Front Burner - Controversial Trans Mountain pipeline approved, but will it get built?

Episode Date: June 19, 2019

The federal Liberal government has now approved the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline for the second time.This is a key step for the much-delayed pipeline project that’s meant to carry nearly a million barrels of oil from Alberta to B.C each day. But will approval actually mean construction? CBC Vancouver reporter Angela Sterritt and CBC Calgary business reporter Tony Seskus explain.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. As I talk about it, I can feel and smell everything that I did back then. And he looks down at me, I'm looking up at him, and he says, that's my little girl. It's a 30-year-old homicide where we don't have anybody charged and convicted.

Felt like a murderer had gotten away with something. Tell me now, did you have anything to do with the murder? Someone Knows Something with David Ridgen, Season 5. Now available. Go to cbc.ca slash sks. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. The federal government has just given another thumbs up to the $4.5 billion pipeline that it bought just over a year ago now. The Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion. The company plans to have shovels in the ground this construction season.

Today on FrontBurner, a 360-degree view of what that means to the thousands of people directly affected in British Columbia and Alberta. I'll talk to two of my colleagues from those provinces, Angela Starrett in Vancouver and Tony Seskis in Calgary. But first, let's catch up on what's happened to this controversial project over the years, because a lot has happened. Okay, so here goes. The Trans Mountain Pipeline is just over 1,500 kilometers long, originally built in the 1950s. It stretches from near Edmonton, Alberta to Burnaby, B.C., and it carries about 300,000 barrels of oil a day.

Kinder Morgan, the company originally behind the pipeline, was trying to get it expanded. They were trying to build a second pipeline beside the existing pipeline. And they wanted to do this to nearly triple the amount of oil that could pass along the route. That expansion is what everyone's talking about when you hear Trans Mountain or TMX. And if you think you've been hearing a ton about this for a long time, you are very much correct. Because this has been going on for seven years now. The federal government first approved the pipeline in 2016.

This major initiative will get hardworking Canadians back to work, put food on the table for middle-class families, and grow and strengthen our communities. But Indigenous and environmental groups and the B.C. government challenged the project in court. A seven-fold increase in tanker traffic in B.C.'s coastal waters is simply too great a risk to our environment. And the uncertainty around the project, well, it led Kinder Morgan to threaten to bail.

Kinder Morgan has threaten to bail. Then, under growing political pressure, the federal government decided to step in and to buy it. We believe that this is the best way to protect thousands of good, well-paying jobs. Only to have a federal court revoke the government's own approval of the pipeline, forcing them to do more environmental assessments and reopen consultations with Indigenous groups.

For years, Trudeau has been standing by their consultation plan, and it failed, and the courts agreed with us. They've done that, which brings us to where we are today. A decision, again, to approve the pipeline.

Okay, so we're here now with Tony and Angela. Hello to you both. Hello, Jamie. Thank you so much for joining me. Hello. Hello. Angela, we're going to get to you in a moment. I want to talk about British Columbia. But first, I'm hoping, Tony, we can start with the announcement today by Justin Trudeau, the second approval of the TMX pipeline. For this pipeline to be considered, they said, we needed to do better. And you know what? They were right.

And can you sum up briefly for me what he announced today? Sure. Well, the one thing he said today and one that I think every Albertan probably heard quite clearly is shovels, you know, in the ground, potentially this construction season. That is significant. But beyond that, you know, basically what the Prime Minister did, you know, he reaffirmed or affirmed the National Energy Board's conclusion earlier this year that, you know, this project is in the national interest. Yes, there are environmental issues, but they're, you know, that this is a project that should proceed. It doesn't make economic or environmental sense to sell any resource at a discount.

Instead, we should take advantage of what we have and invest the profits in what comes next. There's a couple of really interesting wrinkles in here as well, which I don't know that people necessarily anticipated. That being this commitment to direct every single dollar, apparently, the federal government earns from the pipeline to invest in clean energy projects. Additional corporate tax revenue alone

could be around $500 million per year once the project is up and running. This was really interesting to me. Had we heard any inklings about this before today? No, certainly not something that was being talked about in Alberta. There was more concern about what other qualifications or conditions there might be on the development. This is not something that I heard something about. And yet something that I think in a broader conversation about energy development in Canada has been talked about, this need to reinvest in future

technology and clean technology, green technology. So I think that's a really interesting discussion that the Prime Minister has put out there, an interesting plan. And of course, the other component is something we've been talking a lot about here too recently is about Indigenous support or participation in the project. Apparently, that's going to be part of an ongoing discussion going forward. I see that the Prime Minister was talking about 129 letters are going to be sent out to Indigenous groups, I guess canvassing their interest in that participation.

