Caisse pulls Quebec into pipeline feud
Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec disclosed a large stake in Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd., potentially bringing the country’s second-largest pension fund manager into the fight over the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
Montreal-based Caisse held 10.2 million shares as of Dec. 31, according to its annual report released Tuesday. The stake, worth about $181 million at Wednesday’s prices, would make it the largest outside holder of Kinder’s Canadian unit, amounting to about 3 per cent of the stock in the pipeline company or 7.8 per cent of the publicly available shares.
It’s unclear how many the fund manager holds now.
The disclosure is another twist in a saga that has Alberta’s provincial government threatening to impose an oil embargo on neighbouring British Columbia, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attempting to mediate by launching talks to potentially support the company financially. A halt to energy shipments would have ripple effects across North America’s west coast.
Leery of federal overreach, Quebec’s government had essentially sided with British Columbia in its fight against Trudeau’s attempt to flex jurisdictional muscle and ensure the pipeline’s construction.
Now the pension fund manager’s disclosure reveals Quebec has a direct stake in its completion.
Another pipeline, TransCanada Corp.’s Energy East project through central Canada to the Atlantic coast, was scrapped in October amid fierce opposition in Quebec.
The Caisse’s current stake in Kinder Morgan’s Canadian unit is unclear. When contacted by Bloomberg on Wednesday, Caisse spokesperson Maxime Chagnon declined to confirm whether the pension fund manager still held the shares, citing internal policies. The Caisse only discloses its positions in Canadian publicly traded companies once a year.
British Columbia announced Wednesday it would seek a court opinion on whether it has jurisdiction to interfere with the federally approved project. The so-called reference case will be filed by April 30 at the B.C. Court of Appeal. Premier John Horgan’s own legal advice prior to taking office was that it would be “unlawful” to block the project but the province could skirt that by saying it seeks to defend its coast.
An opinion poll released by the Angus Reid Institute on Wednesday found pipeline support has risen in British Columbia to 54 per cent.