Canada’s opposition seeks urgent meeting on suspended pipeline project

MONTREAL: Canada’s Conservative opposition on Saturday demanded that a parliamentary panel meet urgently to consider the fate of a major oil project suspended by court order, saying Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is “personally responsible for this failure.” Conservatives on Parliament’s Natural Resources Committee requested the panel meet to discuss the controversial expansion of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline, said Shannon Stubbs, a party spokeswoman. “On Thursday, we learned that the Trudeau Liberals are spending $4.5 billion in taxpayer money to buy a pipeline that they can’t even build,” she said. “The prime minister is personally responsible for this failure and he and his ministers owe Canadians an explanation and a clear plan of action.” Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal on Thursday suspended the proposed pipeline expansion, siding with indigenous people worried about increased tanker traffic and ruling that federal authorities had not adequately studied the project’s environmental impact. The decision was a setback for the Trudeau government’s energy policy with federal elections just a year away. The 1,200-kilometer (720- mile) pipeline, which links Alberta’s oilfields to Canada’s Pacific coast, currently operates at capacity. The proposed project would triple its capacity, helping Alberta’s landlocked oil industry reach new Asian markets. Canada now pumps nearly four million barrels of oil a day, the great majority of which — for lack of access to other markets — it unloads at discount in the United States. Given the overdependence on the US market and facing steep opposition from environmentalists and others to the project, the Trudeau government announced in May that it was buying the pipeline from Texas-based Kinder Morgan for Can$4.5 billion (US$3.5 billion). That company’s shareholders approved the sale on Thursday — the same day the Canadian court was suspending its expansion plans —leaving the now-hampered pipeline as Canadian government property. The Conservatives accused the Trudeau government of damaging investor confidence rather than defending Canada’s energy industry.— AFP