The Canadian Government has approved the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project – again. For the past five years, I have participated in the National Energy Board’s (NEB) Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion regulatory hearings.
I intervened in the process as an individual member of the W̱SÁNEĆ people, and throughout I expressed my deep concern about the considerable flaws that left our territory vulnerable to a devastating spill of diluted bitumen. From the beginning, Trans Mountain and the federal government showed a lack of consideration about the marine shipping component of the project. It’s always been an afterthought. Last summer, the Courts quashed the approval in part because of this shoddy work. The Canadian Government’s record on providing the oil spill preparation, prevention and response is dismal.
Represent!
I’m now the Member of the Legislative Assembly in Saanich North and the Islands. I represent in the British Columbia Legislature a large portion of the Salish Sea most vulnerable to a shipping accident or malfunction. This issue is now more than personal. It’s my responsibility to stand up and speak on behalf of the people and place I represent.
The Canadian Government’s reputation for marine response leaves a lot to be desired. The Oceans Protection Plan is little more than a marketing exercise in response to criticism. I’ve spoken with my American counterparts and they complain about our lackadaisical attitude.
Languishing response
It’s not just our regulatory process that causes them distress. Our government has failed to provide adequate dedicated resources to rapidly respond to a crisis on the water. When a Russian freighter, the Simashur, lost power near Haida Gwaii in 2014, it was an American tug, the Barbara Foss from Alaska, that was first to make it to the scene. If a similar incident occurred today in the Salish Sea, it would likely be the Jeffrey Foss from Neah Bay that would be called in to advert disaster. Since the Simashur, we have seen a lack of coordination in addressing the MV Marathassa spill in English Bay in 2015 and heard first hand accounts of the utter confusion on the water in response to the Nathan E. Stewart spill in 2016 near Bella Bella, BC.
In an incredibly cynical move, the federal government tied increased marine response and oil spill preparedness to the approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline. If we wanted our coast protected, we had to accept an increased threat. There was an even more cynical move made by the federal government. When the Court overturned the approval last summer, they put the plans to increase our response capability on hold. I think Washington State Senator Reuven Carlyle characterized the actions of our federal government best when talking about the Salish Sea cultural connection between our neighbouring jurisdictions, “That’s why there is such deep sadness by what many of us see as a lack of grace and dignity in the national government in Canada toward this shared, precious resource.”
Unmitigatable
Tension in the debate about pipelines and the future of fossil fuel development in Western Canada is increasing. My deep concerns about the shortcomings of the regulatory process remain unresolved. The primary focus of the federal government was always to get to yes. So there was little chance that the regulatory process was ever going to fairly consider the project in it’s entirety. The proponents have never been willing to look at the accumulative impacts of the proposal. Instead they break it into pieces and mitigate each one individually.
The federal government has mishandled every aspect of this project. When Kinder Morgan sensed the political stakes were too great for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to back away, they forced the federal government to buy the aging pipeline and own the steaming regulatory mess they had created for the expansion.
Decarbonization
When I started writing this post, I had intended to focus on the global climate crisis. I was going to highlight the impact of continuing to invest in expanding fossil fuel infrastructure. Especially, at a time when we need to be in rapid transition to a decarbonized economy. The issues that have instead captured my imagination once again this morning speak to a major deficit of leadership and governance in our country.
At the same time as the federal government was preparing to announce another massive public subsidy of the oil and gas industry, politicians in the House of Commons were debating and supporting Environment Minister Catherine McKenna’s motion declaring a national climate emergency. The cognitive dissonance, check that, the shear hypocrisy, is astounding.
The Government of Canada continues to fail British Columbia. Specifically, the interests of Saanich North and the Islands, the people and place I am elected to represent. Their interests have been minimized and neglected.
Approved! (again)
Yesterday, the federal government approved the Trans Mountain pipeline for the second time. However, this project is still a long way from being built.
