[Kinder Morgan's] decision... to put a deadline on legal wrangling so it can choose whether to proceed with the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion does the country a big favour. Episodes of fighting over this plan to ship oil sands-derived crude through British Columbia for export may finally come to an end, one way or another. With that will come a national realization that projects spanning provinces with different economic, environmental and political priorities can, or can’t, ever be considered... In the name of sensitivity, Kinder Morgan should have postponed its decision to go public with its announcement that it is suspending nonessential spending on Trans Mountain. Even an important economic issue can be put on hold while the country mourns the loss of so many young men who were killed on a Saskatchewan highway... Ottawa approved the $7.4-billion oil export project a year and a half ago, and there is still no consensus on its fate, given protests in the courts by British Columbia and in the streets by environmental activists and some First Nations folks... B.C. Premier John Horgan, a fellow New Democrat, said his government will not back down from its legal battles against the pipeline, despite its lack of success in its previous actions. He rejected the notion that the province is triggering a constitutional crisis... A war over the legal jurisdiction of various levels of government would surely bring about such a crisis, and Ottawa needs to offer specifics on how it might solve it, while allowing the project to proceed in a time frame that keeps it economically viable.