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Trans Mountain on a knife edge Canadian government insists it has met obligation to consult with indigenous communities on line; Kinder Morgan braces for protest GARY PARK For Petroleum News
The Canadian government has delivered its boldest hint yet that Kinder Morgan’s planned C$6.8 billion expansion of its Trans Mountain crude oil pipeline will receive final approval by a Dec. 19 deadline.
In a surprise stand, Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr said the cabinet of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will not be bound by its endorsement earlier this year of a United Nations’ declaration that “free, prior and informed” consent from First Nations must accompany any government clearance for natural resource projects that affect land claims by indigenous people.
“We believe that to meaningfully consult and accommodate indigenous peoples in the context of energy reviews is the primary responsibility of the government of Canada,” he told reporters. “That’s what we have done and that is what we will continue to do.”
Anderson broadside Compounding the growing anger among opponents of plans to triple capacity on the Trans Mountain system to deliver 890,000 barrels per day of oil sands bitumen to an export terminal in Vancouver and refineries in Washington state, Kinder Morgan Canada’s President Ian Anderson delivered a broadside to those who argue that allowing the expansion to proceed will undermine Canada’s plans to lower carbon emissions.
Speaking to the Vancouver Board of Trade, he agreed that a decision on the Trans Mountain proposal “is not unrelated” to carbon policy announcements by government, but voiced his own doubt that humans are contributing to climate change.
“I’ve read the science on both sides and I don’t pretend to be smart enough to know which is right,” the plain-spoken Anderson said.
“What I do know is the broad public, political view, societal view, is that over time, we as a race should reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. That’s a given,” he said.
He later released a statement to clarify his position on climate change, saying “there should be no misunderstanding in what I think or believe. Climate change is real. Fossil fuels lead to higher (carbon dioxide emissions), which in turn contribute to climate change.”
“A decision on the pipeline is not unrelated to carbon policy announcements” by government, Anderson said. “We’re nowhere near ‘yes’ yet. We’re working hard to get to ‘yes’.”
But that came after he had twice questioned the source of climate change.
Andrew Weaver, a British Columbia climate scientist and leader of the Green Party in the B.C. Legislature, said the problem with Anderson’s remarks is that there isn’t science on both sides.
“There is ideology on one side and science on the other,” he said, adding “the science is clear. It’s been clear for decades.”
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers refused to go along with Anderson’s point of view, insisting that humans are “absolutely” contributing to climate change.
But Alex Ferguson, vice president of policy and performance at CAPP, said the issue of whether climate change is manmade or not is irrelevant to the effort and the billions of dollars being spent by Canada’s oil and gas producing companies to reduce carbon emissions.
Simon Donner, a climatology professor at the University of British Columbia, told the Vancouver Sun that it was “embarrassing” for Anderson to display his ignorance on climate change when he was leading a company that was part of “big energy decisions” in Canada.
Regulatory phase Beyond ongoing public debate, the regulatory phase of the Trans Mountain application is now squarely in the hands of the Canadian government following the release by Carr of the report by an advisory panel that many indigenous communities in British Columbia feel they have not been adequately consulted on the project.
The three-person panel, whose mandate did not include drawing conclusions or making recommendations to the government, heard from thousands of people across B.C. and Alberta, including 35,000 who responded to an on-line questionnaire.
However, it said the government should ask questions about how construction of the pipeline addition could be reconciled with Canada’s international climate change commitments.
Carr said the report will be an “important element” in the government’s decision.
The panel raised the question of how, in the absence of a national energy strategy, any resource project could be effectively assessed and how the government could meet its commitment to gain consent from First Nations.
It also said the government needed to answer which pipeline route best ensured public safety.
Environment groups - 350.org and Greenpeace Canada - vowed civil disobedience if Trudeau’s government gives a green light to the pipeline, with Greenpeace holding training sessions to show protesters “how you can withdraw your consent in ways that the government can’t ignore.”
Anderson conceded he would be “naive” if he did not expect the hostile protests in North Dakota against the new Dakota Access pipeline to spread into Canada if Trans Mountain gains government approval.
“Hopefully, it’s peaceful. People have the right to express their views publicly and in that regard we will accept and acknowledge that,” he said.
Anderson said Kinder Morgan has already been in “deep conservation” with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on “what we can anticipate and what their role needs to be.”
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