11. The Canadian government is laying plans for a pipeline to the Pacific coast. If the USA does not want the oil, it will be exported to other countries. Canceling the USA part of the pipeline will not shut down the oil sands production.
Actually, we (Canadians) don't even have to have a pipeline in place. It happens that we have plenty of excess rail capacity to ship oil from Alberta to the B.C. coast. Of course, we have our own envrio-fascists, and they adamantly oppose both a pipeline to the coast, and tanker traffic from the coast. Rail shipment would get around the pipeline problem — but, building a tanker port would be more problematic. If it became a strategic issue for Canada (if, for instance, the U.S. stopped buying oil from the oil sands); it's likely that political opinion would swing, to favour shipping the oil to China by tanker.
BTW, Ronald Reagan secured guaranteed access to Canada's energy resources, through NAFTA. That access was the price the U.S. demanded for the deal. Canada can only cut supplies to the U.S. in proportion to what we cut back for our own domestic market. Unless, that is, the U.S. cuts back demand first. Then that new, lower, amount becomes the baseline. If you stopped buying oil-sands oil from us, we would be under no further future obligation to sell it to you. The U.S. would have to wait in line behind China, or any other new customers. That is just the way it is — it's not a scenario I want to see play out.
Here are links to a couple of articles about the rail shipment option:
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/09/07/general-energy-nd-oil-pipeline-rail_8663353.html