Ultimatum brings focus to issue

Kinder Morgan recently announced that the Canadian government has until May 31 to end British Columbia’s opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. The fallout has been to expose the extent to which politicians can be influenced by private interests.

Alberta and the federal government’s response to the warning is to vigorously condemn British Columbia for considering only its own narrow political interests, at the expense of prosperity for all. And both immediately offered assurances of financial assistance, to ease Kinder Morgan’s fears.

Records show the federal and Alberta governments ran on platforms that included controlling greenhouse gases, battling climate change, reducing air, land and water pollution, and phasing out fossil fuel use. Nowhere in their campaigns did either suggest that one of their key strategies would be to expand bitumen mining or to offer taxpayers’ money to support a private oil pipeline company. Yet that is exactly what they are doing.

It seems evident that this is not about economics. It is about who controls the government agenda. British Columbia is standing firm. It announced it will be filing a reference case in the provincial Court of Appeal by the end of May to determine if it has jurisdiction over the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

The Kinder Morgan ultimatum has brought focus to the struggle for political-economic control.

The court’s decision will be a very informative commentary on the future of our democracy.

Murray Hidlebaugh, Saskatoon