Change in B.C. gov’t could impact Alberta

OUR EDITORIAL: WHAT WE THINK

You can bet B.C. Premier Christy Clark isn’t the only provincial leader concerned about the B.C. Green party throwing its support behind the NDP with the aim of forming a coalition government.

The move not only positions the NDP-Green tag team to bring down Clark’s Liberal government, but it threatens the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project Alberta is counting on to move oil to the West Coast.

Clark’s Liberals support the pipeline, but that appears to do little good since the party came up one vote short of a majority in the recent B.C. election. With the Greens opting to back John Horgan’s NDPs, the Greens’ three seats, along with the NDP’s 41, will put the new best friends in the driver’s seat with 44 seats, one more than the Liberals.

That’s bad news for Alberta and its desire to see the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion completed. The NDP and the Greens are opposed to the project and can be expected to try to derail it.

Even before the recounting had been completed in the extremely tight B.C. election, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley fired a warning shot over the bow of a potential new B.C. government by saying, “We understand that some oppose the twinning of the pipeline, and I respect their opinion. But I fundamentally disagree with the view that one province or even one region can hold hostage the economy of another province. Or in this case, the economy of our entire country.”

In a statement following news of the Greens throwing their support to the NDP, Notley said she would work with a B.C. government led by the NDPs’ Horgan, but she repeated her view that the federal government holds ultimate authority over pipeline projects such as Trans Mountain.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested as much, too, by saying the pipeline project should proceed in spite of any political efforts in B.C. to quash the expansion. Trudeau said the $7.4-billion project will benefit all of Canada and noted, “Regardless of a change in government in B.C. or anywhere, the facts and evidence do not change.”

That might be encouraging to Alberta to a degree, but it’s not certain what Trudeau might do if a new B.C. government takes action to stop the project.

Alberta was recently granted intervenor status in legal challenges to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, which would extend from Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C. Kinder Morgan planned to begin construction this fall.

But it could all be put on hold with the new political developments in B.C. What that means for Alberta, only time will tell.

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