B.C. politicians sink to dark place in pipeline fight

Now, that was a weird way to promote a mayoral campaign. Kennedy Stewart pleaded guilty Monday to criminal contempt and was fined $500 for violating a court injunction at the Kinder Morgan protest site.

He’s the federal NDP MP from Burnaby South who plans to run for mayor of Vancouver in the fall.

Stewart is one of several federal New Democrats who won’t promise to honour even a Supreme Court ruling on the pipeline.

It’s hardly shocking, I suppose, that a politician who flouts an order from one court won’t promise to respect the ruling of another — even the highest court in the land.

The crazy thing is that with polls running against the pipeline in Vancouver, Stewart’s defiance might be a campaign asset.

As mayor, he would succeed Gregor Robertson, who has stated that protests will eventually kill the pipeline. Robertson was asked last week if he’d be willing to get himself arrested at the protest site. “Potentially,” he said.

We now have a cluster of powerful B.C. politicians who tacitly or directly support actions far beyond legal protest, including Premier John Horgan, Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan, federal Green leader Elizabeth May (who still faces a contempt charge), as well as Robertson and Stewart.

Key political leadership in the Lower Mainland has slipped into a dark place where no compromise seems possible.

These people have cut themselves off from majority opinion in Canada and even B.C. Apart from Vancouver proper, most residents of Metro Vancouver support building the Trans Mountain expansion.

It’s been said endlessly that the power to approve pipelines is federal, not provincial or civic. This pipeline was approved after countless studies and consultations.

If a pending Federal Court decision sets some new conditions, those would be inconvenient, but they would doubtless be honoured.

One side in this struggle is complying with the law. The other is toying with the law, both by breaking it and using court challenges to delay the project out of existence.

As Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer explains, B.C. judges are beginning to lose patience with efforts to frame their hostility to one project as a grand constitutional issue.

The federal and Alberta governments are now deep in complex talks with Kinder Morgan to mitigate risk and maybe even buy the project.

It’s almost beyond belief that a shaky B.C. minority government, supported by three Green party zealots, has forced this on the country.

But count on it — there will be payback from the federal Liberals. Maybe it’s already started.

Last week, federal lawyers said Ottawa will not oppose a B.C. First Nation’s demand for an injunction to stop work on B.C.’s massive Site C dam.

That’s astonishing. The federal government and the province are co-defendants against the injunction claim by the West Moberly First Nations.

Ottawa approved the project and issued permits. But suddenly, the federal government has no objection to a First Nation stopping it?

In a statement, Ottawa said it won’t participate because construction itself isn’t federal business.

The feds will defend their own approval and permits, but will not intervene in this “interim procedural step.”

A graceful segue, to be sure, but what if the First Nation wins its injunction?

That’s potentially a huge problem for Horgan. Site C is a $10.7-billion monster — even bigger than the pipeline. It’s under full construction with well over 2,100 people working on site. Halting it would throw most of them out of work and risk $2.4 billion spent so far, with no hydroelectric power to show for it.

Horgan and the NDP have never liked Site C. But he decided, after being elected last year, that it was too far along to cancel. That enraged many environmentalists. So did his decision to give tax breaks for a liquid natural gas terminal at Kitimat.

Through all this, Horgan has successfully deflected hostility toward the pipeline, partly by challenging federal authority at every turn.

Now Site C might be stopped. And Ottawa has nothing to say about that.

It’s hard to see where Horgan goes next with all this. For a short break from the pressure, he might try getting arrested.

Don Braid is a columnist with the Calgary Herald, where this column first appeared.