Cost of Trudeau’s Pipeline Wager Soars 70% to $9.5 Billion

  • Trans Mountain confronts delays, indigenous accommodations
  • Pipeline executives, finance minister to host press briefings
Justin Trudeau during an event in Brampton, Ontario, on Jan. 30, 2020.Photographer: Cole Burston/Bloomberg
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The cost to build Justin Trudeau’s pet oil-pipeline project just got a few billion dollars more expensive.

The price tag for the Trans Mountain expansion has increased 70% to C$12.6 billion ($9.5 billion) because of legal delays and accommodations made to indigenous communities along its route, the pipeline’s operator said Friday in an emailed statement. That doesn’t include the C$4.5 billion Trudeau’s government spent to purchase the conduit, but it does incorporate C$1.1 billion spent by the project’s previous owner, Kinder Morgan Inc.