Trump adviser Conway to tour Alberta oil sands

Top Donald Trump aide Kellyanne Conway will make a trip to the Alberta oil sands before January’s inauguration, a right-wing Canadian group announced on Tuesday. 

Conway will visit Alberta in January and tour the province’s oil-producing region, the Alberta Prosperity Fund announced on Tuesday. 

{mosads}Alberta’s oil sands are a key driver of Canada’s oil industry and the source of the tar sands oil that was set to flow through the Keystone XL pipeline. President Obama rejected that project last year, but Trump has said he will approve the project once he takes office. 

Keystone developer TransCanada said after Trump’s election that it plans to “engage” with Trump. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also used a meeting with Trump to promote the Keystone project, which Republicans and the oil industry say will create jobs. 

Conway will also host a fundraiser for the Alberta Prosperity Fund, which said her visit will be “a call to action for Alberta industry whose competitiveness and market access have been restricted by excessive regulation and public protests.”

“This visit by such an influential member of a U.S. administration should stand as a call to action for all Alberta industry,” Prosperity Fund founder and President Barry McNamar said in a statement. 

“I hope that Ms. Conway receives an enthusiastic welcome here in Alberta and can return to the US with an informed attitude towards Canadian export products.”

A Trump spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment. 

McNamar and others formed the Prosperity Fund in 2015 after Alberta voters swept the center-left New Democratic Party into power. Premier Rachel Notley opposes the Keystone XL pipeline project and has proposed a stout carbon tax in the province. 

The Prosperity Fund’s website includes links to editorials against the carbon tax and “the transition to a low-carbon economy.”