Multiple reports have come out that U.S. President-Elect Joe Biden is planning to shut down the Keystone XL Pipeline expansion project as one of his first actions in office, and although nothing has been confirmed yet it's still something causing quite a large amount of concern.

The pipeline would send crude oil from Hardisty, Alta. through a more direct route down to refineries in Texas, which would allow Canadian quicker transit and create more demand. Without the project's completion, Souris-Moose Mountain MP Dr. Robert Kitchen believes that this could take a large chunk out of Saskatchewan's, and Canada's for that matter, economic recovery from the pandemic.

"It was a surprise, you know. Like you, I mean just the other day I heard reports that President-elect Biden was going to cancel the Keystone XL extension and by doing so, my understanding is he's going to withdraw the permit via executive action on his first day in office. So yeah, I'm extremely disappointed by that and it's going to be a huge impact on the industry."

With Estevan being a city that has such close proximity to the U.S border, and with large a business community centered around oil and energy production, Kitchen believes that if there were to be a shutdown on the project, it would affect much more than just the oil sector. Prime Minister Trudeau has recently voiced support for the expansion, and Kitchen is hoping that the Prime Minister will stick to his word on this issue and push back on that cancellation.

"The trickle-down effect of it is going to be exponential because there's so many service-type industries, so many other businesses that are all interconnected by this, and so it's going to have a huge impact and we need a Prime Minister who's going to stand up to this, not somebody who's going to stand up and just say words. It needs someone to actually do some actions instead of saying I'm sorry and dealing with the issues that he's been dealing with and he actually needs to get in there and speak strongly to the American government." 

The pipeline expansion was set to be in operation by 2023, and Kitchen believes that it very well could be a part of the economic recovery of both the pandemic and the rest of the deficit that the country has seen going into 2020. Not only has that recovery been slow, but Kitchen says that this is something Trudeau needs to do to make up for that rollout of help that was said to be coming to the energy sector.

"Back in the spring when the pandemic happened and so many people were out of work and so many jobs were shut down, the Prime Minister at that time stood up and said he's going to bring support for the oil and gas industry, and Minister Morneau said it'll be within days, and then it was weeks, and then it was months.  Well, we can't delay that long. If he's going to say it, he needs to step up and get it done.