The Minister of Natural Resources, Jonathan Wilkinson, said Thursday that the country should weigh build a new west-east oil pipe after the threatened tariffs of President Donald Trump exposed what he is calling a “vulnerability” in the infrastructure Energy
Speaking to journalists after spending the week in Washington, launching US legislators on the value of the commercial relationship of Canada-United States, Wilkinson said some parts of Canada, namely, Ontario and Quebec, depend on the pipes that move Through the USA to meet their needs, and there must be some difficult conversations about whether that is sustainable given what can happen during a possible Trump commercial war and beyond.
The in Bridge line 5 pipe, which moves the oil of Western Canada through the continent and down through Michigan towards Sarnia, ontarium, is a critical piece of energy infrastructure that operates to the whim of Americans, at least in part. Even before Trump returned to the scene, Michigan’s Democratic governor tried to close it.
Line 5 feeds refineries that produce approximately half of the fuel needs of Ontario and Quebec, from fuel for aircraft for the Pearson de Toronto airport to gas for heating at home.
The Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Jonathan Wilkinson, says that he hopes that the prime minister and the prime ministers reflect on the idea of a pipeline that extends from the West to the East and, together with indigenous partners, decide collectively if there are some things that We must do to address these vulnerabilities.
“I think we must reflect on that,” said Wilkinson. “That creates a certain degree of uncertainty. I think, in that context, as a country, we will want to have some conversations about infrastructure that give us greater security for us.”
“I think these conversations are going to happen and that is all for the good, since we really reflect on the implications of what we are happening now,” he said, nodding the US tensions.
Asked again at a subsequent press conference if the liberal government would support an oil-east oil pipe, Wilkinson said Trump’s recent actions have caused a soul search.
He said that successive Canadian governments never thought much that much of the energy that the country needs to boost its economy flows through the United States.
“I don’t think anyone would have expected us to be in the situation in which the president of the United States is essentially treating Canada as an adversary and not as an ally,” he said.
“There are some vulnerabilities that we really did not believe there were. We should reflect on vulnerabilities and decide if there are some things to do.”
Wilkinson said that the prime minister and the prime ministers, in their weekly meetings throughout this commercial failures, are arguing how to make Canada more “safe energy from an oil perspective.”
Quebec Prime Minister François Legault said earlier this week that there is still no social acceptability for a pipeline through the province, but suggested that Trump’s actions could change the situation.
Tim Houston of New Scotland, however, is totally in a hypothetical west-east pipe. “I called the Prime Minister and the Federal Government to immediately approve the Energy East Project,” he said, referring to a long -term dead pipe project.
Wilkinson, an Environment Minister and carbon tax proponent, said “is not being prescriptive” and does not require that a west-east pipe be built, but it is something that should be on the table for the discussion, he said .
Building an important pipe throughout the country “is not something that the federal government can or should try to make itself,” he said. Any conversation would need to include indigenous communities and other affected communities, he added.
Wilkinson said that it is an advantage that the federal government obtained the expansion of trans mountain pipes, owned by the crown, because that allows to transport about 900,000 barrels of Canadian oil to the west coast for shipping abroad every day, all without happening For the US territory.
“Trans Mountain pipe was not exempt from controversy, but I think, in the current context, it is difficult to argue that this was not an important investment for this country,” he said, referring to Ottawa’s decision to rescue the project after His original American the sponsor retired.
Alberta Prime Minister Danielle Smith, and conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, among others, have been pushing the government to the green light of a West-East pipe to ensure the energy independence of Canada. Both have pressed for a resurgence of the Energy East project, or something.
This project backed by Energy of TC would have transferred Alberta Oil to Eastern markets, including Saint John’s main refinery of Irving Oil in New Brunswick, effectively eliminating the dependence of the country from foreign oil.
In 2023, Canada imported almost 500,000 barrels of oil to the day of countries such as the United States, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria despite the fact that this country has the third largest oil reserve in the world.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, is talking about reliving the Keystone XL pipe, even when it threatens to impose tariffs on Canadian imports. Richard Masson, an executive member of the School of Public Policies of the University of Calgary, says that many US refineries can only process the type of crude oil that Canada provides, so a commercial war would also damage US consumers.
TC Energy went out to its oil pipeline business in a separate and marketed company last year to focus on natural gas infrastructure.
It has been difficult to build the pipes due to the entrenched opposition of some environmentalists and indigenous communities, not to mention the possibility of large costs.
In fact, Keith Stewart, a senior energy strategist from Greenpeace Canada, an environmental group, condemned the talk of a new pipe on Thursday.
“The Smart Play for Canada is To To Redua Our Reliance on Oil Exports, as Doubling on New Pipelines When the Rest of the World Is Moving to Electric Vehicles and Heat Pumps Would Be Like Buying A Blockbuster franchise as netflix is taking off, “I said.
But in a recent opinion article in the Wall Street Journal, The president and CEO of TC, François Poirier, said that Ottawa “would have been much better positioned to handle commercial negotiations in general, and less dependent on the US I would have been operational years ago. “
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sat with the mayors of the big city to help perfect a strategy to defend against US tariffs, since the work continues to make Canada depend less depending on the United States.
Conservative deputy Melissa Lantsman, the party’s attached leader, said that “radical liberals” effectively killed this when the national energy regulator caused their evaluation criteria to be stricter, which led TC to cancel the pipe planned.
The project also faced a fierce resistance in Quebec, and was canceled, while oil prices were in a tail.
“Nobody should believe in these radical liberals Trudeau-Carney while lying to the Canadians and saying that they are open to the project now when they would only do the same again at the 11th hour,” Lantsman said in a media statement, referring to the contender of the contender of liberal leadership Mark Carmy.
“Only common sense conservatives have supported these nation’s construction projects from the beginning.”