“The cabinet accepted all of the 156 conditions and took, according to officials, the “unprecedented step” of actually amending six of those NEB conditions to “make them stronger and better,” including strengthened marine and emergency response plans with far more Indigenous participation.” CBC News
When it comes to these promises it is hard to believe a government whose track record is so dismal. A commitment to creating a good plan is a far cry from making the substantial investment in the assets needed to protect our coast from the impact of all aspects of the shipping industry. It remains to be seen if they back up their rhetoric with action.
Like all responses to environmental concerns, we have three options: (1) prevention (of serious deterioration), (2) mitigation of those harms or (3) adaptation to them. If you read NASA’s webpage (https://climate.nasa.gov/solutions/adaptation-mitigation/) on climate change, nowhere do you see the word “prevention”, like Kinder-Morgan that ship has sailed. Clearly, the pipeline debate is passing the “prevention” stage and you now are forced into mitigation and adaptation.
None of us want to have to adapt to the result of a dilbit spill anywhere between Fort McMurray and Shanghai. So you need to fight for mitigation of the consequences of this decision. The purported economic benefits of such a pipeline have to be shared with the First Nations who will be on the receiving end of any adverse affects of sending this stuff through BC. We need to have the proponents INSURE that the benefits will compensate us for the RISKS, i.e. Alberta and the Feds need to underwrite any cleanup costs and INSURE that we have the capacity to deal with any spills. But moreover, we should be working to mitigate the amount of dilbit coming down that pipe. The Feds should be refining dilbit in Alberta which will give them much greater economic benefit and give us in BC access to a product that we can actually use in Canada, instead of (like our garbage containers to the Philippines) just offshores our waste in trade for capital coming back to Bay Street.
Keep fighting, Adam. But the prevention strategy may no longer be the best or most effective one. Put the risks back onto the proponents.
The approval is very unfortunate but I’m wondering if it’s mere positioning, posturing for the upcoming election? They seem to be speaking out both sides of their mouths at the moment.
I have read all about the negative aspects of this pipeline and the potential effects on the sea and the environment as well as its lack of an economic business plan. For virtually all of which the Federal Government has some argument and answers for EXCEPT their ability to clean up a dilbit spill in the ocean. This question they invariably dodge.
My question is why are we in a dog fight about a lot of things that can be argued both ways with some credibility. Why not make this one point the reason why this can not proceed.
When there is a dilbit spill (n.b. dilbit sinks to the ocean floor) there is, with current technology, no way to clean up the ocean floor. The ocean floor is then killed for hundreds if not thousands of years.
This one point is the most serious aspect to the whole enterprise so let’s fight the battle on the one point that can not creditably be refuted.
Like your idea. One indisputable point. But lets get emotional …not too scientific.
We need rage, not acquiescence, BC needs us to stand up and be counted.
Forget for one moment that the pipe tramples on indigenous rights. Forget that an on-land spill would be disastrous for flora and fauna in the area. Even forget that a big sea spill could suck as much as the pipe is worth out of the Salish coast economy.
There remains, as Jody Wilson-Raybould recently noted, the question of whether this makes any sense financially!
The world spot oil market has to get well over ~$80/bbl and stay there for tar sands to make any economic sense. The backers of the pipe are convinced that, with petroleum becoming more and more dear because we have harvested all the low-hanging fruit, the price of oil can only go up.
But what if they’re wrong? At best, scarce commodities end up with a see-saw effect, bouncing between a price high enough so that producers can make money, and a price low enough that consumers can afford. The price rises and rises, which causes investment in capacity, causing companies to pump like mad, until consumers can no longer afford it, at which point, recession kicks in, and all that excess capacity causes a glut, which crashes prices. Remember 2008, when prices went from $147/bbl to $32/bbl, almost overnight?
Wages have not kept up with oil prices. This does not bode well for the inflation that pipeline backers assume will happen. Rare commodities can die because no one can afford them.
Unconventional oil is currently losing money. A new pipe is not going to change that. The only thing propping production up is a continual fleecing of investors, who bough the line that the price can only go up. Their memory does not go back as far as 2008.
I think in this case, Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” is giving us the finger.