Pelosi Meets G8 Counterparts; Won’t Say If Oilsands Concerns Have Been Allayed

Nancy Pelosi has joined her G8 counterparts for an annual speakers’ meeting in Canada’s capital — but she isn’t showing her hand when it comes to the country’s oilsands.

The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives was greeted on the steps of Parliament Hill’s Centre Block by the Speaker of Canada’s House of Commons, Peter Milliken.

Then they went inside and posed for photographs with speakers from Germany, France, Italy, Britain, Japan, Russia and the president of the European Parliament.

When a reporter shouted a question about whether her concerns about Alberta’s oilsands had been allayed, Pelosi just smiled tightly and said her talks will continue.

Milliken then opened the speakers’ meeting by stressing the importance of such gatherings to share ideas and concerns.

Pelosi has been in Ottawa for three days meeting key players in the energy and environmental sectors.

Her office sent out a statement today reiterating that she is in town “to listen and learn.”

Pelosi has met Environment Minister Jim Prentice, the premiers of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Quebec, environmental activists, energy industry executives and First Nations during her visit.

The environmentalists say they were buoyed by their meeting with Pelosi, the third-ranking politician in the United States, and congressman Ed Markey, who chairs an important energy committee and co-authored an environmental bill now working its way through the U.S. Senate.

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach came away from his meeting impressed that Pelosi didn’t consider Canada to be one of the foreign countries from which the U.S. is trying to wean itself of buying oil.