And when it comes to potential Indigenous buy-in, we're not putting a limit on it. Indigenous ownership in Trans Mountain Corporation could be 25%, 50%, or even 100%. So something else that, at least here in the sector, something that a lot of people were interested in exploring and looks like we'll do more of that. Okay. And I want to talk to you today about the impact that we know today's decision is likely to have on Alberta and the economy, essentially. So Alberta has been hurting, you know, more than 100,000 job losses in the energy sector since the 2015 oil drop. And do you think that this decision changes that? What the industry has been saying is that this is a positive signal. After years

of frustration to get trying to get this project built. Now, maybe there's there's hope that this is possibly, you know, a bit of a turning point. So, I mean, basically, this is all about addressing uncertainty in the sector that has dampened investment. This is a concern that we hear a lot about from the energy sector. I mean, the good news for people in the industry is that at least this is something to maybe hold on to after a lot of bad news, right? That maybe this pipeline could be built. But there's still skepticism that until that pipe is built, until there's oil flowing through it, let's not count our chickens. Right. The idea being that this pipeline isn't the magic bullet, right?

To bringing back the 100,000 plus jobs that we lost in Alberta. That's right. Because where it will create jobs, if in fact shovels are in the ground in 2019, is in construction of the pipeline. One thing I do want to ask you about is this idea that this pipeline actually isn't going to help business. You know, Elizabeth May tweeted after the decision today, she sort of alluded to this, the idea that Trudeau is pushing the discredited fairy tale that customers in Asia want Alberta bitumen. You know, the idea being like the whole reason

that we're making this pipeline is to bring Alberta bitumen to market on the West Coast so that it can be sold to Asia and that this isn't actually going to pan out the way that we think it's going to pan out. The interest in the discussion about Asian market has only really been part of the argument in favor of a pipeline to tidewater. The problem, and this is something the Prime Minister talked on, is right now we have pipelines that run exclusively to the American Midwest or to the U.S. Gulf Coast. If we want to get a better world price, you do need access to other markets.

Ninety nine percent of our conventional energy is sold to the United States, often at large discounts. Every business person knows that when you only have a single customer, you're in a weaker position. Now, in this case, that could be Asia. There's a better price to be paid because you compete in a world market, not a fixed North American market. So this is about getting a world price. It's not necessarily about Asia per se,

although in all likelihood some of the oil will maybe end up there. But the idea being that it's not just about us having the limited option of selling to our neighbors to the south. That is the bigger point. I think people have been talking about Asian markets because it is a growth market, and that's where we're going to be sending so much of our liquefied natural gas if everything goes on that front, as expected. But yes, I mean, Asia is just part of a bigger discussion about getting a better price. Right, right. Tony, and I do also want to talk to you about some of the reaction that we're hearing from political leaders in Alberta, Jason Kenney in particular. So he tweeted right after the

announcement of the approval that without TMX and other co-sign pipelines, we are underselling our resources to the United States. Subsidizing the U.S. economy and we're abandoning global energy markets to OPEC regimes. So it sounds like he very much agrees with that analysis. Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty sort of common wisdom, maybe in the oil patch. Not everyone, of course, will share those views. But I think even in Alberta, the previous NDP government would have probably held a similar or would have held a similar perspective. So in this province, it kind of crosses political lines. That is really where the discussion has been for the

last couple of years around it. And that's perhaps what Kenny is reflecting there. Okay, so not a bad day for potential job gains in Alberta. But Angela, I want to bring you back in here because you're in BC right now, where it is a very different picture. And let's talk about some of the reactions that you've heard to this announcement today. And can we start first with the BC government, who has been very vigorously opposed to this pipeline? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I don't think this decision was any surprise to anybody that I spoke to. I was speaking to a number think this decision was any surprise to anybody that I spoke to.

I was speaking to a number of people last night asking them about what their opinions would be or their reaction to either decision. And most people were like actually laughing if it was the fact that the prime minister, you know, didn't approve the project to go forward. Right, right. We should say this is really not much of a surprise to most people. Not much of a surprise at all. But, I mean, Horgan, you know, at a press conference, he said he's disappointed with the decision, of course. Although I regret the federal government's decision, it is within their authority to make that decision.

