[puckedoff]

^ Without pipelines, Canada will ship the same amount of oil but receive a lower price (and a meaningfully lower price, say 20-30%) for its oil. To not have the right pipelines in place is to rob the Canadian (Federal and Provincial) government of cash via lower royalties, lower corp taxes and lower income tax receipts.

The only case that could be made is that without pipelines to tidewater, and given the economic uncertainty, it is possible that as oil companies go bankrupt and cease production some capacity will open up in the existing pipelines to the US. Ultimately though, US production will always back out Canadian production so Canadians are doomed to receive a discounted value for their crude sent to the US, given that it is our only customer.

Much of what May states in her article as fact is not really true (or intentional half-truth, which is ironic given the purpose of her article). Canada upgrades some of its bitumen, so while not a full refinery her statement on 'why doesn't Canada have facilities to handle bitumen' is a misdirection. Canada also produces diluent, so Saudi will not be supplying all of that. Also, she claims that it is a poor value proposition, when the opposite is clearly true (the cost of the pipeline will be far less than the cumulative cost of the discount on WCS barrels over the pipeline life).

Living in the west it is absurd that the rest of Canada does not see economic value in pipelines, but reading articles like the above highlight the amount of misinformation available. Which makes sense, I mean there are probably intricacies to Eastern power/manufacuring that do not make sense to me but are 'assumed knowledge' by the rest of Canada.

Edit* And to add so I don't get picked apart here, upgraded crude can be processed in existing Canadian refineries, or shipped and referred to correctly as 'oil'. Also, Alberta will have a new bitumen refinery shortly but the returns will likely be terrible, which is why Canada doesn't do much refining (the economics are poor).