Canada’s new natural resources minister won’t say whether the Liberals had a contingency plan in place in case a court quashed the permits for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. It’s a question both Conservative and NDP MPs are demanding he answer.
Minister Amarjeet Sohi was asked on CTV’s Power Play whether the Liberals anticipated the possibility of the federal court stopping construction on the project, which was purchased by the government from Kinder Morgan at a cost to taxpayers of $4.5 billion.
“As you can appreciate, this court ruling touches on two very important aspects where the court has identified issues and we’re reviewing those and we’ll be responding to the court’s ruling in an expedited, timely manner,” Sohi said.
The Federal Court of Appeal ruled last Thursday that Canada failed to assess the project’s potential harm on endangered killer whales and that it’s constitutionally required consultation with Indigenous people was flawed.
Sohi said that the current government inherited a “very flawed process” from the previous Conservative government and made some changes, which the court “actually noted.”
“The shortcoming was in the implementation of that process,” he told Power Play. “Our officials should have engaged in a meaningful two-way dialogue and finding mitigation and accommodation to the issues that have been identified by the Indigenous communities and that courts have identified,” he added.
“We’re going to move forward on finding remedies on those issues. But this is too important to not get built,” he went on.
“This is about creating jobs for Canadians, this is about getting our resources to non-U.S. markets. I’m from Alberta here. I can tell you how frustrating it is that we’ve had our resources landlocked for decades,” he added.
Earlier in the day, the Liberal majority on the natural resources committee refused to allow a motion that called for six special meetings to probe the pipeline's prospects and examine why the government bought the assets despite the impending court decision.
One of the MPs who put forward the motion, Conservative Shannon Stubbs, told Power Play she wants to know whether the Liberals “had contemplated the risk and what they had they prepared in terms of scenarios in either outcome of the court ruling” and “what exactly are the next steps they will be taking to meet the instructions around consultation coming from the court ruling?”
Stubbs said the Liberals have a variety of options at this point, including “an immediate appeal to the Supreme Court.”
NDP MP Nathan Cullen told Power Play he wants to know whether the Liberals anticipated that the federal court’s decision might not go their way.
“Either they didn’t anticipate this and this is their response ... or they did anticipate this, which is almost worse because they thought they might lose this court case and threw $4.5 billion at Kinder Morgan who made off like bandits,” he said.
The federal NDP have long opposed the pipeline expansion project. So too has the B.C. government and some First Nations along the route, including the Tsleil-Waututh, who brought forward the court challenge.
Earlier on Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters that the government is “looking carefully at the court ruling to understand what the path forward is.”
He said that not having a new pipeline to the Pacific Ocean makes Canada “a prisoner of the United States” when it comes to selling Canadian resources.
