Building another oil pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast has always been in the national interest – on Thursday, it became official.

Prime Minister Mark Carney, standing in Fort McMurray with Premier Danielle Smith, declared that the West Coast Oil Pipeline, now known as Pacific Link, would become the first project deemed in the national interest under the Building Canada Act.

LILLEY: New pipeline is great, the government owning it is not Back to video

This doesn’t mean the project is going ahead for sure. This is still Canada, after all, and we are only speeding up the bureaucracy, not getting rid of it.

“We estimate that the Pacific Link project will create 140,000 jobs across Canada, from the engineers who design it and the pipefitters who lay it to the welders who connect it,” Carney said. “The project will generate more than $20 billion in annual GDP and over $100 billion in government revenue by 2060.”

He went on to describe how that revenue would fund the programs Canadians and Albertans rely on, such as health care, dental care and child care.

“This is true nation-building, and it will take a........

© Edmonton Sun