Feds set deadline on review of Trans Mountain pipeline

Energy board must focus report on tanker traffic, Indigenous consultations

OTTAWA— Calling it a “very important step” in its plan to build the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, the Liberal government is giving the National Energy Board less than six months to redo an environmental review of the project that will include the impact of increased oil tanker traffic.

Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi announced Friday that the energy board will have 22 weeks to deliver the new assessment, after the Federal Court of Appeal shot down the previous approval for the pipeline project on Aug. 30.

The court ruled the energy board failed to consider how increased oil tanker traffic off the coast of British Columbia would impact marine life like the region’s endangered killer whale population, and found the Liberal government fell short of its constitutional duty to consult on the project with Indigenous peoples.

Sohi said Friday that plans to restart “a meaningful, two-way dialogue” with Indigenous peoples will be announced soon, as will a decision on whether the government will appeal the court ruling that quashed the project’s approval.

But the first step, he said, will be to launch a new review at the energy board, which will be presented with details of how the government is trying to protect whales off the B.C. coast.

The government will also appoint a special marine technical adviser to the energy board, Sohi said.

“We are confident that this plan will allow us to meet the high standards that Canadians expect when it comes to protecting the environment,” he told reporters in Halifax Friday.

On Parliament Hill, Conservative MPs scoffed at the proposal. The party’s shadow minister for natural resources, Alberta MP Shannon Stubbs, said there’s still no timeline for when the pipeline will get built, and accused the Liberals of showing no urgency. She said the government should heed Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s call to pass emergency legislation to allow construction of the pipeline project to resume without another environmental review.

“For the past two years, they have promised timelines, they have promised action, they have promised outcomes, they have repeated over and over the pipeline will be built,” Stubbs said.

“They failed on every single one of those counts.”

Others pointed out the Liberals have yet to outline how they will address the Indigenous consultations that the court found inadequate. In the Commons, NDP MP Murray Rankin questioned the authenticity of those consultations, when Ottawa has already insisted it will build the expansion of a pipeline it bought from a Texas-based oil company for $4.5 billion earlier this year.

“How can First Nations possibly believe it will be fair this time?” he asked.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, meanwhile, called on Trudeau to abandon the project. “The Trudeau government has made it clear again today that it intends to try to force through expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, but still can’t say how it will fulfil its obligation to respect the inherent, treaty and constitutional rights of Indigenous peoples,” he said in a statement.

The Trans Mountain expansion would almost triple the capacity of the decades-old pipeline that runs 1,147 kilometres from outside Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C.

The proposal would also increase oil tanker traffic in Burrard Inlet from five ships per month to 34. But the environmental assessment that approved the expansion in 2016 didn’t include this marine shipping in the definition of the project, an omission the Federal Court of Appeal said created “successive, unacceptable deficiencies in the board’s report and recommendations.”

The Trudeau government has maintained the project will get built, with the prime minister repeatedly stating in recent weeks that more scientific analysis and consultations will be done.

“We inherited a flawed environmental review process from the previous Conservative government and made efforts to improve it,” Sohi said.

“For the past two years, they have promised timelines, they have promised action ... they have repeated over and over the pipeline will be built. They have failed.”

SHANNON STUBBS ALBERTA MP