If the Obama government rejects the Keystone project proposal, the warm relationship between Canada and the United States could turn cold for years according to senior government sources.

Derek Burney, former Canadian ambassador to the United States warned the Obama administration that the rejection of the keystone project pipe line could mean a cold-war between the two countries.

"It will be a huge boulder on the road of the bilateral relationship," the The Globe and Mail quoted the former Canadian ambassador to U.S. as saying.

Following President Obama's  State of Union Address, David Jacobson, the U.S. ambassador to Canada said Canada should take note of Obama's climate change initiative and should adopt an energy strategy suitable for the country. The US's approval has ever remained uncertain for this project that could have an adverse effect on the climate.  

The Chief of Canadian province Alberta, Alison Redford expressed that a national carbon tax might help the Canadian federal government to get Keystone approval from the United States.

"My sense from what I'm hearing in the United States is they want to know where our record has been, but I haven't heard from decision makers down here that if we were to implement (a carbon tax) that that would somehow shift the dial on those issues," Global News quoted Alison Redford as saying.

The Alberta chief was in Washington D.C. lately lobbing the U.S. state governors and senators and propagating the benefits of the Keystone pipeline, which will transport tar-sands oil from Alberta to Galveston Texas, for shipment to Latin America and Europe.

Obama is left to please either the environmentalists or the Keystone project proponents and businesses associated with the project.

The US president Obama will make his mind soon.

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