Delayed Keystone XL discussion expected when Harper meets with Obama
Posted Nov 13, 2011 3:21 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Summit is well underway in Hawaii.
Prime Minister Harper meets privately Sunday with U-S President Barack Obama and they’re almost certain to talk about plans for the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Harper supports the proposed pipeline that would take Alberta Oilsands crude to Texas, which was delayed Thursday for at least another year.
Mount Royal Political Scientist Keith Brownsey says it’s a priority for Obama to hold up approval for the Keystone XL or stomp it all together.
“I think the first order of business is that Obama gets himself re-elected, that’s what he’s concerned with,” said Brownsey.
“Barack Obama has to shore up his base and a large part of it is in the environmental community. These are the activists that went out in 2008 and he needs them on his side once again.”
By delaying Keystone until a new route is found through Nebraska, Brownsey believes 10’s of thousands of supporters will now come out for Obama in the Presidential Election, which is his payoff in the decision.
As for Canada being left out of the Asia Pacific Free Trade Group, Brownsey says, “Canada wants to be part of the TPP for trade reasons.”
Adding, “We need to diversify our market and do it very quickly from simply relying on the United States. Of course, the Keystone XL is just the latest example of that, we need to sell some oil now to Asia, via Japan, China, Korea, whomever over there.”
He says, the catch is with Canada’s supply management system that affects anywhere from 20,000 to 40,000 farmers in the country.
“Places like Australia, New Zealand and even the United States object strenuously to this demand management system simply because it restricts, in their view, trade. Well, if we don’t get rid of that we won’t be a part of the TPP” says Brownsey.
But he adds, “The big part of Stephen Harper and the Conservative electoral base is in the farming, agricultural community so all of this depends on supply management and if we get rid of it then it hurts the core base of the Conservative party.”
