The Alberta NDP is lobbying the UCP to release documents surrounding the U.S. decision to scrap the Keystone XL Pipeline.
As Premier Jason Kenney publicly challenges both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and newly elected U.S. President Joe Biden on the pipeline, the NDP are hunting for something different.
The official opposition has called a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Jan. 26 to formally request that cabinet waive privilege and release the full risk analysis, as well as any financial documents related to the Keystone XL Pipeline deal.
“Premier Kenney made a risky bet with $7.5 billion of Albertans’ money without releasing any details,” said NDP energy critic Kathleen Ganley.
“Now that the project has been stopped, Albertans deserve to know exactly how much of their money is at stake and what analysis — if any — was conducted by the UCP before spending billions of dollars on this project.”
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At an Alberta government PAC meeting in November, committee member NDP MLA Marlin Schmidt asked the UCP government to release the details of the deal and associated analysis.
“We are making that formal request that cabinet privilege be waived so the deal can be released and Albertans can finally get some answers about this deal,” said Ganley.
“We hope the UCP members on the committee agree that Albertans deserve transparency after months of hiding the details.”
On Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden cancelled the presidental permit for the cross-border pipeline. Calgary-based TC Energy Corp., which owns the pipeline halted work on the project earlier this week as word got out that Biden was considering cancelling the permit.
Alberta has invested $1.5 billion directly to TC Energy Corp. for the Keystone project along with contractual commitments of $6 billion more in loan guarantees.
Kenney has said if the project is scrapped, Alberta taxpayers could be on the hook for about $1 billion.
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