Finance Bill Morneau and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are now off my Christmas card list and the Liberals will probably be off my ballot because of a decision announced today. Federal governments of every stripe have been gaga over the oil industry for decades but the decision to essentially take over the financial burden of the contentious Kinder Morgan pipeline is astounding.
There is currently a Trans Mountain pipeline carrying unrefined oil products from the tarsands of Alberta to the British Columbia coast. The Kinder Morgan project would "twin" that pipeline, except that it wouldn't be immediately alongside the existing pipeline for significant distances. It will transport diluted bitumen (chemically liquefied bitumen) to shipping terminals on the Pacific Ocean.
This new project, proposed in 2013, is contentious for a bunch of reasons, including the resistance of some First Nations, other communities, and those who are concerned that the ships carrying the dilbit will be travelling through sensitive ecosystems.
Now the feds are willing to spend 4.5 billion of taxpayers dollars to buy the Kinder Morgan stake. So much for the earnest commitment to the Paris Accord and sunny ways statements from our environment minister. This represents about $125 for every Canadian, which will likely be at least twice that amount given that the money must be borrowed and there will be delays and overruns.
What is it about oil that mesmerizes governments? The NDP government in Alberta has become an aggressive "all-in" pitbull for the fossil fuel industry and apparently the federal Liberals are willing to lose their red shirts over this project. We could argue all day about the safest way to transport oil and how much fossil fuels mean to the Canadian economy. But since when is the Canadian government in the pipeline business? Well, today, apparently.
Green Party leader Elizabeth May was just fined $1500 for protesting the pipeline project and faith leaders were part of demonstrations and may have been arrested as well. As quixotic as this may seem, it ain't nearly as nuts as spending billions on what is a sunset industry.
Thoughts?
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