He said he did speak to the prime minister and reiterated his concerns. About the consequences of a catastrophic marine spill and the impact that would have on our not just our marine environment but our economy here in British Columbia. A lot of concerns here on the west coast in terms of marine life and then of course he's also you know Horgan John Horgan also has to answer to indigenous people who are very concerned about the environment but then of, of course, also their rights, their land rights and their title rights.

And I want to get into that with both of you in a moment. But first, can we unpack what we're hearing a little bit more about the environmental concerns? So in the House of Commons, a vote passed, a non-binding motion that we're in a climate emergency. Yays, 4, 186. Sankat, Kavansis. Nays, Kant, a majority of the parliament voted to commit to reaching our Paris agreements. And, you know, not to make this into a podcast where we just read tweets from Elizabeth May. But again, after this announcement, Elizabeth May also tweeted, you know, Trudeau hopes to magic away increased greenhouse gas emissions from TMX by claiming money earned will be spent on clean energy. Carbon budgets don't work like that.

We actually have to reduce GHG, not add more, if we want to meet Paris targets. It needs to be said that for what Prime Minister Trudeau put forward today to work, he's betting against Paris working. And so what are you hearing around how this project could contribute to climate warming, essentially? I thought one thing that was interesting in the press conference where Justin Trudeau announced his decision was he said that every dollar from Canadians from this pipeline will go to the clean energy transition. That's something I'm hearing a lot from Indigenous groups who kind of want to stake in this pipeline is that they want money so that they can transition to clean energy. But most of the environmentalists we're hearing from, you know, are speaking a lot of the hypocrisy

around this. So Mike Udima, he's with Greenpeace Canada, you know, are speaking a lot of the hypocrisy around this. So Mike Udima, he's with Greenpeace Canada, you know, said for the Trudeau government to approve this pipeline after declaring a climate emergency makes about as much sense as pouring gasoline on a burning fire. Right. You know, we also heard from environmentalists who are just saying, you know, to approve this massive oil sands project after his government declared a climate emergency. There's a lot of hypocrisy around that. The idea that these are completely diametrically opposed things. Absolutely.

We talked about what it means to hold to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. The urgency of that. We know we're in a climate emergency. Our government has betrayed us. And worse than that, they've betrayed their own children. At the same time, you know, for people on the other side, this has gone through environmental assessment after environmental assessment. There's been conditions that they've discussed. So it's almost like Justin Trudeau has his hands tied on meeting everybody's

expectations on sort of both sides of the fence. Right, right. And, you know, it's interesting that you say that for some groups, this promise to invest every dollar in clean energy does seem to be doing something to address their concerns. But then for other groups, for other environmentalists, there really is nothing that could address the concerns that they have because essentially they're saying that anything that locks us into a fossil fuel infrastructure doesn't help us meet these targets that we need to meet in order to reduce warming. Yeah, that's right. We'll be back in a second.

Discover what millions around the world already have. We'll be back in a second. Thank you. So as you mentioned, environmental concerns are a big issue for many Indigenous groups. Can we talk a little bit more about how this decision could affect them? Yeah, so I think one of the interesting things about this is that when we're talking about this in the realm of climate change, you know, that's important to Indigenous people I'm speaking with. But these are people who are watching tankers go by, you know, where they harvest clams, where they rely on the tourism industry for, you know, they have canoes that are going right by this massive tanker farm. So they're seeing and witnessing this industry unfold right in front of their eyes. And it's having an impact on their land, but also their economy and also the future generations. So this decision, again, not a surprise.

But one of the things that I'm hearing from people who are against the pipeline is that this is not, again, the end of the road. They're going to fight this tooth and nail moving forward. And very concerned about tanker traffic, very concerned about a spill. I'm hearing from Indigenous people who went up to the oil sands to take a look at what the consistency of that diluted bitumen actually looked like, to kind of think about what kind of impact a spill could have in their waters. You know also on the west coast where we see killer whales here often people very concerned about those killer whales who we're seeing you know there was one last year a mother was carrying her her baby in her mouth for the whole summer. For 17 days, the orca, known as J35, wouldn't let go of

her baby, which was the first born into this endangered pod in three years. So the noise from the tankards, the pollution, all of these things kind of really plays into the ecosystem that we're seeing around us. And that's ecosystem meaning politically, socially, and environmentally, you know, really has, it's built into the fabric of everything that we experience on the West Coast. I also know that the situation is more complicated when we're talking about some Indigenous groups, and that there is an ongoing effort for some groups to buy an equity share in the pipeline. And how do you think that this decision is going to affect what they're

trying to do there? Yeah, that's an interesting question. I spoke to the chief of the Whispering Pines First Nation, and he was one of the first Indigenous leaders who came out and who were saying regardless of whether the federal government buys this pipeline or whether, you know, Kinder Morgan continues with it or whether the government decides not to buy it, we want a stake in this. Michael, the Board of Chiefs of Western Times, we're bearing all the risk. And I don't mean financially, I mean environmentally. I don't have environmental oversight today.

