What is the hope if any on the Keystone issue?
Yeah, I mean this demonstrates the asymmetric relationship right there.
You know the fact that the Canadian government was apparently blindsided you know, by this decision.
That Biden had you know, had promised but you know certainly
didn't talk about as much during the campaign.
That's sort of one of these top priorities for Canada to get done in the bilateral relationship,
but for Biden was ultimately at the end of the day sort of an easy win on the domestic political front
where you know environmental groups in the U.S. have made Keystone this kind of litmus test for democratic politicians.
you know, sincerity about climate change.
But it shows you that this is sort of something that you know that for Canada
was this this huge project, this major sort of you know sticking point the bilateral relationship
now - through you know two different prime ministers over the course of I think almost a decade now -
was something that Joe Biden at the end of the day and decided you know probably
in a ten minute meeting with some of his advisers, here's sort of an easy quick win that we could do
that's going to give us some you know, a score of some points so they show the environmental
movement we're serious. You know sort of help us domestically, politically and we'll just deal with
the Canadians as we deal with them sort of thing. And I think in that light - when you think of how
little it seems that Biden you know considered sort of the Canadian position - the fact that there
was no sort of you know interest in okay, once I become President we'll talk about it and we'll see
if we can reach some sort of agreement. The fact that he just did it you know on the first day in office,
gives you an idea that the door is probably closed to some sort of further negotiation.
You know, Canada has talked about you know taking the U.S. to an international trade
tribunal under NAFTA. Which they can still do because ironically the capacity for an investor's
state lawsuit that was that was taken out of the USMCA - largely because Canada was the one that
kept getting sued costly by American companies in it, so Canada was very happy to see that go -
but there's still this clause that allows it to stay in force for a couple more years under the old NAFTA system.
So TransCanada will presumably take the U.S. Government to court under NAFTA
and see if they can get some sort of judgment or some sort of damages.
You know the Alberta government is looking to re-coop the 1.5- billion dollars or so that they've sunk into the project.
But I mean these trade tribunals are always kind of dicey you know and it often depends
on which judge you draw. But I mean it seems like a pretty thin, a pretty narrow path at this point
to getting there and you know I highly doubt, unless there's a Republican president in four
years who then you know reverses the reversal or something,
you know it just doesn't seem like there's much likelihood that this pipeline is maybe ever going to go forward.
What are some of the areas when it comes to U.S. / Canada relations where we can see cooperation?
Where we can see kind of new opportunities to collaborate?
The biggest point sort of number one I think is going to be that that Biden is much more stable
and predictable than Donald Trump. And so there won't be any sort of fear on the Canadians part
or on the part of Canadian investors investing in the U.S. that maybe you know, there'll be tariffs
tomorrow. Maybe there'll be a renegotiation of this trade deal and everything's going to go
out the window. So, so that's sort of I think is going to be number one. That the sort of baseline
stability in the relationship you know is going to be restored and it's not going to take up you know
too many people's you know time and bandwidth. In terms of new areas of cooperation, I think
climate is probably the most obvious one and maybe the biggest one. Because you know, you've always
had this sort of difficulty in Canada saying, well okay if we take climate measures that go
beyond what the U.S. is doing, then do we make ourselves uncompetitive. And do we encourage
you know companies that are looking for different regulations to sort of go to one country versus
the other. And so I think being able to sort of move in lock-step, the two countries together
and say okay we're going to - on whether it's vehicle emissions or other kinds of you know climate measures -
we're going to do very similar things, you know kind of at the same time.
I think that gives Canada a lot of flexibility to go further on green policy than maybe it did before.
And it sort of helps Biden, it gives Biden, kind of you know a ready-made ally.
So I think yeah, if there is one area of cooperation that I'd really look for, I think that's probably it.