Is another ‘grand bargain’ necessary to build another pipeline? [Video]

At question period on Monday, two Conservative MPs beseeched the government to approve a pipeline that very afternoon.

“The prime minister is meeting with premiers in Saskatchewan today,” said John Barlow, MP for the Alberta riding of Foothills. “Will he approve a pipeline at that meeting?”

Such a request raises other questions. Questions like, what pipeline? To where? To be built by whom? And under what conditions?

Whatever the stated desire for a new pipeline to transport oil out of Alberta, there is no actual proposal for a pipeline on the table to approve. But it also bears noting that the meeting in Saskatoon on Monday was not about pipelines, per se. The first ministers were meeting to discuss “nation-building” infrastructure projects. And there are many kinds of projects that might qualify as nation-building — infrastructure like ports and railways and public transit and electricity transmission lines.

But while no …