By Tom Mark

Pipeline Expansion Opponents Furious At Government Purchase

May 29, 2018 | 10:10 AM

Picture: Courtesy of Protect The Inlet

Indigenous leaders are preparing to escalate their frontline opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion after hearing this morning the federal government is going to buy the line.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau says the government will buy the line and Kinder Morgan Canada’s core assets for four and a half billion dollars.

The project will go ahead and the government will sell the line later.

Will George, Tsleil-Waututh member and spokesperson for the Coast Salish Watch House says “This is the moment in history where Justin Trudeau has revealed that he never cared about Indigenous rights or reconciliation,”

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He says the Watch House will continue to stand in the way of pipeline development.

The Wilderness Committee calls the move is a disturbing and outrageous use of taxpayer funds that will only embolden opposition to the proposal, says the Wilderness Committee.

“What a dark and shameful day for Canadians,” said Climate Campaigner Peter McCartney. “Our government is now using billions of taxpayer dollars to violate Indigenous rights, fuel climate change and put coastal communities at risk of a catastrophic oil spill.”

When an oil company owned by the Government of Canada is dragging protesting Indigenous youth off their own territory to make way for its reckless pipeline and tanker project, I hope Prime Minister Trudeau is ready to answer for the fact that all he had to do was let this thing fail,” said McCartney.

Meanwhile, the campaigns director for Sierra Club BC, Caitlyn Vernon, says it defies logic.

“It’s outrageous that Trudeau is using public funds to bail out a multinational corporation when we could create more jobs by investing in building a clean energy economy instead.”

She goes on to say for Ottawa to pour billions into an asset that no one else wants to own is a monumental folly that flies in the face of all the evidence.

“The message from Ottawa is that a tarsands pipeline and tankers are more important than endangered Orca whales, the hundred thousand jobs that depend on a healthy coast and our climate commitments.

“By going into business as a pipeline owner, aiding and abetting the expansion of the tarsands, Trudeau is leaving a legacy of severe climate change impacts to our children and grandchildren, not to mention the inevitable oil spills that will wreak havoc on B.C. coast and economy.”

“It’s the height of irresponsibility. This is our home. We won’t allow this pipeline to be built.”

by Tom Mark