Politics is the biggest obstacle on Canada-U.S. energy front – Canada – CBC News

The strained relationship between Canada and the United States over energy policy is likely to get worse before it gets better, with a decision on Keystone XL likely to politically strain relations between the two countries regardless of whether U.S. President Barack Obama gives the pipeline project the go-ahead or not.

That’s one of several findings by pollster Nick Nanos in a study he did as a Public Policy Scholar this year for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His research focused on public opinion and public policy regarding energy and the environment.

“We are desperately in need of a forthright dialogue between Canada and the United States in terms of carbon policy and the environment,” said Nanos in an interview from Washington, D.C.

Canada’s seeming inability to seal the pipeline project, which is the centrepiece of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s resource-driven agenda, could be the impetus to kick-start talks on environmental policy and energy, something Obama has focused on in his public statements on Keystone.

via Politics is the biggest obstacle on Canada-U.S. energy front – Canada – CBC News.