Minister of Energy Sonya Savage issued the following statement about reports U.S. presumptive democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden would cancel the presidential permit for Keystone XL:

“While we are disappointed to hear these reports from the Biden campaign, we remain confident Keystone XL remains a critical part of North America’s post-pandemic economic recovery.

“The project — already under construction — has long held widespread bipartisan support from U.S. lawmakers including all governors in the states the pipeline travels through. The majority of American people have consistently backed Keystone XL in large part due to the tens of thousands of U.S. jobs the pipeline will support, and the millions of dollars in tax revenue that will be used to build better communities for American families. Today, unionized workers are already working on this shovel ready project that puts citizens in both Canada and the U.S. back to work.

“The pipeline is the most studied in American history and has been deemed safe and in the public interest through multiple state and federal reviews, including two under the Obama administration.

“Our government invested in this project because it is tied to our province’s vital long term economic interests. It will lead to higher prices as well as increased volumes of oil sands crude production, generating at least $30 billion in increased royalties over 20 years for Alberta taxpayers.

“The project will put 12,000 Canadians to work and will generate billions of dollars of employment income for Canadian and U.S. workers at a time when they need it most.

“Rather than speculating about the outcome of the U.S. election, we will spend our time continuing to meet with our U.S. allies and speak to Alberta’s role in supporting North American energy independence and security.

“Without more Canadian crude, the U.S. will be subject to increased reliance on heavy crude oil from places like Venezuela and will continue to be a victim of the same price wars and instability we recently witnessed from Russia and Saudi Arabia.

“As our closest friend and ally, we would expect the U.S. government, regardless of electoral politics, to respect the Canada-U.S. relationship.

“Our government will work with TC Energy and the Government of Canada to defend the value of our investment in this project that is a vital part of Canada-U.S. relations.”