FedsfacemorequestionsonTransMountain
The federal Liberal government found itself taking fire over the stalled Trans Mountain pipeline expansion from opposite flanks Wednesday: accused of helping to finance pipeline protesters on the one hand, and rigging the review system in favour of the project on the other.
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer led off question period with the revelation that one of the successful applicants to the government’s Canada Summer Jobs program is a B.C. group looking to hire someone “to help ... stop the Kinder Morgan pipeline and tanker project.”
“Does he not realize that he is funding the very groups that are protesting against the project that is in the national interest?” Scheer demanded.
“We are talking about taking tax dollars from people who are out of work in the energy sector and giving it to people who are trying to block a project in the national interest.”
The B.C. group, Dogwood, however, has been receiving federal money for years — including from the previous Conservative government, Trudeau retorted.
“Unlike, apparently, the leader of the official Opposition, we believe in free speech,” he said.
“On the issue of this particular advocacy group, it is important to highlight that it was also funded under the Harper government.”
Dogwood spokesman Kai Nagata said the group has received funding under the program since 2010 and their work to stop pipeline projects has never previously been an issue.
The funding goes toward paying a university student who spends the summer doing outreach work on campaigns to stop oil tanker expansion on the B.C. coast, he said.
“That’s never been an issue for the government in the past and the plan this year is to do the exact same thing,” Nagata said.
The government has been under fire of late over the Canada Summer Jobs program — specifically a new requirement that organizations declare their support for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including women’s reproductive rights.
Scheer tried to needle Trudeau on that count, as well: “There is nobody who believes that the prime minister is committed to free speech when he punishes all those in this country who do not agree with his personal point of view.”
Trudeau seized on the chance to depict his rival as a kinder, gentler version of his predecessor.
“The commitment that this government has made to stand up and defend reproductive rights and the rights of women at every single opportunity is one that sticks in their craw,” he said of the Conservatives.
“We will not apologize for ensuring that women’s rights are protected across this country.”
Scheer’s question was far from the only Trans Mountain offensive the Liberals faced — indeed, question period has, of late, been dominated by the project, given what proponents say of its potential economic impact, as well as how it’s likely to influence next year’s federal election.
Kinder Morgan declared earlier this month it was halting all non-essential spending on the controversial expansion, which has been beset by protests and is at the centre of a fierce dispute between the governments of B.C. and Alberta.
The expansion — which B.C. is blocking — would twin an existing pipeline from Alberta’s oilsands to Kinder Morgan’s Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby, B.C., where diluted bitumen would be loaded onto oil tankers for export.
Earlier Wednesday, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and energy critic Guy Caron released a letter to Trudeau effectively accusing the Liberals of having decided to proceed with Trans Mountain well before the federal review process had completed its evaluation.
The letter cites recent media reports suggesting the government’s decision to proceed was a purely political calculation, rather than a decision based on whether or not the project would indeed be in the national interest.