So if they say no, I still want to buy it the day after tomorrow so that I can get the environmental oversight and get the title and rights holders along the line that comfort that that pipeline is being operated as safely as possible. He talks to me about this in terms of Aboriginal rights and title. And that is what I've been hearing from people who are not wanting a stake in it, but people who are fighting against it.

They actually call that Aboriginal rights and title argument going nuclear. They say, you know, if we go through this judicial review and we fail at that, that's sort of the last tool in their toolbox to say, you know, we're on the corridor, we're on the root of the pipeline, and this is our land. And that is when it's not just about consultation anymore, but it's about having consent. And that's when the conversation gets interesting, because what does meaningful consultation look like? So what I'm hearing is that the final last

straw is proving Aboriginal rights and title. But interestingly enough, the Indigenous people who want a stake in the pipeline are also using that argument to say, we have a right in equity in this pipeline. So really interesting conversations springing from the Indigenous communities here. I feel like we could do an entire podcast just on that subject alone. I actually hope you will come back on and we can dig into it a little bit more. You have mentioned a few times in this conversation, some of these groups who say that they're not going to stop here. And the question that I want to put to both of you, and I'll start with you, Angela, is what happens next here? You know, is this the end of the line? Is this essentially step three in what could be a

10-step process where we could end up with actually no pipeline at the end of this? Yeah, I mean, listening to the people fighting the pipeline, you know, like I've said over and over again, this is not the end of the road. I'm told that the government has 15 days to to file this and then the indigenous groups or whoever's fighting it, environmentalists, members of the public who are concerned about the impacts of this pipeline have 15 days after that to file a judicial review. And, you know, that means they can bring up some of these issues of lack of consultation. So all these issues could come up in a judicial review. Horgan's also saying that, you know, he's going to forge ahead with a reference case to the Supreme Court of Canada. This is not just about this project. It's about protecting provincial jurisdiction and ensuring that the government of British Columbia can do everything in its power to protect those things

that are so important to British Columbians. So shovels in the ground, so the federal government says, whether we're actually going to see that, it's hard to imagine, to be honest. And Tony, what are your thoughts on this? Jason Kenney himself said approval is in construction. No, and I think Angela's done a great job of kind of laying out the challenges that are in front of this project before they actually begin the work. And construction

apparently would take 30 to 36 months, depending on when they start. But when you look at the fight still ahead, it's sort of hard to fathom that this is something that plays out in short order. Because this is not the first pipeline to find it in a massive fight in recent memory. Right. And whether it's in Canada or the United States, there's growing opposition to pipelines, or there appears to be greater attention paid to the opposition to pipelines. And whether that's in Nebraska, or whether that's in BC, you know, this is all part of a broader discussion about the future of energy development in Canada and around the world. It's an intense discussion because of what we're seeing,

you know, happening on the climate front. So, you know, this is a pretty dramatic discussion. And again, I just, I don't think it's going to evaporate. It does sound like no matter what, there's going to be lots of potential twists and turns in the future. And I really hope that you'll both come back. This was a great conversation and I'm very appreciative. Thank you.

You're welcome. After Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion would go ahead on Tuesday, we heard from opposition parties who reacted to the decision. You've already heard from Green Party leader Elizabeth May. We talked about her in my conversation with Tony and Angela. So here's a bit of Conservative leader Andrew Scheer. And after that, you'll hear from NDP leader Jagmeet Singh. The real question today is, and the real question Justin Trudeau was unable to answer, is when will the Trans Mountain Pipeline actually get built? We have opposed this project, believe it is harmful to the coastline, harmful to people, harmful to workers,

and is not good for the province of BC or for Canada. That's all for today. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts. It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is raging. A lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog. She names it Gay Girl in Damascus. Am I crazy? Maybe. As her profile grows, so does the danger. The object of the email was, please read this while sitting down.

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