{"id":160371,"date":"2018-04-17T07:58:47","date_gmt":"2018-04-17T11:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=160371"},"modified":"2018-04-17T07:58:47","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T11:58:47","slug":"b-c-rejects-trudeaus-claim-its-been-silent-on-trans-mountain-demands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/04\/17\/b-c-rejects-trudeaus-claim-its-been-silent-on-trans-mountain-demands\/","title":{"rendered":"B.C. rejects Trudeau’s claim it’s been silent on Trans Mountain demands"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"FILE:<\/a>
FILE: The British Columbia government is denying Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s claim that it has been mum on how Ottawa should reinforce environmental protections \u2014 and offering as proof a detailed list of six demands it says were provided to the federal government in February. (Photo<\/a>: Justin Trudeau\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OTTAWA \u2014 The British Columbia government is denying Prime Minister Justin\u00a0Trudeau’s claim that it has been mum on how Ottawa should reinforce environmental protections \u2014 and offering as proof a detailed list of six demands it says were provided to the federal government in February.<\/p>\n

The list of items was provided to the federal Liberals right after B.C. warned it was considering whether to restrict the flow of diluted bitumen into the province should the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion be allowed to proceed, an official told The Canadian Press.<\/p>\n

They include:<\/p>\n

\u2014 Ensuring enough emergency tow vessels in response to increased tanker traffic off the B.C. coast.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Specific plans to respond in the event of an environmental incident related to the pipeline.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Improvements to make the pipeline itself safer.<\/p>\n

\u2014 A compensation plan in the event of a spill causing the loss of public use of a marine environment.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Improved research into the behaviour and cleanup of spilled diluted bitumen.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Weaning marine coastal communities off diesel-fuelled electricity.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the past year, particularly in February 2018, B.C. identified a number of gaps in existing spill prevention and response both on land and in our coastal waters,\u201d said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese discussions were not limited to, but included, measures related to the Oceans Protection Plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Sunday, following a meeting with the premiers of B.C. and Alberta over the Trans Mountain impasse,\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0said he was open to making additional investments and improvements in environmental protections for B.C.’s coastlines \u2014 over and above the government’s Oceans Protection Plan \u2014 to help mitigate the concerns of environmental opponents.<\/p>\n

But since the NDP government was elected in B.C. last summer, it has \u201cnot specifically put forward proposals on how they would like to see us improve the Oceans Protection Plan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

B.C. Environment Minister George Heyman wouldn’t accuse\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0of lying outright.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I’m saying is we’ve been engaged with the federal government, there’s been ongoing discussion and we’ve raised a number of issues,\u201d Heyman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve indicated to them the kinds of things we think would be helpful to prevent contamination of the coastline from a spill and a variety of hazardous products.\u201d<\/p>\n

B.C. and Ottawa are on opposing sides of the Trans Mountain fight, with\u00a0Trudeau’s government insisting it has the necessary environmental policies in place in order to allow a pipeline expansion that Ottawa and Alberta agree is necessary to get maximum value for Canada’s fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

B.C. opposes the project, saying not enough is known about diluted bitumen. In January, the B.C. government said it would consult about the gaps in knowledge, hinting at the possibility of regulation to restrict the flow of bitumen into B.C. in the interim.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted that information so we could ensure the recommendations were put in place before there was any additional movement of crude oil,\u201d Heyman said.<\/p>\n

The ongoing risk of delays has led pipeline builder Kinder Morgan to halt non-essential spending on the project until investors can be assured the project will be completed.<\/p>\n

Trudeau\u00a0said he has asked Finance Minister Bill Morneau to work with the company on a financial solution that would ease the risk to investors, while his government prepares legislation that would re-assert federal authority to make decisions about pipeline projects.<\/p>\n

MPs in the House of Commons took part in an emergency debate Monday night, which was put forward by Conservative natural resources critic Shannon Stubbs.<\/p>\n

Stubbs told the House the pipeline will provide necessary access to export markets for \u201clandlocked, environmentally and socially responsible Canadian oil.\u201d She said it’s crucial now, more than ever, and she accused the Liberals of killing Northern Gateway pipeline and Energy East, leaving Canada almost entirely dependent on the U.S.<\/p>\n

Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr said the\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0government put interim guidelines in place to avoid pipeline dismissals by the previous Conservative government.<\/p>\n

He said it was done by \u201cincreasing consultation, creating certainty for investors and avoiding the issues created by the Harper Conservatives that lead to the dismissal of pipeline approvals by the Federal Court.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me be clear, we did this to ensure that pipelines weren’t just approved, we did this to ensure that they would be built,\u201d Carr said.<\/p>\n

Asked about B.C.’s rebuttal of\u00a0Trudeau’s claim, Alexandre Deslongchamps, a spokesman for Carr, said earlier Monday that senior federal officials travelled twice to B.C. in February to talk about the details of the federal oceans plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese measures improve marine safety and responsible shipping, protect Canada’s marine environment, and offer new possibilities for Indigenous and coastal communities,\u201d Deslongchamps said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the course of these discussions, senior officials sought to understand British Columbia’s perspectives and presented ideas for further collaboration. We welcome further discussions with British Columbia on specific proposals the provincial government may wish to provide for consideration and on ways our governments can further work together.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA \u2014 The British Columbia government is denying Prime Minister Justin\u00a0Trudeau’s claim that it has been mum on how Ottawa …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":160019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[393,11237,6482],"class_list":["post-160371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-british-columbia","tag-prime-minister-justin-trudeau","tag-trans-mountain","mauthors-mia-rabson","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}