“People’s pipeline” planned to ensure alternative market for Alberta oil

The federal government’s purchase of the Kinder Morgan pipeline running through British Columbia has already been labelled the “people’s pipeline” by opponents who see any government ownership of commercial interests as evil.

The Liberal government bought the pipeline to ensure a twinning project can be completed. Plans are to sell the venture once complete or sooner. Construction has been stalled by court action by the British Columbia government, numerous environmental groups and some indigenous groups. Justin Trudeau and the Liberals, along with the majority of Canadians, view the pipeline project in the national interest. Not having a non-United States oil market costs Canada $500 million a year. Trudeau has little other choice but to build the line.

His only other option would involve an unacceptable breakdown of democracy, over-riding the court process by sending in the military. Pipeline opponents are so fervent and emotional that only military action could stop them.

Don’t be surprised if military security is still needed on this project construction. Trudeau was backed into a corner. The proposed Northern Gateway pipeline was too controversial, too environmentally damaging. The Energy East conversion of a natural gas line was becoming a political bombshell in Quebec and Ontario before the builder pulled the plug. Government ownership still is no guarantee of quick project completion. The Kinder Morgan plan will be tied up in the courts for at least two years. During that time, construction can start and continue.

Unless the courts shut the project down, which is highly unlikely, the pipeline should be almost complete by the time courts are done. That is not a perfect solution but is better than what was going to happen if Kinder Morgan walked away.

Kinder Morgan gets to lose a high risk project and pay down its excessive debt with the $4.5 billion paid.

Some people wonder how we got here. Some environmental groups and Indigenous groups had little trust in the federal process approving pipelines when Prime Minister Harper stepped in with a new act that reduced the time for approval and cut a lot of opponents out of the consulting process.

That well-intentioned law was just the kind of lucky break opposing groups needed to build a propaganda campaign based on the notion that the federal government could not be trusted.

If your favourite beverage company watered down its beer could it still be trusted — was the kind of message environ- mental groups put out to an unsuspecting public.

Plenty of historical precedent exists to justify government ownership of the line, from grants to build the first cross-Canada railway to Saskatchewan Crown Corporations providing power and phone service when private investors would not touch the small market. More recent government investment includes the 1970s bailout by Alberta of the first oil sands plant and the $1 billion loan by the Mulroney Conservatives to bail out the offshore Newfoundland oil patch. The loan was repaid with $100 million in annual royalties still flowing to the feds.

In 2009, the Harper Conservatives bailed out foreign auto makers by buying shares that later sold for a $3.5 billion loss.