Notley warns of more retaliation over pipeline spat
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley says she wants progress within days from Ottawa in resolving the B.C. pipeline dispute or her government will look at further retaliatory measures.
Notley said Monday she doesn’t want to escalate the feud, but she said B.C.’s actions on the Trans Mountain pipeline are illegal and must be reversed.
“We do not seek an escalation, but if B.C. continues to insist that they have rights to attack Alberta’s economy that they don’t have, we will have no choice (but) to respond,” said Notley.
“It’s in British Columbia’s power to put this issue to rest.”
Two weeks ago, B.C. Premier John Horgan’s government announced it was looking at restricting expanded flows of oil into the province, pending
a review to make sure that such spills could be properly cleaned up.
In response, Notley suspended talks with B.C. to buy $500 million worth of electricity and halted imports of B.C. wine, worth about $70 million a year.
Notley said she hasn’t ruled out more extreme options, such as restricting oil sent to B.C. or refusing to transport gas from that province, but says she doesn’t want to harm Alberta’s interests in the process.
In Ottawa, Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr said Monday the federal government will not entertain any attempts by B.C. to stall or stop the pipeline project.
“If that is the goal of any province, we will take the necessary action to ensure that federally approved resource projects proceed.” Carr said.
When asked if that includes taking B.C. to court, he said Canada has “all kinds of options” to exert its constitutional authority over interprovincial pipelines.
Federal officials, ministers and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have been negotiating with Alberta and B.C. for almost two weeks now.
B.C. hasn’t yet enacted a ban on the $7.4-billion pipeline project, which limits the legal options for Ottawa to fight back.
“All British Columbia has tangibly done at this point is signal its intention to consult with the people of its province,” said Carr.
Shannon Stubbs, federal Conservative natural resources critic, is not as convinced as Notley that Ottawa is doing everything it can to get the pipeline built. She introduced an opposition motion in the House of Commons Monday calling on the federal government to make public no later than Thursday its specific plan to get the pipeline built.
Stubbs said the Liberals keep saying the same thing over and over: that they approved the pipeline and that it will get built, but they are not putting any specifics on the table about how that will happen. She said it’s incumbent on them to decide what those moves are, but said they should include defining “unnecessary delays” and what will be done to get B.C. to remove the threat to ban increased oil flows.
Carr called the Conservative motion an attempt to manufacture a crisis and stoke regional tensions.
Construction began on the Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby in September, but construction on the pipeline itself is still awaiting final permits and route approvals. Kinder Morgan recently said the operational date for the pipeline is now a year later than expected in December 2020.