Newt Gingrich, on the Keystone XL deal. In Canada, when a big-deal US politician mentions us, the media gets all a-flutter. (You should have seen them when George W Bush accepted a fake endorsement from Canadian Prime Minister Jean Poutine, or when John Kerry answered a question from Radio-Canada in French.)
This is exactly the sort of coverage I was talking about when I said that getting involved in US politics is tricky for the Conservatives, because they don’t want to be seen as in cahoots with the Republicans. The opposition parties are all over this endorsement of Harper - Bob Rae’s line (“They deserve each other.”) was possibly the best.
Anyway, for the record - the pipeline straight across the Rockies to Vancouver absolutely isn’t happening, and hasn’t even been proposed. It would really difficult to get approval for a big pipeline through Vancouver, and even then it would be too far south to offer the optimal shipping times to China or Korea. A more likely location would be somewhere on the North Coast, like Kitimat or Prince Rupert - but the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, which is supposed to be going to Kitimat, faces provincial approval and municipal approval and years of challenges from First Nations governments, and they almost certainly can’t attract and retain funding commitments for that kind of timescale. A pipeline terminus on the coast of BC is basically impossible.
Anyway, yeah, if Newt’s the President in 2015, expect the “conservative and pro-American” label to show up in all the Canadian political ads.
(Source: The Globe and Mail)
