Three prominent Quebec-area Indigenous chiefs were among the hundreds of people who gathered in Montreal on Sunday to protest the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion.
Assembly of First Nations regional Chief Ghislain Picard, Mohawk Chief Serge Simon and Innu Chief Jean-Charles Pietacho spoke out against the project, citing the need to show solidarity with First Nations and other groups in British Columbia who are fighting against it.
In fiscal year 2008, according to the “upstream development division” of B.C.’s Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, British Columbians received $1.16 billion in royalty revenues. By 2017, however, revenues had fallen nearly 90 per cent to $147 million.
Robyn Allan laughs after a nonstop hour during which the economist has elaborated on a previous hour-long conversation explaining why the Trans Mountain Expansion Project should be stopped in its tracks.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is calling on the government to take the money it was planning to use to compensate Kinder Morgan investors in the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and instead invest in clean energy jobs.
Last week Finance Minister Bill Morneau said the government is willing to “provide indemnity” to any investors if “unnecessary delays” cause costs to rise.
“What we should be doing instead is using that fossil fuel subsidy, using the proposed money … to invest in clean energy jobs for today and the future,” said Singh Tuesday.
The Trudeau federal government has made itself a pathetic hostage to a Texas-based pipeline company known for its cheapness and debt.
The economic sleeziness of the drama, which should upset most Canadians, has been largely ignored by the financial mainstream press.
But here’s the rub: Kinder Morgan doesn’t have the money it needs to twin a high-risk $7.4 billion pipeline, and has been looking for a way out for some time.
'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.
