Many Albertans were shaken to the core upon learning one of the first actions of the newly sworn-in US president was to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline.
President Joe Biden indicated in March of last year if elected he would cancel the project, which was under construction on both sides of the border. Much of the work in Alberta is in the Drumheller-Stettler riding.
“I would say it is devastating,’ said Drumheller-Stettler MLA Nate Horner. “We got one year of work out of what was going to be three, of a major boom to the economy in the eastern side of the province.”
He says he has learned from a company the project on this side of the border has been suspended. While at times there were upwards of 1,500 workers in the Oyen area working on the pipeline, last Thursday, January 21, Horner said there were about 200 in the field doing some large scale clean up.
“They are already pulling out of there,” he said, adding the 1,500 jobs are just direct employment. It doesn’t take into consideration all the other industries that benefit from the project.
When the project moved in it nearly doubled the population of the area, making it a boomtown. Accommodations were in high demand.
He is disappointed with the decision and says it is a different pipeline than the one that was initially vetoed years ago by then-President Barrack Obama.
“This pipeline in 2021 is far different. The real moves they made on First Nation investment, the waiver agreements on both sides of the border, the green power pledge by 2030,” Horner said.
Brad Peake has been involved in the resource sector for many years and while he is disappointed, he is not surprised.
“Governments always say they never should be part of business. You take conservative-minded people, and the first thing they do is criticize the government for getting into business, and then they do exactly that,” he said.
He said if he were making decisions at TC Pipelines he would pull it off the table.
“The American people don’t want it, let them wait until it becomes their idea. We’re trying to shove it down their throat, and they don’t want it,” he said. “It was a bad investment on their part. We can learn from that, complete the TMX and get on with life.”
Premier Jason Kenney came out swinging at the announcement calling on the federal government to take action.
“Alberta’s government calls for the federal government and Prime Minister Trudeau to immediately enter into talks with the Biden administration on their cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline in the context of a broader agreement on energy supply and climate action. Failing an agreement with the American government, we call on the Government of Canada to respond with consequences for this attack on Canada’s largest industry. We are not asking for special treatment, simply the same response that Canada’s government had when other areas of our national economy were under threat from the US government,” Kenney said.
