VANCOUVER MAYOR-ELECT PANS REVAMPED PIPELINE REVIEW
WILL ‘FAIL AGAIN’
Vancouver’s incoming mayor says a revamped National Energy Board review of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is likely doomed to fail and will land the federal government back in a courtroom.
The energy board is reviewing the project’s impacts on the marine environment and Kennedy Stewart says it’s too rushed, including a weeklong window for Indigenous groups and others to apply to participate.
“I do think the revamped NEB process we’re going through probably is going to fail again. I don’t think giving First Nations a week to submit to a brand new reconciliation process is enough time and that’ll be challenged in court again and rightly so,” he said in an interview.
“I could see this being deadlocked like the Mackenzie Valley pipeline for many, many, many years,” he added, referring to a proposed natural gas line through the Northwest Territories that was stalled for decades.
Stewart, formerly the New Democrat MP for Burnaby South, was among a group of protesters who were arrested in March while blocking Trans Mountain’s main gate, violating a court order to stay five metres from company work sites. He pleaded guilty to contempt of court and paid a $500 fine.
After winning Vancouver’s mayoral race by fewer than 1,000 votes, he will be sworn in on Monday.
His opinion on the pipeline expansion hasn’t changed, he said, and he will continue to back the city’s practice of supporting local Indigenous groups in their court challenges by applying to be an intervener.
The Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish Nations have traditional territories in the Vancouver area and both have said the new process is repeating the same mistakes and laying the groundwork for a new court challenge.
The Federal Court of Appeal struck down the federal government’s approval of the project in August due to inadequate Indigenous consultation and the energy board’s failure to review impacts on the marine environment.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, which has purchased the existing Trans Mountain line and expansion project for $4.5 billion, tasked the energy board with reviewing marine environment impacts and submitting a report by Feb. 22.
Energy board spokesman James Stevenson declined comment on Stewart’s remarks but has said previously that the revamped review will be a comprehensive scientific and technical examination of project-related marine shipping.
The pipeline expansion would triple the amount of oil being carried from the Edmonton area to a marine shipping terminal in Burnaby, increasing the number of tankers in Metro Vancouver waters seven-fold.