The outcome of the provincial election is bad news for Burnaby.
It is now almost a certainty that the expansion of the pipeline cutting through the northeast corner will not be seriously challenged by the re-elected B.C. Liberal government. Why? Because Alberta (read tar sands oil companies) and Ottawa (read Alberta) want pipeline access to the West Coast to ship bitumen to Asia. Hammered by one public relations disaster after another, the federally supported Enbridge proposal, Northern Gateway, looks less and less attractive as the means to that end. Instead, we should expect Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain to become the pipeline of choice.
The deal closer will be B.C.'s as yet unelected premier who owes a political debt to both Alison Redford and Stephen Harper.
When it comes right down to it, the tripling of the Kinder Morgan pipeline has been a fallback option to Northern Gateway right from the beginning. That's not to say the pipeline giant didn't intend to pursue its expansion plans if Enbridge got the go-ahead. Quite the contrary, the existence of two West Coast shipping ports would meet the dual objective of the tar sands producers: first, a pipeline capacity that would accommodate an increase in bitumen production, and second, easy access to the higher prices paid by the Asian market. But, as they now know, the reality is that British Columbians generally don't like the idea of oil pipelines running through its' pristine wilderness.
That is probably one reason Kinder Morgan has been slow in applying for approval to massively expand Trans Mountain with its 60-yearold ceded right-of-way. Another reason is the Enbridge hearings are very much a dress rehearsal for Kinder Morgan; it gets to learn from Enbridge's mistakes and missteps, particularly with respect to courting public support, as well as pick up important pointers on the best way to argue a convincing case for the building of a pipeline. And make no mistake about it. Although the words "pipeline expansion" may be used to describe the Kinder Morgan proposal, the objective is to install a much larger, newer pipeline parallel to the one already in existence.
Meanwhile, the federal government is undoubtedly finding itself forced to re-evaluate its support of Northern Gateway as public opinion against it grows. Knowing full well the tar sands industry's desire to ramp up bitumen production cannot be realized without the additional transport capacity the project represents, Harper and his ministers are searching for an alternative. Thus they're spending a lot of time and taxpayer money lobbying the U.S. administration and Congress to approve the building of Keystone XL, a proposed pipeline between Alberta and the U.S. Gulf Coast refineries.
In effect, they're attempting to hedge the realization of the two pipeline objective.
Even if Keystone XL is given the go-ahead by President Obama, that still leaves the matter of a pipeline to the west coast. But the Kinder Morgan proposal won't be an easy sell.
Last year, both the cities of Vancouver and Burnaby came out against the proposal, and during the recent election the provincial NDP stated it objected to the prospect of turning the Metro Vancouver area into an oil exporting port.
Too, earlier this year the Tsleil-Waututh Nation and the First Nations Assembly declared their opposition to "tar sands projects," referring to Kinder Morgan expansion plans specifically.
Added to this is the opposition of environment organizations as well as newly created citizen groups like Burnaby Residents Opposing KinderMorgan Expansion (BROKE). It's a formidable array.
But this likely won't stop the re-elected B.C. Liberal government from supporting, either directly or by default, the Kinder Morgan expansion.
Christy Clark will probably trot out her five conditions, but they can be finessed or, since it's early days of her mandate, deconstructed.
However she comes at it, her main objective will be to make nice with the Alberta government to make up for sideswiping its premier last fall, as well as to extend an olive branch to the Harper government, a sort of mea culpa for messing with the federally backed Northern Gateway project.
In other words, she is motivated to give them what they want.
Bill Brassington is a frequent letter writer to the Burnaby NOW.
