The New Democrat government is about to waste taxpayers’ dollars only to fail in stopping the Trans Mountain Pipeline project, says Delta South MLA Ian Paton.
The new provincial government has stepped into the picture by hiring former B.C. NDP leader and Supreme Court justice Thomas Berger as special legal counsel, and will apply to be an intervenor in legal challenges to federal approval of the controversial project.
Last month, CEO Ian Anderson said the company was completing contracts needed to start work on the expansion by September. In response to the government’s latest move, the company said it intends to proceed with construction.
The Trans Mountain Pipeline project was approved by the federal government after a lengthy environmental review process, noted Paton.
The project has passed every hurdle, including extensive consultation with relevant stakeholders and aboriginal communities, said the first-term Liberal MLA. The project will create jobs and economic opportunity in the Lower Mainland and across B.C. and it is even supported by Rachel Notley and the Alberta NDP government, added Paton.
“I am concerned that John Horgan’s NDP is using taxpayer dollars on costly legal battles to try and stall a project of such national significance. Ultimately, however, I believe the NDP will fail in their efforts. This project is too far along to be stopped now. At this point, any talk of an alternative pipeline endpoint is unnecessary speculation,” he said.
The expansion project, which has drawn heated opposition from the cities of Burnaby and Vancouver as well as environmental groups, will more than triple the capacity of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline to Burnaby from Alberta to 890,000 barrels a day.
Just where the pipeline could go if opponents were successful in blocking it from going through the existing corridor led to considerable concern in South Delta that the environmentally significant Roberts Bank would be viewed as a fallback, although the company stated it looked at the option and rejected it due to financial and environmental issues.
The notion that the pipeline could possibly be rerouted through Delta seemed to go away once and for all when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reconfirmed that Ottawa stood behind its approval, following the company being granted all of its major regulatory permits.
Last fall more fuel was added to the debate when former B.C. premier Mike Harcourt told the media that Trudeau should consider a “Plan B” alternative to the expansion. He said an alternate route had to be considered, either to Roberts Bank or to the Cherry Point refinery in Washington state.
A group calling itself Concerned Professional Engineers (CPE), an independent group of retired and some still practicing professional engineers, added more fuel to the fire by issuing a press release warning of the dangers of increasing tanker traffic sevenfold to the current loading facility in Burnaby. That group also pointed to South Delta as an alternative.
Two years ago, Notley also suggested that it might be time to get creative and re-route the pipeline further south. She noted South Delta as one possibility.
The Corporation of Delta hasn’t stated opposition to the project in its current form, instead submitting a number of concerns regarding the spill response from a potential tanker or pipeline spill that could impact Delta.
