports, Biden’s order comes as one based on a larger agenda to handle the issue of climate change.
The Keystone XL project attracted fierce opposition from environmentalists both in Canada and abroad. Former President Barack Obama took steps to delay its completion in 2015, while Trump allowed its completion in 2017.
Brucker said that now most American and Canadian citizens are interested in consumer goods and they really can’t talk about Buy America unless they are also talking about Buy North America.
