Derek H. Burney spoke to the Canada Labour and Employee Relations Network in Toronto on the importance of developing the Keystone XL Pipeline.

'When I spoke to your group a few years ago, my topic was "Barnacles on the Border." Today, I was asked to speak about something much bigger than a barnacle and even more critical to the tone and the substance of the Canada – U.S. relationship.

But, in February, when John West initially suggested the Keystone pipeline as a topic, I declined saying "it may be all over by then." Silly me. Like the unfinished symphony, the saga of Keystone goes on and on with no clear verdict in sight.

I caution you at the outset that I am a Director of the company which would like to build the pipeline (TransCanada). I have never thought that actually knowing something about a given question should be a constraint against volunteering an opinion. My views are, nonetheless, personal and not those of the company, nor my law firm for that matter.

First, some context: Canada has the third largest supply of crude oil in the world – 174 billion barrels – and the lion's share is in the Canadian oil sands.

Only 20% of the world's oil reserves are open to the private sector for development. More than half of that amount is located in Canada.

For those who subscribe to the fundamentals of a market economy, that makes Canada the premiere location for investment in crude oil development. But, and it is an important but, only if we are able to build the necessary infrastructure to ship oil to continental and global markets. The logistics urgently need to catch up to the supply. Which brings me to the importance of Keystone.

The Keystone project was conceived, designed and built to transport Canadian and some U.S. crude oil (from North Dakota and Montana) to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Keystone XL – the northern leg from Hardisty, Alberta to Cushing, Oklahoma – is actually the fourth phase of the pipeline; the first three phases of which are already built and in operation.'

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