you have to understand that there's already an existing line to cushing. keystone was about increasing production. cancelling keystone is about putting an increase in production on hold. move your mental goalposts, there. existing transfer of bitumen through this region is already at quite high volumes.

the fact that oil is trading low due to oversupply and likely will be for a while is going to prevent the increase in production, anyways.

it's surprising that the only candidate that has come close to levelling with people about the actual realities around getting any pipeline built is harper. mulcair was initially pushing some weird manipulative scheme to use the environmental review process to reduce opposition, but has lately dropped that argument in favour of preferring local refineries. it's all based on the unrealistic projection of rapid oil-industry growth. and, while trudeau has been less obvious and more interested in carbon transition, he's more or less thinking the same thing in terms of short-term financing. only harper has pointed out that the industry is actually facing a lot of challenges that could lead to medium term decreases in production.

this ought to be an issue. but the issue ought to be discussions surrounding the circumstances of over-reliance on an oil industry that is not going to meet unrealistic expectations. that would be some actual leadership.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-pipelines-chris-hall-1.3241032

bgGruff
Harper is biased and does not govern with Canada's future in mind.
can't blame him though, big oil owns him along with his Fraud Party.
Keystone expansion will create est. 42,ooo jobs and $Billions in revenue, at the expense of Canada's environment and water resources

populist
no that is simplistic thinking.you think more Hydro dams are better .Remember all the Caribou that dies when James Bay 2 was being built??

jessica murray
changes in landscape can be planned and adjusted for. the atmosphere is not such an easy thing to engineer.

and, those jobs numbers are bunk, even under unrealistic projections. the ndp always says "according to the government's estimates" because they know it's a trash projection. if you ignore the short-term construction jobs, long term job estimates are more like 42 than 42,000.

but, i'm not letting the ndp change the narrative, it doesn't matter how many jobs it creates. there are better ways to create jobs. we're not so desperate for employment that we have to throw every other consideration out the window. exporting asbestos creates jobs, too.

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Paul Bourgoin
We have enough oil for Canadian needs, why not refine our own energy, keep it for Canadian consumption while keeping our money in Canada, creating jobs and reducing our green house emissions and most important keeping our money in Canada until we master clean energy.

jessica murray
in the past, canadian governments have tried to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by increasing our consumption of domestic oil but it led to massive opposition from alberta. it's a large part of the reason the political spectrum is as it is today.