The city of Vancouver has joined the fight against the National Energy Board’s (NEB) approval of the Kinder Morgan expansion project.
Vancouver has joined Aboriginal groups, the City of Burnaby, and environment organizations, like the Wilderness Committee, to challenge the sufficiency of the NEB’s process in B.C. Supreme Court.
Peter McCartney of the Wilderness Committee says the NEB’s process is broken.
“Nobody – not the province or the feds – has given this pipeline a real review. The NEB process was a joke and we’re confident the court will realize that.”
The case claims that The NEB process left unclear rules to over a thousand people in the region about who would be directly affected by the expansion, that they didn’t examine and research alternate routes, and that critical evidence about the lack of a capacity to clean up oil spills was ignored by the board.
A lunch-time protest took place Monday outside the Supreme Court of B.C. as people voiced their support in the City’s decision in joining the fight.
The pipeline was approved by the former Liberal B.C. government, but the new NDP government has other thoughts.
READ MORE: Trans Mountain Pipeline is not in B.C.’s best interest says BC NDP government
Prime Minister Trudeau’s platform before election was that the Kinder Morgan expansion should be reviewed, but approved the expansion in November 2016.
“Trudeau himself acknowledged the huge failings of the NEB but approved the pipeline based on its broken review,” said McCartney.
Meanwhile, protesters gathered in Burnaby for a “die-in” protest where people used costumes, signs, and dramatics to protest against Kinder Morgan. These protesters claim that the Burnaby Fire Department would be unable to react quick enough if a fire were to happen at the base of Burnaby Mountain, where the proposed pipeline’s terminus would be, that could result in injuries and poisoning the air.
Construction on the expansion has begun in Alberta locations but has not yet been started in B.C.