It would be tedious to relate all the problems that have arisen with pipeline approval in Canada. If a new National Energy Program is to stop pipeline construction, Trudeau should say so clearly and unequivocally. It is not remotely fair to operate an “approval process” that is secretly all process and no approval. But there is no point in surreptitiously twisting the existing pipeline approval process into a hopeless knot while letting oil get out in other ways, or in from other countries. But it’s no good muddling through with incoherent policies that conflict with one another, and an approval process apparently incapable of generating approvals that is disintegrating administratively.

Source: National Post September 13, 2016 16:30 UTC