PM cuts Peru trip short to meet with premiers
Business leaders welcome effort to find resolution to B.C., Alberta dispute
VANCOUVER Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has cut short a trip to Peru and is flying back to Ottawa to meet this weekend with the Alberta and B.C. premiers over the $7.4-billion Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
Premier John Horgan said Thursday, however, that B.C. had little new to offer, although he would hear what the prime minister and “perhaps” what Alberta’s Rachel Notley had to say.
“What we have been doing is articulating the concerns in court of British Columbians who do not want to see their environment or their economy devastated by the potential consequences of a diluted bitumen spill on or coast, on our lands and our waters,” said Horgan. “I’ve made that clear to the prime minister in the past and I’ll do so again.”
After the NDP defeated the B.C. Liberals last year, the province joined a Federal Court challenge by some First Nations and environmental groups of the project by Texas-based Kinder Morgan. The case was heard last fall but the court has not ruled yet. The province is also a party to a separate B.C. Supreme Court challenge of the project by the Squamish Nation.
Horgan’s government also plans to file a reference case in Federal Court to determine what is its jurisdiction in areas such as bitumen shipment through British Columbia. The meeting with the prime minister was welcomed Thursday by B.C. and Canadian business leaders who were gathered in downtown Vancouver to loudly voice their support for the project.
The expansion, already approved by the federal government, would triple the pipeline capacity and is meant to provide new markets in Asia for Alberta’s oilsands bitumen.
Critics also oppose the project over climate change concerns linked to oil production and use.
“We ask, and make no mistake, require, that they (Ottawa) use every tool necessary and at their disposal, including if required the expansion of the $1.5-billion marine protection plan to provide the leadership necessary to re-establish our confidence in Canada,” Business Council of B.C. president Greg D’Avignon said at a news conference at the Hyatt Regency.
D’Avignon’s call for federal improvements to maritime environmental protection took direct aim at Horgan’s position that his NDP government is defending and protecting B.C.’s coast by opposing the project.
The Trudeau government announced the marine protection plan in late 2016, which includes increased tugboat-towing capacity on the West Coast, improved marine traffic navigation, research into oil spills and a stipulation that ships must yield to killer whales.
On Thursday, Horgan said the plan that covers three coasts over 10 years is not as large as it sounds and that B.C. has coastal protection needs that are not being met now.
D’Avignon and other business leaders — including Laura Jones, executive vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, and Val Litwin, president of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce — said it is not just the Trans Mountain project that is at stake but global confidence in Canada as a good place to invest and as a place where major industrial projects can be completed.
The organizers said that more than 70 business and community groups were represented and that they expected support for their position to grow.
On Thursday, Abbotsford Mayor Henry Braun stood with the business leaders in support of the pipeline project. “Do I want my children and grandchildren to grow up in a place less dependent on fossil fuels? Absolutely, you bet. But I also want them to grow up in a province and a country with a stable and growing economy,” said Braun.
The transition to an economy less dependent on fossil fuels will take decades, he said.
On Sunday, Kinder Morgan delivered an ultimatum, saying that unless they can be certain by May 31 that the Trans Mountain expansion can be built, they will walk away from the project.
The federal government said they will meet that deadline and Alberta has threatened to curtail fuel shipments to B.C. if the province doesn’t back down.
In the B.C. legislature on Thursday, Finance Minister Carole James said the province would fight any action of Alberta’s to curtail fuel shipments.
In a prepared statement, B.C. Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson said he was relieved that Horgan had accepted the prime minister’s invitation to meet in Ottawa. “After months of showing no real leadership on the issue, I hope the premier comes to his senses and puts B.C. jobs and prosperity before self-serving politics,” says Wilkinson.
Polls have showed that British Columbians are split on the project.
However, those who oppose the project, including environmental groups, community groups, some First Nations and some municipalities, including Vancouver and Burnaby, have been very vocal. More than 200 people have now been arrested at protests on Burnaby Mountain, where some work is underway to expand Kinder Morgan’s tank farm and marine terminal.
Those protests continued on Thursday with more arrests as artists blockaded the gates to the tank farm.
Violet Williams, an 18-year-old student at the University of Victoria from the Courtenay-based K’ómoks First Nation said in a written statement: “I am here for future generations so that they can have grandchildren on this earth.”
Environmentalists have been buoyed by Kinder Morgan’s announcement that it may halt the project.
On Thursday, the Georgia Strait Alliance sent a message to its supporters to tell the B.C. government the province needs “real” oil spill regulations.
“The fight against this dangerous project from Texas isn’t over, and we haven’t won yet. But we are winning,” said alliance official Andrew Radzik.