Most of Canada to receive emergency alert test today
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
The dispute over the cross-border Line 5 pipeline is entirely for Michigan to deal with, the state's attorney general argues in a legal brief released Wednesday that flatly rejects Canada's depiction of a foreign-policy matter that Ottawa and the White House must resolve.
In a sternly worded 21-page legal filing, Attorney General Dana Nessel excoriates the arguments of the pipeline's owner, Calgary-based Enbridge Inc., as "meritless" and "baseless," and waves away the submissions of the federal Liberal government, neighbouring states and various industry stakeholders as little more than policy-based window-dressing.
Enbridge is trying to convince Michigan court Judge Janet Neff that the case needs to be heard by a federal judge because it raises "substantial federal questions" about Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's effort to shut down the line for fear of an environmental disaster in the Great Lakes.
Nessel disagrees.
"This case is a state-law action through and through," her brief begins.
Michigan is "invoking powers that are unique to a state sovereign," it says, and asserting claims under Michigan laws "over a strip of land that is owned by the state, located within the state, and held in trust by the state for the public benefit of its people."
The dispute first erupted in November when Whitmer -- citing the risk of a catastrophe in the Straits of Mackinac, the waterway where Line 5 traverses the Great Lakes -- abruptly revoked the easement that had allowed the line to operate since 1953.
Enbridge insists the pipeline is safe and has already received the state's approval for a $500-million effort to dig a tunnel beneath the straits that would house the line's twin pipes and protect them from anchor strikes.
The company has made it clear it has no intention of shutting down the pipeline voluntarily.
Advocates, including Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan, say Line 5 delivers more than half the propane and home heating oil consumed in Michigan, and is a vital source of energy for Ohio and Pennsylvania as well, to say nothing of Ontario and Quebec.
Shutting it down would be an environmental disaster in its own right, they argue, resulting in gasoline shortages, price spikes and some 800 additional oil-laden rail cars and 2,000 tanker trucks per day on railways and highways throughout Central Canada and the U.S. Midwest.
In a court filing of its own, known as an amicus brief, the federal government tried to up the ante, warning of damage to the relationship between Canada and the U.S. and the risk of undermining the future credibility of American foreign-policy decisions.
The court should instead set aside the case and give the two countries a chance to negotiate a settlement under the terms of a 1977 treaty that specifically governs pipelines that cross the border, Canada argued.
Nonsense, Nessel countered.
"The Canadian government's suggestion that this court should hold this matter in abeyance pending dispute resolution under the treaty is without legal basis," she wrote, noting that any such negotiations are not currently underway.
"There is no reason for this court to delay or defer its determination of the issue now before it."
Canada's amicus brief, as well as three others from neighbouring states, as well as chambers of commerce in both countries, "primarily present policy arguments in favour of the continued operation of Line 5, based on economic considerations," the filing says.
"Such arguments about policy and the merits of Enbridge's defenses have no bearing on the legal issue now before the court: whether removal jurisdiction exists."
Enbridge and state officials have been taking part in court-ordered mediation talks for the last several weeks, and an update that was filed in court last month indicated those talks would continue.
Canada's brief leaned extensively on the close ties between the two countries, noting that they have successfully negotiated a bilateral agreement for protecting the Great Lakes, as well as the original NAFTA and its recent successor, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Not everyone in Canada, however, opposes Whitmer's efforts. A number of Indigenous groups in Ontario support a shutdown, as does Green party Leader Annamie Paul.
Paul has said Michiganders haven't forgotten an Enbridge spill in 2010 that dumped more than 3.3 million litres of diluted bitumen into the Kalamazoo River, fouling more than 40 kilometres of shoreline.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 2, 2021.
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has made headlines with his recent arrival in the U.K., this time to celebrate all things Invictus. But upon the prince landing in the U.K., we have already had confirmation that King Charles III won't have time to see his youngest son during his brief visit.
An Ontario man found out that a line of credit he thought was insured actually isn't after his wife of 50 years died.
After more than a century, Boy Scouts of America is rebranding as Scouting America, another major shakeup for an organization that once proudly resisted change.
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
In March, Indonesian officials and local fishermen rescued 75 people from the overturned hull of a boat off the coast of Indonesia. Until now, little was known about why the boat capsized.
An Ontario woman said it would have been impossible to buy a house without her mother – an anecdote that animates the fact that over 17 per cent of Canadian homeowners born in the ‘90s own their property with their parents, according to a new report.
A long-simmering feud between hip-hop superstars Drake and Kendrick Lamar reached a boiling point in recent days as the pair traded increasingly personal insults on a succession of diss tracks. Here’s a quick overview of what’s behind the ongoing beef.
European countries have reported a surge in whooping cough cases in 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, with 10 times as many identified as in each of the previous two years.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.