How Cape Race, N.L., helped North America get its news — by fishing it out of the sea

When Prime Minister Mark Carney stood alongside Alberta’s premier earlier this month to herald a plan for a new oil export pipeline, the news came with a massive taxpayer-funded caveat. In the absence of a private firm to build the proposed oil corridor, the pair confirmed, the federally owned Trans Mountain Corp. would lead the roughly $40-billion project. For Carney, the announcement marked a sharp pivot in strategy for getting the proposal over the finish line, with Ottawa letting go of its insistence just five months earlier that the pipeline be funded by private capital. “The...