'We are going to not allow Kinder Morgan to finish this pipeline,' says protester
More than 200 kilometres south of where the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is slated to end, environmental groups in the U.S. took to the water in Seattle on Sunday to add their voices to ongoing opposition to the project.
While the roughly 1,200-kilometre pipeline won't cross into the U.S., protesters are concerned about an increase in oil tanker traffic, which would depart from the terminal in Burnaby, B.C., and navigate across the Salish Sea.
Shareholders at Kinder Morgan’s annual general meeting passed resolutions compelling the company to account for the risk that climate change poses to its business.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau said Wednesday he is prepared to protect the Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion to the west coast against financial loss.
The Trudeau Liberals have been in discussions with Alberta as well as the proponent of Trans Mountain, Kinder Morgan, over an arrangement to use public money to back the pipeline. British Columbia NDP Premier John Horgan, however, has pledged to use all legal tools available to block its construction.
“It’s so rare for people outside the province of Alberta to see that there is opposition here,” said Emma Jackson, co-founder of Climate Justice Edmonton.
EDMONTON—Deep within oil country is a group of anti-pipeline activists who aren’t afraid to challenge Alberta’s reputation as an oil and gas bastion.
That was the message from several hundred protesters, who gathered in front of Vancouver’s TD Tower Saturday in a bid to get the bank to divest from Kinder Morgan.
TD was one of six major Canadian financial institutions targeted by demonstrators, but was first in their crosshairs.
A primary lesson in political communications is that there is room in the public mind for only one big political news story at a time, and whoever drives that one big story wins twice: their story sets the headlines, and stories they don’t like are pushed to the margins.
Trans Mountain’s expansion was never commercially viable. It has needed unprecedented support from the get-go when in 2011 the National Energy Board (NEB) approved a $286-million special fee fought by Canadian oil producers. Chevron described it at the time as an “extraordinary precedent … If they (Kinder Morgan) need financing, then they should go to the market” and get it.
