PIPE DOWN, MR. HORGAN
The following guest editorial is excerpted from the Vancouver Sun:
Since Kinder Morgan’s announcement earlier this week that it would suspend all non-essential activities and related spending on the Trans Mountain pipeline, the political rhetoric has only grown more extreme. It seems improbable that the proand anti-pipeline forces will bury the hatchet before the May 31 deadline set by the company to end the uncertainty.
B.C. Premier John Horgan had the effrontery this week to say, “All of a sudden, when the shareholders in Texas issue a press release, there’s a constitutional crisis.” Horgan and his government are solely responsible for this imbroglio by ignoring the rule of law, engaging in vexatious litigation, misrepresenting the risks of the project, claiming jurisdiction where he has none, and acting against the interest of a majority of Canadians.
And he has done so with the knowledge — and legal advice — that his election promise to do everything to stop the project was “inappropriate and unlawful.” There is no constitutional crisis. The Constitution is clear: Federal law prevails. In the all-too-likely event that Kinder Morgan walks away from the banana republic antics of Canada’s political leadership and mob rule of its environmental activists, B.C. could find itself on the receiving end of a lawsuit over the $1.1 billion Kinder Morgan has already spent on the pipeline.
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley has said her province would buy the pipeline if that’s what it takes to get it built, and suggested the federal government might invest as well. But transferring the risk of a $7.4-billion infrastructure project to Canadian taxpayers is a bad idea.
A better plan might be for the federal government to curtail financial transfers, suspend federal-provincial partnerships, or take legal action (perhaps invoking its declaratory power under the Constitution Act) to effectively sideline B.C.’s rogue government and clear the way to complete the project. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is to meet both premiers this weekend. He should demand that Horgan back down.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge has recommended that protesters blocking access to Kinder Morgan’s work site in breach of a court order be charged criminally rather than in civil court. That is the kind of tough-minded approach the federal government needs to emulate.
Otherwise, Canada’s reputation as a good place for companies to invest, governed by the rule of law and welcoming of development projects, will remain tarnished, as it has been by the pipeline impasse. And that would leave all Canadians, not just British Columbians, poorer.