“Energy Matters”

The projected cost of twinning the Trans Mountain pipeline has nearly tripled because of natural disasters, environmental protection measures and rising debt payments, according to the government-owned pipeline corporation.

The latest figures show TMX’s initial $7.4 billion price tag — projected when the federal government purchased the project in 2018 — has since ballooned to $21.4 billion.

The federal Department of Finance updated those figures in February during a Friday news conference — held on a day when media outlets were distracted by Ottawa police beginning to clear out an entrenched anti-vaccine mandate convoy protest on Parliament Hill.

More than a year after President Joe Biden killed the Keystone XL project, support for the pipeline has surged in the U.S. in the wake of the country’s ban on the import of Russian oil, a new poll shows.

The exclusive poll of Americans conducted by Maru Public Opinion for Postmedia found that 71 per cent of Americans think Biden should give an executive order to “green light the restart of the building of the Keystone XL pipeline that would transport oil from Canada’s oil sands region through the Midwest to refineries in Texas.”