The concern of national interest that this article wilfully ignored is that full electrification of Canada is decades away. Those gas powered cars and trucks Montrealers see out their windows have lifespans. A car sold today is on the road for 15 years, easy. Fossil fuel infrastructure has momentum.
The national interest of pipelines is that we could supply ourselves, but don't. Eastern Canada gets most of its oil from American and International markets. Eastern refineries buy Saudi oil. We have fossil fuel pipelines that feed eastern Canada from the US. They can be turned off by a backstabbing US. The US could blockade our ports under any false pretext. This is a strategic risk. As much as our most Electric province, Québec likes to tout electricity, if we turned off the oil today it would be chaos in the streets. They have childish delusions if they think they are ready for the end of oil. Other provinces are even less prepared. Full electrification is an existential imperative. We aren't ready for it, yet.
In addition to our short term needs measured in decades, our allies, like Europe, who are leaders in electrification are still forced to buy oil from Russians who are also an Imperialist threat. Europe is also at least decades away from decarbonizing. An eastern pipeline feeds Europe Canadian oil and starves Russia while we get our shit together and electrify.
People love to say the US needs Canadian oil. What if they suddenly didn't? An imperialist America could liberate Venezuela and cut us off from our main customer. Like Europe learned to regret depending on Russia as a supplier, we may well regret depending on the US as a customer. Economically we could not recover.
Self-sufficiency. Aid allies, starve rivals. That is the national interest of pipelines.
Edit: More than almost anyone, I believe getting off fossil fuels is an existential imperative. There is hardly a greater cause for action and urgency. Just keep in mind the danger and destruction caused by not ending its life gracefully.
The ecosystem and humanity's legacy would be done a great service if we just stopped fossil fuels today, cold-turkey. No one thinks of the costs of doing so. How many lives lost to an ultra-abrupt transition? It's an ugly math and I'm not comfortable with it either.
In my mind, the national focus should be on electrifying the country. This means more mass transit. Like, Chinese levels of Transit Construction. Let's get our Aluminium and Steel working for Canadians now. Let's get away from cars, even electric ones. Lets solve our housing crisis with Passivehouse'esque mid density, walkable, bikeable, livable cities fed by electric trains, from local trams to high speed bullet trains. Let's fucking GOOOOOOOO!
Until that's in place, let's maximize the value of our fossil fuel legacy to survive long enough to get there.
Matt is right, but it's awfully convenient to say it now and not when his show was popularising Fox on it's rise to dominance, despite being a fascist shitbag TV network. 30 years too late Matt.