TIME TO GET TO WORK WITH TMX

Tough to get excited without a start date for the project

The federal cabinet gave its approval Tuesday to expanding the Trans Mountain pipeline. Albertans can be forgiven if they don’t plan a Raptors-like parade over the news. Like Lucy teeing up the football for Charlie Brown, we have seen this act before only to have expectations dashed.

What should be cause for celebration is tainted by the fact this marks the second time the Trudeau government has OK’d the project following a rigorous and lengthy approval process — only to have work crews forced to put down tools 10 months ago when the Federal Court of Appeal ordered the government to redo inadequate consultations with Indigenous communities.

Albertans are also weary of the double standard that sees the project’s backers follow the rules but continually come up against incessant and usually misguided legal challenges from the B.C. government and municipalities regarding resources and interprovincial trade. Similarly, environmental activists, Indigenous groups and B.C. Premier John Horgan wasted no time vowing to halt construction in the courts and on the ground.

That kind of obstructionism has already forced the federal government to buy the pipeline from its fed-up owner, Kinder Morgan, to advance the project. But in this game of snakes and ladders, progress easily slides into setback; indeed, the day company shareholders approved the project’s sale, the court overturned its approval.

Ten months later, what should be belated glad tidings for Alberta — federal re-approval of a vital conduit to get bottlenecked oil to market — is now overshadowed by the looming double-whammy of bills C-69 and C-48. The overreaching overhaul of the environmental assessment process of pipelines and other natural resource projects and the ban on oil tankers in northern B.C. waters are expected by many to eventually hamstring what’s left of Alberta’s oil industry.

It’s tough to cheer for a pipeline approval when many in the oilpatch are predicting it could be the last one ever built — if it ever gets built.

Having approved the project, Ottawa can’t waste yet another construction season. Federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is right to scoff that approval means nothing without a start date. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau must set a firm timeline for getting pipe in the ground or the regulatory and political merrygo-round will continue spinning. He must also take a firm stand against the B.C. government if it continues obstructing a project outside its constitutional jurisdiction.

That Alberta’s economy has been held hostage for so long by a single pipeline project underlines the fact that diversifying the provincial GDP is now more important than ever.

But the transition to a new economy takes time and money, like the billions provided by the resource industry. In the meantime, Alberta should be able to count on a fair and tenable process to get energy projects built in a timely and predictable fashion.

Having approved the project, Ottawa can’t waste yet another construction season.