STRANGER BEDFELLOWS
With Metro cut off from its main source of fuel, NDP has been busy lauding Trans Mountain
There is no overlooking the irony in the New Democrats' recent embrace of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, a project whose expansion they had famously fought “with every tool in our tool box.”
The New Democrats were forced to bring in gasoline rationing and to recognize Trans Mountain's critical importance to the province when November floods precipitated the longest shutdown in the line's 70-year history.
“The Trans Mountain Pipeline provides the majority of transportation fuels for the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, ” as Energy Minister Bruce Ralston acknowledged this week.
He explained how the interruption in service, starting Nov. 14 and continuing through this week, forced the province to fall back on other carriers, each with its own environmental risks.
“Our rail system is the obvious backstop for transporting crude and refined fuel from Alberta into British Columbia,” said Ralston. “That, along with the fuel barges from the United States has helped to replenish the supply of fuel in the Lower Mainland and surrounding regions.”
Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth had high praise for the company's efforts to restore B.C.'s petroleum link to Alberta.
“They deployed more than 200 people to ensure they can get it back up and running,” he said. “What I can tell you is that Trans Mountain is working around the clock to ensure the pipeline's ability to move product as quickly as possible.”
Transportation Minister Rob Fleming singled out the company's emphasis on safety in deciding when the line could be returned to service.
“The pipeline has been exposed to the elements just like highway infrastructure,” he explained. It needs to be inspected for safety and covered over again.
“You can put a lot of pressure on them to give you a firm date, but the reality is they have to operate this pipeline safely and do what they think is right to restart it safely. Nobody is going to argue with that.”
Not the sort of testimonials one was hearing from New Democrats when they were spending millions fighting in court against the construction of a second, parallel line — and mostly losing.
The promise to use every tool in the tool box to fight the Trans Mountain, or TMX, expansion project was a plank in the 2017 NDP election platform. Also a commitment in the power-sharing agreement with the Greens.
But from the moment the New Democrats took the oaths of office, they knew that the threat was mostly rhetorical — as Environment Minister George Heyman later admitted.
“When the premier offered me the position,” said Heyman, “he was very clear that as part of transition, he had been given the legal advice that stopping the project was beyond the jurisdiction of B.C.
“To talk about it or frame our reactions around doing that ... would be inappropriate and unlawful.”
Attorney General David Eby also had to acknowledge that the tool box was rather less well-stocked than the home handy section at your local hardware store.
While the province had permitting power over many aspects of the project, it couldn't unreasonably stall or reject any permits, Eby said.
To do so would invite a lawsuit of ruinous proportions.
“We'll end up paying hundreds of millions of dollars to an oil company that should be going to schools and hospitals.”
Trans Mountain is now owned by the Canadian government, which bought out the pipeline from Texas-based Kinder Morgan in 2018.
Premier John Horgan said at the time that the change of ownership from private to public wouldn't change B.C. government opposition to the expansion project. His opposition was mainly driven by concerns that the expanded line would be used to ship bitumen to Vancouver for export, increasing tanker traffic.
Later Horgan lobbied the federal government to change the mix in the existing line, which delivers both crude oil and refined petroleum products to B.C.
More gasoline and less crude would help address shortages here in B.C., Horgan argued, stabilizing and even lowering record prices at the pump.
The plea produced no results. Horgan tried to tackle the problem directly by ordering an inquiry into gasoline prices by the B.C. Utilities Commission.
The commission, after deducting taxes, raw materials, overhead, transportation and other costs, found an unexplained 13-cent markup on gasoline prices in and around Metro Vancouver.
Horgan called it “gouging” and vowed to do something about it. He failed.
Even before the floods interrupted supply, prices at the pump have often been higher this year than before Horgan ordered the inquiry.
The Utilities Commission did offer a couple of suggestions for increasing the supply of gasoline to B.C.
One was for the National Energy Board to change the allocation rules to increase the supply of gasoline and diesel coming to B.C. through the existing Trans Mountain Pipeline.
The other was for the B.C. government to “ensure there is infrastructure for more refined product to flow to B.C.”
It could do that by supporting the construction of a second Trans Mountain Pipeline, with a caveat that shipments of gasoline be made a higher priority than they are today.
There's no evidence that the New Democrats ever explored an option that would have meant admitting that the TMX project had some merit.
But with the expansion underway, maybe the latest reminder of B.C.'s dependence on Trans Mountain provides an opening for the province to again try to increase deliveries of gasoline through the pipeline.