Former CBC and BBC Radio host Mary Ambrose sits down for a conversation with Jeff Rubin, a senior fellow with the Centre for International Governance Innovation, to talk about the Canadian government’s recent decision to approve new pipelines, which comes amid a raging public debate about energy transportation projects, from Keystone XL to the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The most controversial project approved was the $6.8-billion Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain project, which would add 980 km of new pipeline between Edmonton, Alberta, and Burnaby, British Columbia. Importantly, it would open up a route to the Pacific for Alberta’s oil sands, a long-standing objective of the energy industry, but a goal that Rubin has doubts about, given the commitments on reducing carbon emissions made by Ottawa and other signatories to the Paris Agreement on climate change.