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Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
May 8th, after the state department in the U.S. stated that the environmental impact of the Keystone pipeline was negligible. the below is not a ringing endorsement of keystone or making a statement of support for the pipeline.
“The fact it hasn’t been approved yet is because this government has not done a credible job on demonstrating it is serious about climate change, and it is serious about protecting our environment,” Trudeau said.
“If this government had taken on its responsibilities towards the environment, Canadians and our trading partners wouldn’t be so doubtful of its capacity to protect our natural environment and wouldn’t have allowed what has happened, which is unfortunate, which is that the oilsands have become in the eyes of far too many a poster-child for climate change."
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MarchHare
The context of this statement is that he's blaming The Harper Government for delaying the American approval of the pipeline. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine if that accusation has any merit, but he's not at all saying he doesn't support Keystone XL; rather, he's saying that if he were PM, he would have taken steps to obtain approval from the US State Department faster than what Harper has accomplished.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
As a party leader, who's first concern should be the economics of the thing. The message is simple, the State department has given their sign up, they've said that environmentally the impact of the Pipeline is negligible if not better then running fuels through rail, there's no reason not to approve it.
Trudeau''s statement as a party leader is one that shouldn't be made at this point, he's playing partisan politics with something of vast importance to this countries economy, and giving ammunition to American anti-keystone groups.
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Originally Posted by rubecube
No, he's not. He's stating that these groups already have ammunition because of the failure of the Harper government to manage the image of the oilsands.
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Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
I disagree with you on this matter.
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I'm not sure what basis you have for disagreeing. Unless I'm missing some context, Trudeau is literally saying "If Canada had shown more of a commitment to protecting the environment, others would trust us to mange the pipeline and would have approved it."
There's absolutely nothing negative about the pipeline, only an attack on the Harper Gov't's general environmental record.
In fact, by seemingly lamenting the fact that the poor envir. record has undermined support for the pipeline, it's pro-pipeline if anything.