Like the railroad and the Trans-Canada Highway before it, the idea of a cross-country oil pipeline was promoted by the previous federal government as a great unifier; a nation-building project binding Canadian communities together from the Prairies to the Maritimes. The idea was roundly ridiculed by many and largely ignored by others. But what if, instead of building a private for-profit transmission line from the oil sands to tide-water, the proposal was to build a truly national pipeline—that is to say, a publicly owned pipeline? A kind of Trans-Canada Highway for oil.

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