They wanted to build it until the price of oil crashed, the cost of the pipeline rose, and approval was set upon 209 conditions.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
By the time Enbridge stopped talking about the pipeline, less than 30 of the 209 conditions were fulfilled, only about half of the necessary FN had approved it, and the feds had conspicuously stopped talking about it: “We think it’s obviously in the vital interests of Canada, and in the vital interests of British Columbia,” (Stephen Harper, 2012) to “No particular project is a national priority,” (Jason Kenney, 2014). Plus the cost of the pipeline kept seeing large increases ($6B in 2012, $7.9B in 2014 with the conditions put on approval setting them to rise "substantially more) while oil was crashing.
https://globalnews.ca/news/1409132/g...ortant-kenney/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/is-...lved-1.2965355'
So all that was happening, and then the Liberals were elected.
It wasn't a game of 'eeney, meeny, miny, moe' from the Liberals. The Conservative governments approval put the conditions on it that ground it to a halt to the point nobody was talking about it anymore, then the courts (not the government) overturned the approval. The Liberals then fulfilled their election promise (hardly arbitrary, they were 'given a mandate') and didn't approve it again, they did approve nearly a million barrels a day of export capacity with TMX and the Line 3 expansion.
Anything since the court decision to overturn the approval of Northern Gateway has been political theatre to appease to the environmentalists in the party, and try to win back some voters pissed about the TMX approval. But it was nowhere close to being a reality.