OTTAWA — The Canadian government said on Tuesday that it would buy a pipeline that has been the focus of widespread protests by environmentalists and some Indigenous groups, putting the government squarely on the side of the country’s oil industry.
The purchase, for 4.5 billion Canadian dollars, ensures that the Trans Mountain pipeline, which carries oil from Alberta to a port in a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia, will begin a planned expansion this summer.
The pipeline has become a flash point for a wider debate in Canada over the environmental impact of tapping Alberta’s oil sands, which critics view as a particularly polluting energy source. Similar objections drove efforts to block the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to the United States.
The oil industry and the province of Alberta argue that the expanded pipeline would bring needed jobs and help the economy, while the province of British Columbia has been trying to block it, citing environmental concerns.
“The Trans Mountain expansion project is of vital interest to Canada and Canadians,” Bill Morneau, the federal finance minister, told reporters after a special cabinet meeting in Ottawa to discuss the deal. “Our government’s position is clear: It must be built and it will be built.”
The decision to buy the pipeline may become the biggest test of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s assertion that his government is balancing the needs of the energy industry with environmental concerns like climate change. It is likely to sour Mr. Trudeau’s relations with environmental groups.
Aurore Fauret, the Canadian tar sands campaign coordinator of the environmental group 350.org, said in a statement that Kinder Morgan, the current owner of the pipeline, had “abandoned this project because people organized all across the country to stop it, and we’ll do it again.”
Mr. Trudeau, she said, “had an opportunity to walk away from pipeline politics and get on with the real work of leading Canada, and the world, in a 100 percent renewable energy revolution, but instead he’s opted to ignore science, Indigenous rights and the voices of people across Canada and bailed out a dangerous, unwanted pipeline with public money.”
Since coming to power in 2015, Mr. Trudeau has introduced several measures to mitigate climate change, including proposing a nationwide carbon pricing plan. But he also contends that Canada’s economic well-being depends on its having a vibrant energy industry.
Kinder Morgan, based in Houston, had planned to put a second pipeline alongside 980 kilometers, or 609 miles, of the 1,150-kilometer Trans Mountain pipeline, which opened in 1953 and remains the only oil pipeline to Canada’s Pacific Coast.
If built, the $7.4 billion project would increase the system’s capacity to 890,000 barrels a day from 300,000.
The Trans Mountain plan could be the energy industry’s last stand. A previous plan to link the oil sands with the coast of British Columbia was abandoned, as was a proposed pipeline to eastern Canada.
The overwhelming majority of oil sands production, as with Canadian oil in general, is exported to the United States, with most of it loaded onto tankers bound for American ports. Supporters of the pipeline expansion argue that it would let Canada open up Asia as a second market for its oil.
As was the case with the hotly contested Keystone XL pipeline, a plan to link the oil sands with the Gulf Coast of the United States, many environmentalists hope that stopping Trans Mountain will curb or even reduce future production at the oil sands, which they view as a particularly dirty source of fossil fuels.
Elizabeth May, the leader of Canada’s Green Party, characterized the project as much more than a pipeline.
“The climate crisis is the existential threat to our society, to our country, to our children, to our civilization,” she told reporters outside a Vancouver courthouse on Monday, after pleading guilty to contempt charges stemming from a March protest against Trans Mountain.
Support for the pipeline is strongest in Alberta, a province that relies on the energy industry for high-paying jobs and billions of dollars in resource royalty payments for its budget. But the pipeline faces strong opposition in British Columbia, particularly in the Vancouver area.
The pipeline plan has already started a war of words, litigation and legislation between the two provinces, even though, for the first time in Canadian history, both are governed by the New Democratic Party, the most left-leaning party in Canada’s political mainstream.
John Horgan, British Columbia’s premier, has asked a court to determine whether the province has jurisdiction over the pipeline, vowing to block the expansion if the court says yes. But the federal government, citing past court decisions, including some from the Supreme Court of Canada, contends that it holds sole authority over pipelines between provinces.
Mr. Horgan’s opposition appears rooted, at least partly, in political calculations. His government needs the support of three lawmakers from British Columbia’s Green Party to stay in power. Like their national counterparts, the province’s Greens adamantly oppose the Trans Mountain pipeline.
The province’s opposition led Kinder Morgan to suspend nonessential spending on Trans Mountain last month. Citing investor uncertainty, it also said it would give up on the expansion plan if British Columbia did not stop its attempts to block it by this Thursday.
Rachel Notley, whose government ended four and a half decades of conservative control in Alberta three years ago, has fired back at Mr. Horgan. She briefly halted wine imports from British Columbia and this month enacted a law allowing her government to suspend oil and gas supplies to its neighbor, a move that British Columbia contested in court.
‘“It’s very interesting,” Ms. Notley told a news conference. “On one hand, they don’t want our oil, and on the other hand they are suing us to give them our oil.”
Last weekend, Ms. Notley boycotted a meeting of premiers from Western Canada to protest British Columbia’s actions.
Polls suggest that Canadians over all are split about the pipeline and the expansion plan. The expansion has support in some parts of British Columbia, outside the Vancouver area, that rely on jobs in mines and forestry.
But opposition remains strong in and around Vancouver, partly over fears of possible spills from increased oil tanker traffic. On Sunday, the existing Trans Mountain pipeline sprung a small leak near Kamloops, British Columbia, spilling about 100 liters of oil at a pumping station.
Indigenous groups have figured prominently in protests against the pipeline, which have resulted in dozens of arrests.
The finance minister said the government would eventually sell the pipeline, in its expanded form, back to the private sector.
Follow Ian Austen on Twitter: @ianrausten.
Source : Nytimes
