British Columbia

Musqueam Judicial Review of the Kinder Morgan Project

For Immediate Release                                                                                                                                     

Tue. Jan. 17, 2017

posted Jan 13, 2017 at 12:00 PM

OTTAWA — The proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion once resembled a political morass, something that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and B.C. Premier Christy Clark would wade into at their peril.

But both politicians have managed to put pipeline opponents on the defensive as both sides head into a three-front battle in 2017 over the $6.8-billion project.

After years of dramatic opposition by B.C. residents, the controversial pipeline expansion project of a Texas-based energy company, Kinder Morgan, is one step closer to breaking ground in Canada.

On Wednesday, the government of B.C. Premier Christy Clark issued an environmental assessment certificate for the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, which aims to triple the capacity of an existing system that already ships more than 300,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta's oilsands to the West Coast.

The election is sufficiently near to develop a few axioms to carry us through the sea of a largely imponderable mass of horse buns that we’ll have to face. I suggest that the following are good starts to our defence mechanisms as our eyes and ears become mercilessly assaulted by heaps of political bullshit, endemic to all campaigns, this one having a master, or should I say mistress, of it?

We can assume the following:

January 5 2016

The health of our economy cannot be separated from the health of our environment.

The myth that we have to choose between the two is peddled by forces opposed to increased environmental protection and effective climate action—forces that stand to profit from destructive megaprojects and the endless extraction of finite resources.

And let’s face it—they have been quite successful at it: the myth endures.

So it’s worth asking ourselves, have we been unwittingly perpetuating it, instead of undermining it?

• posted Jan 5, 2017 at 11:00 AM

Even if twinning the Kinder-Morgan pipeline doesn’t go ahead, the Salish Sea will not be saved — unless something bold, principled and practical is done, and soon.

The endangered southern resident Orca whales, the depleting fisheries of Puget Sound, the sewage dumps into Juan de Fuca Strait, the toxic leachates from old mineshafts and coal-storage pits along the Island’s east coast, and the plans that would see industrial sites such as an LNG plant located in Howe Sound: these all point to incremental destruction. As it stands now a long, slow death awaits the Salish Sea.