Justin Trudeau seeks new law for pipeline

ottawa — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Sunday he has instructed his finance minister to begin talks with Kinder Morgan to “remove the uncertainty” hanging over the controversial Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project that would nearly triple the flow of oil from Canada’s oil sands to the Pacific Coast.

Trudeau also said legislation is coming that will “reassert and reinforce” the fact that the federal government is well within its power to approve the project and ensure it goes ahead.

Kinder Morgan has suspended all non-essential spending on the project spending pending reassurance from Ottawa that it will be able to go forward

Trudeau met Sunday with British Columbia’s premier, who is blocking the project, and the premier of oil-rich Alberta, who desperately wants to see it go ahead. “I don’t think it’s any surprise to anyone that I don’t think we would be in this situation if the British Columbia government hadn’t continued to emphasize its opposition to the project,” Trudeau said. The pipeline was approved in 2016 with the support of the former Liberal Party government in British Columbia but is now opposed by the province’s leftist New Democrat government.

Trudeau has insisted the project should be completed but the British Columbia government has fought it in the courts.

The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion by the Canadian division of Texas-based Kinder Morgan would dramatically increase the number of oil tankers traveling the shared waters between Canada and Washington state. — AP