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Kinder Morgan privately eyes Trans Mountain protesters
14/07/18
Link:
Editor: Here is the link to a series of articles, (5 chapters), unmasking Kinder Morgan spies: https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/07/13/kinder-morgan-privately-eyes-trans-mountain-protesters
And here is Chapter 5:
Federal officials won't say who will pay for spies
The federal government has declined to say whether they are financing the use of private investigators by Kinder Morgan. The Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr is seen here getting to an emergency cabinet meeting in Ottawa on April 10, 2018. File photo by Alex Tétreault
An official with the federal Finance Department declined to say whether the government was paying for any use of private investigators by Kinder Morgan since Ottawa agreed to buy the project. As part of that agreement Kinder Morgan is continuing construction this summer at taxpayer expense, with the deal expected to close by September.
Given the sale to government, Greenpeace’s Stewart said the government has two conflicting roles to play.
“It’s an odd dynamic and it puts the government in a conflict of interest, where they have a private interest in the success of the pipeline and yet they are also supposed to be playing the role of referee,” he said. “They are both referee and one of the teams.”
His colleague Hudema added that he didn't expect the tactics to change much with the change of ownership.
"We haven’t received any firm commitment from the federal government that they will not engage in these type of tactics,” he said, noting that a government minister had previously mused about using the military to protect construction workers on the project, before backtracking.
In 2016, Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr commented on the possible use of "defence forces" or police during future protests over pipeline projects that are not peaceful but he later apologized to Indigenous leaders and has frequently said since then that he misspoke at the time.
“They still haven’t said categorically it’s not a tactic they will use,” Hudema said.
On July 3, Kinder Morgan filed an updated summary of its construction outlook for the next six months with the National Energy Board, with work in Alberta expected to begin in August and in the North Thompson region of British Columbia in late September.
