MIKE SMYTH: Kinder Morgan battle going to get ugly
There have already been some nasty fights over oil pipelines in this province, but you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Now that the NDP and the Green party have signed their power-sharing agreement, a massive battle royal over the $7.4-billion Kinder Morgan pipeline is about to erupt.
It will pit a new NDP minority government led by John Horgan against another NDP government in neighbouring Alberta.
Horgan and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley are pals who used to work together, and Horgan has tried to play down any personal animosity between them over the Alberta-to-Burnaby pipeline, which Notley fiercely supports.
“We agree to disagree,” Horgan likes to say.
But Horgan’s new partner in power — Green Leader Andrew Weaver — had harsh words for Notley as he vowed to fight the pipeline.
“She should get with the program,” Weaver fumed, while accusing Notley of “classic fearmongering” when she said failure to build the pipeline would hurt the B.C. economy.
Horgan just smiled and nodded his head as Weaver ripped into his NDP “friend.”
But Notley isn’t taking any guff from Weaver or from Horgan either. She desperately needs the pipeline to get Alberta’s crude oil to the B.C. coast and loaded onto supertankers for transport to Asia.
“Mark my words,” she said. “That pipeline will be built.”
The NDP-Green accord says B.C. will use “every tool available” to stop the pipeline, which has already been approved by Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government. Construction is scheduled to start in September.
What could Horgan and Weaver do to stop the pipeline? They have threatened to withhold provincial construction permits, but I doubt that tactic would work for very long.
Weaver said B.C. would turn to the courts to fight the pipeline by arguing the project infringes on First Nations’ rights.
But Kinder Morgan will be ready for that, arguing they conducted 24,000 separate “engagement activities” with First Nations before the project was approved.
Trudeau, meanwhile, will also get dragged into the fight. His government approved the pipeline, which is clearly under federal authority and jurisdiction.
The Liberals elected 17 MPs in B.C. in the 2015 election. The last thing Trudeau wants now is a massive pipeline fight in a province that has become important political turf for the federal Liberals.
But a massive fight is what he’s going to get.
This one is going to get ugly. And it’s probably going to cost B.C. taxpayers a fortune.