Premier John Horgan said he intends to move forward with B.C.’s court case on regulating oil transported through the province, despite the federal government’s plan to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline and expansion project.
Kinder Morgan announced this morning that the Government of Canada will buy the Trans Mountain pipeline system and the expansion project for $4.5 billion, and work with the board to seek a third party buyer through July 22, 2018.
Today’s announcement doesn’t change the provincial government’s plans, he said, because the court case is not tied to a specific project, but rather to the ability of the province to prevent an oil spill.
“I’m concerned that there could be catastrophic consequences of a diluted bitumen spill in British Columbia, regardless of the owner of pipeline, regardless of the owner of the railcars,” he said at a press conference in Victoria Tuesday morning.
Now that the pipeline is federally-owned, that means the federal government, including Minister of Finance Bill Morneau, is “totally accountable” for the project, from both an economic and environmental standpoint, Horgan said.
"Mr. Morneau will have to answer to federal taxpayers who also happen to be British Columbians, and Newfoundlanders, and people from the Yukon, about how he's disposing of their hard-fought tax dollars,” he said. “If he believes that building a pipeline to export raw materials to other jurisdictions to create jobs and wealth in other places, he'll have to be accountable for that.
Meanwhile in Alberta, Premier Rachel Notley celebrated the purchase. Alberta’s ban on B.C. wine, and law to restrict oil to British Columbia, has worked, she said. Her government, too, will be spending up to $2 billion on the project once it is complete.
“We said we would meet the deadline, we’ve met the deadline. We said we would provide certainty, we are providing certainty. We said we would get the pipeline built, and we are getting it built,” she said at a press conference. “We will not stop until the job is done, and in the meantime, to all Albertans: pick up those tools, folks. We have a pipeline to build.”
