NDP out of tools to stop TMX project
Top court rules province cannot place restrictions on what is transported through pipeline
During the 2017 election, NDP Leader John Horgan pledged his government would “use every tool in the tool box” to stop the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. On Thursday, the B.C. premier was left defeated and disappointed with no more tools.
The Supreme Court of Canada swiftly shut down B.C.’s fight to regulate what can flow through an expanded Trans Mountain pipeline from Alberta. The country’s top court unanimously agreed with a B.C. Court of Appeal ruling last May which said the province couldn’t impose restrictions on the pipeline’s contents.
“We are all of the view to dismiss the appeal for the unanimous reasons of the Court of Appeal for British Columbia,” Chief Justice Richard Wagner said after several hours of hearings Thursday in Ottawa.
The decision removed one of the remaining obstacles for the Trans Mountain expansion, which would twin an existing pipeline running between Edmonton and Burnaby.
“Clearly, we are disappointed by the decision, but this does not reduce our concerns regarding the potential of a catastrophic oil spill on our coast,” Horgan said in a statement Thursday. “When it comes to protecting our coast, our environment and our economy, we will continue to do all we can within our jurisdiction.”
B.C. Attorney General David Eby also called the decision “disappointing” and echoed Horgan’s pledge to fight to protect the environment.
“It’s important to remember this was one of a suite of regulations the province put in place around toxic substances that can be brought into our province by train or pipeline or truck,” Eby said. “Of that suite, there was one regulation in particular the province of Alberta was concerned about so we referred that to the court.”
Shahin Dashtgard, a professor in the department of earth sciences at Simon Fraser University, said Horgan has run out of options.
“I think it was a political decision that he went with, an attempt to satisfy the Green party, something that he promised them from the get-go,” said Dashtgard, referring to the NDP and Greens’ confidence and supply agreement, in which the three Green MLAs promised to support the NDP minority government. “I don’t think there was really a leg to stand on from the beginning,” Dashtgard said. “It’s an interprovincial thing that’s always been under federal jurisdiction and now that he’s taken it all the way to the Supreme Court, that’s the end of it, I think.”
Although construction has begun, there remain other barriers to the expansion’s completion, including a legal challenge by Indigenous communities affected by the construction. They argue they were not properly consulted by Ottawa. Eby said the province is not participating in those cases and “we don’t anticipate at this stage participating in those.”
George Heyman, the B.C. environment minister, said in a statement that the province is reviewing conditions attached to a provincial environmental certificate for the project as directed by last year’s B.C. Court of Appeal decision. “Today’s decision provides some further context for that work,” Heyman said.
B.C. Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson on Thursday called for the NDP government to now throw its support behind the pipeline project.
“John Horgan knew the federal government held clear jurisdiction over the pipeline but he spent millions of dollars just in political posturing,” Wilkinson said in a statement. “When will the NDP stop the political games and let British Columbians get to work on a project supported by a majority of people in our province?”