For its next trick, Ottawa must unload the $34B Trans Mountain pipeline. It won't be easy

In her budget speech to the House of Commons on Tuesday, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland took a moment to celebrate the finishing touch on expansion of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline.

The controversial project has been plagued by delays and massive cost overruns, but Freeland instead focused on its completion, highlighting the: "talented tradespeople and the brilliant engineers who, last Thursday, made the final weld, known as the golden weld, on a great national project."

For all the difficulties with developing and building TMX, Freeland still faces another major hurdle that is sure to prove contentious — choosing when to sell it, who gets to buy it, and for how much.

An upcoming election and more than $34 billion in construction costs are raising the stakes.

Ottawa bought the project when it was on the verge of falling apart — before there was ever a shovel in the ground — in the face of legal, political and regulatory challenges. 

The federal government has long vowed to sell the project (including at least a partial ownership stake to Indigenous groups) once construction was complete. That milestone has now been reached.

But the move will no doubt open a Pandora's box, says Daniel Béland, the director of the McGill University Institute for the Study of Canada and a professor in the department of political science.

He says any potential deal will face intense scrutiny considering the election is due before the fall of 2025 and, most notably, because the actual sale price is expected to be far lower than the cost to actually build the pipeline. 

"They were in a hot spot when they bought it back in 2018. They are still in a hot spot," said Béland.

How the governing Liberals handle Trans Mountain could impact how voters view the Liberal party's handling of financial, economic, Indigenous, and environmental issues. 

"There's risk either way. If you sell it really fast, but you sell it at the price that is considered to be quite low, then you might be accused of just getting rid of it for political reasons but not having the interest of taxpayers in mind," he said.

"But, if you wait and you don't sell it, then you might be accused of being basically permanently involved or trying to be permanently involved in that sector of the economy in a way that many people, even people who are more conservative, may find inappropriate."

There has always been interest in buying it, including from Stephen Mason, the managing director of Project Reconciliation, a Calgary-based organization which aims to use a potential ownership stake to benefit Indigenous communities.

Nearly five years ago, Mason walked into then-federal finance minister Bill Morneau's office in Ottawa and made an offer to purchase Trans Mountain before construction had even begun on its expansion, which will transport more oil from Alberta to the British Columbia coast.