Protesters greet PM

Justin Trudeau’s twin objectives to reduce Canada’s carbon emissions and build a pipeline to carry oilsands bitumen to the coast collided Wednesday in a province ravaged by wildfires that the prime minister’s own government attributes to climate change.

Several hundred pot-banging, whistle-blowing pipeline protesters gathered outside the Vancouver Island Conference Centre where Trudeau and his ministers were holed up for a cabinet retreat amid the acrid smell of smoke from the hundreds of wildfires burning across British Columbia.

They questioned how Trudeau can claim to be concerned about climate change when his government is paying $4.5 billion to Kinder Morgan to purchase the Trans Mountain pipeline and ensure it’s expanded to carry Alberta oil to B.C.’s coast.

“Climate Leaders Don’t Buy Pipelines,” proclaimed one banner brandished by protesters.

“Inhale Justin, that’s the smell of global warming,” said another.

Multiple protesters carried signs accusing the prime minister of fiddling “while B.C. burns.”

New Democrat MP Sheila Malcolmson, who represents Nanaimo-Ladysmith, told the protesters that the Liberal determination to get the pipeline built is “a betrayal of everything Trudeau campaigned for.”

Inside the conference centre, Trudeau and his ministers met with B.C.’s NDP premier, John Horgan, who has vowed to use every possible avenue to block the pipeline project.

After the meeting, Horgan thanked the Trudeau government for its efforts to help fight the wildfires. And he said he’s “grateful” the federal government shares his province’s commitment to combating climate change, which he blamed for causing the “catastrophic fire season.”

At the same time, however, Horgan reiterated his government’s staunch opposition to the pipeline expansion project, which he said would result in a seven-fold increase in tanker traffic off B.C.’s coast and, thus, increase the chances of a “catastrophic spill.”