OTTAWA -- Canada’s natural resources minister warns that an alternative to Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline would be "messy, polluting and expensive."

“That’s a contingency plan that I don’t want to have to bank on,” Seamus O’Regan told CTV News Channel’s Power Play on Tuesday.

He described that plan as involving thousands of 18-wheelers, boats on the St. Lawrence River and railway cars delivering crude.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer previously ordered Line 5 to shutter on Wednesday, but Enbridge maintains it will keep fighting that directive.

The Canadian government filed an amicus brief in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan in support of Enbridge.

Ottawa describes the pipeline as a “vital piece of infrastructure.”

O’Regan explains why he doesn’t want to rely on an alternative to Line 5 in the video at the top of the article.