Although mainstream public opinion in Canada and even the government led by Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau do not like the current President of the United States, Trump, who will leave office in two days, especially his repeated threats to fight a trade war with Canada during his tenure.
However, Canadians have recently been embarrassed to find that the incoming President-elect of the United States, Biden, also intends to “open” Canada to establish his “authority”.
It turned out that according to reports from several American and Canadian media, Biden was preparing to announce a series of presidential decrees on the day of his inauguration on January 20 to overturn a series of policies formulated by his predecessor Trump.
One of the policies that makes Canada uncomfortable is that Biden intends to suspend the Keystone XL project, which has been under construction under Trump, together with the United States and Canada, and cancel the license for the project.
However, according to reports from Canadian Global News Network and other media, Biden has repeatedly said that he intends to cancel the project approved by the Trump administration when he ran for the U.S. presidential election last year, citing that the project is “unenvironmentally friendly” and will aggravate the climate change problem.
And before Trump came to power in 2017, former Democratic President Obama of the United States also suspended the project in 2015 for reasons such as being unfriendly and making too little profits from the United States.
However, for Canada, this pipeline project can not only easily sell Canadian oil resources to the US market, greatly improve Canada’s economy, but also create many jobs for Canada’s labor market.
Among them, a set of official data from Alberta, Canada, the main beneficiary of the project, shows that once completed, it will contribute $2.4 billion in revenue to Canada’s GDP every year.
So Trudeau’s government said as early as last year’s U.S. election that whoever wins the president, Canada will try to lobby the United States not to abolish the project.
Even in order to win the support of American public opinion and politics, Canada has also made beautiful words such as “doing so can protect the energy security of the United States without being subject to the undemocratic countries in the Middle East and South America”.
However, judging from the latest reports from Canadian and American media, the Canadian lobbying does not seem to have been successful.
According to a report by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a document from within Biden’s team shows that Biden still seems to intend to include the cancellation of permission for the Keystone XL project in a series of executive orders announced on the day of his inauguration to overturn Trump’s policies.
Mainstream media such as CNN in the United States have also been far less interested in the project than in Canada. For example, in 2017, a CNN report said that once the project is completed, the United States will only get 35 permanent full-time jobs and 15 temporary full-time jobs.
Even during the construction of the project, it will directly bring 3,900 jobs (if completed in one year) or 1,950 jobs to the United States. (If completed in two years).
At present, Biden’s possibility of abolishing this energy project, which is highly valued by Canada on the day of his inauguration, has caused heated discussion on the Canadian Internet.
In the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s comment area on the incident, more than 5,000 messages have been addressed.
One of the comments that received a lot of likes said: For Canadians who think Trump is bad enough for Canada, you should be ready, because the more difficult time is coming soon.
Another comment that received the most likes said that only when Canada’s oil resources can be sold can the country’s economy develop and get out of debt.
However, Canada’s Green Party welcomed Biden’s decision and said that Biden’s approach was responsible compared with the Canadian government’s approach.
Finally, Canadian Ambassador to the United States, Christen Hillman, said in a statement to the media that Canada believes that the pipeline project will not affect Canada’s efforts to combat climate change, and said that Canada will continue to support this project that will benefit both the United States and Canada.
Hillman also said that Canada will continue to work to lobby the United States to ensure that the United States can understand Canada’s demands.
