Mr Trudeau is a very smart man. He knows that to get elected you run down business of any sort especially the oil guys in maverick Alberta. He also knows that to stay elected job creation is king.
Kitimat as an oil and gas hub was DOA from the outset but hope springs eternal. I know for a fact that ALCAN and Rio Tinto hated the negative publicity that was running rampant on the issues and can now get back to business as usual - quietly refining Al from bauxite that is hauled up the channel in very big ships.
As Mr. Trudeau knows (learned from his father), job growth in the cyclical resource business requires that one strike while the iron is hot, or better said when commodity prices are up. The world is not short of oil and gas. What Canada has lost during this nearly decade long attempt to move product from the West Coast is what drives the oil business - market share.
Canada's oil based export market share revenue loss will gladly and easily be made up by exports from the Middle East, the US (yes it will happen) and Venezuela when they become less silly. Russia is chomping at the bit to sell more oil. The final nail in the oil growth coffin for the Middle East will be internal Chinese production whether from disputed offshore land or fracking inland.
To keep the high cost tar sand exports alive from Canada a C$ of around 75 cents US or less is needed. So far so good in this regard.
