The closest anyone in the phone call got to Keystone was an oblique reference to ‘strengthening North American energy security’
They also discussed what a PMO readout of the call describes as “avoiding the unintended consequences” of President Joe Biden’s protectionist Buy American policies.
Those policies have Canadian manufacturers and suppliers worried that they will be frozen out of bidding on U.S. procurement contracts.
Today’s readout makes no explicit mention of another irritant: Biden’s Day 1 decision to cancel the cross-border Keystone XL pipeline expansion.
The only reference to Keystone XL was an oblique reference to “strengthening North American energy security.”
Instead, it’s all about shared priorities, “including fighting the COVID-19 pandemic through close collaboration on borders and access to vaccines, and to building back better,” the statement said, borrowing a favourite Biden-Harris campaign slogan.
The U.S. is a country divided, still reeling from the Jan. 6 riots on Capitol Hill that followed former president Donald Trump’s campaign to undermine last year’s presidential election.
The two also discussed diversity, mental health, and the need to address online hate, gun trafficking and gender-based violence, the PMO statement said.
Trudeau also thanked Harris for the U.S. supporting efforts to secure the release of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, two Canadian citizens who have been languishing in custody in China for more than two years.
“The vice-president also expressed strong solidarity with Canada regarding the issue of two Canadian citizens unjustly detained by China, and she made clear that the United States would continue to do everything it can to secure their release,” the White House said.
The Canadian statement also made reference to an upcoming “bilateral meeting” between Trudeau and Biden, which the two leaders agreed to last month. Details, including timing and whether the meeting might take place in person, have not been released.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 1, 2021.
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