In the weeks and months ahead, there will be many political casualties of the Liberal government’s crisis surrounding the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion. The first of these, however, was the carefully-crafted illusion that the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s (CPPIB) investment decisions are free from political influence. Over two decades, the Board had painstakingly constructed the pretence that Board decisions stood above retail politics.
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.
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.
'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.
