On Tuesday of this week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave the stamp of approval to Kinder Morgan’s plans to expand the Trans-Mountain pipeline project calling it safe, necessary for creating middle-class jobs and ensuring Canada is economically strong enough to transition to a carbon-free economy.
“We also know this transition requires investment and that this will not happen overnight to fund this change to a carbon-free world,” he said. “We said that major pipelines could only get built if we had a price on carbon and strong environmental protections in place. We said that Indigenous peoples must be respected and be a part of the process and we said we would only build projects that could be built and run safely.”
This decision amounted to the last regulatory hurdle before Kinder Morgan can build the pipeline, which will triple the amount of bitumen destined for the Westridge terminal and increase five-fold the number of Aframax Tankers departing from Burrard Inlet.
It just so happened that this announcement was made almost two years to the day following Bowen Islander Alejandro Frid’s arrest while protesting this plan on Burnaby Mountain.
“Right from the time of the federal election, it was clear to me that the Liberals were talking out both sides of their mouth,” says Frid. “They had a lot of nice platitudes about climate change but at the same time, Justin Trudeau made it clear that he thought we needed more oil coming out of the ground and pipelines.”
Frid says that the one thing he can give the Liberals credit for, are their plans to eliminate coal-fired power plants in Canada.
“This is the one thing that is consistent with their statements on climate change,” says Frid, a conservation biologist. “But in building more pipelines, they are committing us to decades of tar sands exploitation. They are not investing in re-training oil and gas workers, they are just not showing leadership on this at all.”
Frid says that he is prepared to get arrested to stop this pipeline yet again.
Charles Robichaud, a local film editor, says he plans to be right beside Frid and other activists in the fight against this pipeline expansion.
“My wife and I have already had the talk, and yes I am willing to be arrested,” he says. “If people like me, white males who own a house and have two kids and a dog are outraged about this, the government is really on the wrong track.”
Robichaud adds that as a Calgarian by birth, he’s seen the fallout of broken promises.
“There numerous elections where the Alberta government promised to diversify the economy by using the heritage fund created by resource revenues. They never did that, and when the oil economy crashed lots of people lost their jobs, their houses, and some people even committed suicide,” he says. “And now that fund is gone.”
Robichaud, who has been on Bowen for twelve years, says he sees Liberal promises to cut emission in much the same way.
“They say they want to cut emissions by a certain amount by some date eight years down the road, six years in they say it’s impossible - because by then, we’ve invested in this huge pipeline,” says Robichaud. “I would really like to see leadership on this. Instead of investing $3 billion on preventing oil spills, spend $3 billion on alternative energy and retraining engineers and pipe fitters in Alberta to work on geothermal.”
Robichaud adds that while he is not surprised by the decision, he still finds it demoralizing.
With files from Jane Seyd/Brent Richter, North Shore News
