This year’s News Story of the Year goes to the Kinder Morgan pipeline.
It should come as no surprise.
The City of Burnaby and the Texas-based company were constantly in front of a panel or in and out of court in 2017 – with the biggest showdown in December, when the National Energy Board ruled Kinder Morgan didn’t have to comply with two of Burnaby’s bylaws.
The city has long been opposed to the $7.4-billion Trans Mountain expansion project, with Mayor Derek Corrigan vowing to use all political and legal tools available to stop it.
In March, the city lost one of those legal battles at the B.C. Court of Appeal. The case goes back to 2014, when Trans Mountain work crews began cutting trees in the conservation area on Burnaby Mountain for field studies. The work violated city bylaws, but it was sanctioned by the NEB.
The city responded by seeking an injunction against the company, which was denied. Burnaby appealed the decision, arguing the NEB could not override municipal bylaws, but lost.
During the provincial election in May, the B.C. NDP and the B.C. Green Party rallied a hard “no” against the pipeline; that if elected, the project would come to a screeching halt.
When the NDP-Green alliance did come to power, it was unclear what “every tool available” actually meant and whether the pipeline could be stopped. After all, it was a federal decision.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stood by his government’s decision, saying it was “based on facts, evidence, on what is in the best interest of Canadians.” He said despite the change in government in B.C., the facts and evidence don’t change.
In October, a lawsuit (with the potential to overturn the pipeline project) started in the Federal Court of Appeal. The consolidated case, made up of First Nations groups, environmental organizations and cities like Burnaby, said the NEB did not properly review Kinder Morgan’s proposal and it did not adequately accommodate Aboriginal groups along the pipeline route. Part of Burnaby’s argument was that the NEB failed to examine alternative routes that didn’t go through a major metropolitan area. (The court has yet to make a decision on this case.)
Corrigan made headlines later that month when he said Ian Anderson, president of Kinder Morgan Canada, tried to bully the city. The mayor said Anderson stopped by his office to complain about the city’s permitting process.
Kinder Morgan alleged the city was stalling the project by not issuing the permits, but Burnaby staff maintained they’ve acted in good faith.
The next day, Kinder Morgan asked the NEB to proceed with construction in Burnaby without the permits. The company noted that if the December 2019 start date was pushed back, Kinder Morgan stands to lose between $30 and $35 million each month.
After two days of oral hearings in Calgary, thousands of pages of evidence from all sides, the NEB ruled in Kinder Morgan’s favour.
Construction at the Westridge Marine Terminal started in September, according to Trans Mountain’s website.
But what’ll happen in 2018 remains to be seen. Will there be protests like the ones in late 2014? Hard to say.
We could end up seeing Corrigan in front of that bulldozer.
