Trudeau Seriously Pissing Off BC W. Oil Decisions While Sawing Own Party Members In Half
On Nov. 29 of last year, as Justin Trudeau began to reveal his decision about an oil sands pipeline to Vancouver’s harbour, he announced he was a “grandson of British Columbia” with special ties to “our spectacular West Coast.” He then granted approval of the project while admitting many British Columbians would be “bitterly disappointed.” Most bitter, probably, were those British Columbians who voted Liberal in the last election thinking they were halting just this sort of project pushed by Harper Conservatives in the face of environmental cautions.
The go-ahead for Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion was one of many Liberal government decisions made in the past year that likely left such voters feeling betrayed. They include approved permits for the Woodfibre LNG plant in Squamish, the Site C dam in northern B.C. and the Pacific Northwest liquefied natural gas plant near Prince Rupert, as well as helping to defeat an NDP bill meant to protect wild salmon. Analysts have noted that Trudeau and his government may pay a high political price for backing the Trans Mountain project, given the populous ridings it affects and the extra tanker traffic and safety risks it involves. Add fall-out from the list of other decisions above, and critics are wondering if Trudeau is either taking environmentally minded B.C. voters for granted – or just writing off some of the province in order to please other parts of the country.
One of those political casualties could be Liberal MP Terry Beech, who criticized the Trans Mountain expansion in winning the Burnaby-North Seymour riding, through which the pipeline passes. In greenlighting the project, Trudeau attempted some damage control by praising Beech as one of the “most articulate and substantive critics” of the pipeline twinning, even as he made it clear by his decision that Beech held no sway. Beech responded by going silent for a week, before emerging to say he now supported the decision. If he’s been licking his wounds, so may be other Liberal MPs in Lower Mainland ridings who won while presenting themselves as defenders of the local environment. Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam’s Ron McKinnon released a statement disagreeing with Ottawa’s plans for the Kinder Morgan pipeline prior to its approval, then backtracked a bit. Two Liberal MPs representing parts of Vancouver, Hedy Fry and Joyce Murray (a former B.C. environment minister) both expressed disappointment with the Kinder Morgan decision.
Jody Wilson-Raybould, Minister of Justice and First Nations leader, also represents a slice of Vancouver. Before being elected, she blasted the Site C dam project for trampling Indigenous rights, but when her government backed the project she was mum. On the Kinder Morgan expansion she wrote a letter to B.C.’s Dogwood Initiative in 2015 calling the project “misguided,” but has been silent since its approval.
EDIT
https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/01/05/Trudeau-Leaves-BC-MPs-Hanging/
