For those of you trying to keep track of where various politicians stand on the Kinder Morgan pipeline issue, here's a transcript of Energy Minister Bill Bennett's comments to media recently. This was sent to me by Richard Lee when we asked for his comments following Bennett's comments.
Reporter: The flipside of that conversation, at least in this province, has been that British Columbia help Albert get some sort of pipeline that coast. Where does your government sit right now on the Kinder Morgan proposal?
Bennett: We've made good progress on the Kinder Morgan proposal in terms of satisfying our five conditions. Kinder Morgan's been actually very good to work with the province. We needed some help from the federal government and they're showing some signs that they're prepared to invest in some marine spill clean up infrastructure that we believe is necessary. Kinder Morgan is doing a lot of work on the terrestrial spill clean up work and we just created some policy here just a while ago in BC that creates a protocol for what happens if there is a spill.
Reporter: Right.
Bennett: So we're making progress on the five conditions and, you know, it's, again, probably a lot slower than what Kinder Morgan, I hope, producing provinces would like and I can relate to the frustration there but I think we are making progress and I think we'll get there.
Reporter: Okay. You haven't changed your stance yet on the Trans Mountain expansion, have you? Has the government?
Bennett: Our stance is that we're not opposed to oil pipelines. We've got them in BC and we recognize that we need oil in BC and we recognize that our fellow Canadians in other provinces that have produced a lot of oil need to get their product to tide water and we don't want to stand in the way of that, but we also have to remember that our primary application is to our own citizens. Our five conditions are not unreasonable. First of all, there has to be an environmental assessment. That almost goes without saying, so that should be an easy one for people to understand. Secondly, First Nations need to get some benefit from pipelines that go across their territory. That too, both Enbridge and Kinder Morgan, I think, have done a pretty good job with. We need to look after the terrestrial and marine spill prevention and spill clean up mechanism and then the fifth one, which probably originally gave Albertans the most grief is the need for BC citizens to benefit from a pipeline. We get all the environmental risk. We have to get some benefit. That does not mean, and I know I made it clear to you before but it's important to keep saying it. That does not mean that we would expect a share of any sort of royalty or benefit that goes to the province of Alberta. That's not what we're talking about.
