MEXICO CITY – Prime Minister Stephen Harper is prepared to deliver the same message about the Keystone XL pipeline to U.S. President Barack Obama in private as he has already delivered in public, he said Tuesday.
“I’ll raise the issue in private as I’ve done every time I’ve met him over the last couple of years. My message will be obviously very similar to the message I’ll deliver in public,” Harper told reporters.
The two are to come face-to-face Wednesday as part of the North American leaders’ meeting, dubbed the Three Amigos summit, in Toluca, Mexico, near the hometown of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
Harper has deliberately put some focus on TransCanada Corp.’s pipeline project during his Mexico trip. He met with a Mexico representative of the company at a breakfast meeting Tuesday, and is to have a photo opportunity with company representatives Wednesday before arriving at the summit.
During the afternoon, Harper is expected to try to meet briefly one-on-one with Obama and plead the case for Keystone’s approval.
Publicly, Harper has said the project should be approved and that even if Obama does not do so, his successor certainly will.
Obama, on the other hand, has said that a decision will be made only after his secretary of state, John Kerry, weighs in about whether the pipeline is in the United States’ national interest.
The $5.4 billion overall pipeline project would take Alberta crude from the oilsands to refineries in the southern United States.
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