British Columbia must play by the rules
What is going on in British Columbia?
It appears that respecting the rules — whether it’s obeying a court order, following established trade practices, fulfilling governmental obligations or even observing the constitutionally enshrined distribution of powers between governments — doesn’t amount to much these days on the West Coast.
To start, more than 150 people were arrested protesting the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, most for violating a court-ordered injunction. They include B.C. MPs Elizabeth May and Kennedy Stewart — federal legislators who should know better than to defy the rule of law.
B.C.’s government doesn’t set much of a law-abiding example. In February, it announced a proposal to restrict increased shipments of diluted bitumen while it studied the environmental impact of a potential spill — a move rightly derided by Alberta Premier Rachel Notley as unconstitutional.
Only after a retaliatory wine embargo did Premier John Horgan’s government back off, saying it would let the courts decide whether its bitumen ban was legal.
But B.C. showed how much it respects the justice system after the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed its application to appeal a National Energy Board ruling that allows Kinder Morgan to bypass City of Burnaby bylaws during construction.
Environment Minister George Heyman scoffed at the decision, saying this “allows the local permitting process to be needlessly undermined,” and that the province will keep looking into ways to fight the $7.4-billion project — which has already been approved by both the NEB and the federal government.
This, from the same regime that simultaneously offers tax incentives for liquified natural gas projects in B.C., including LNG Canada’s $40-billion project that would include building a natural gas pipeline from northeast B.C. to a new terminal in Kitimat on the coast.
Ironically, B.C. is getting a taste of its own wilful defiance from an anti-Trans Mountain entity under its jurisdiction. The City of Burnaby, where RCMP have been arresting activists, refuses to pay those extra policing costs. The city still hasn’t paid an $800,000 bill for policing similar demonstrations in 2014.
While Burnaby already gets a 10-per-cent federal contribution to its policing costs, Mayor Derek Corrigan wants Ottawa to pick up the tab since it was the federal government that approved the pipeline.
Under the province’s Police Act, municipalities bigger than 15,000 people must pay the cost of policing within their boundaries. That includes policing civil disobedience.
While protesters, the City of Burnaby and the B.C. government are free to oppose the pipeline, they aren’t free to break the law in doing so.