The federal Liberals are trying to ease British Columbians’ fears surrounding Kinder Morgan’s TransMountain pipeline expansion.
Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Canada will spend $284 million over the next five years to enforce new laws protecting habitat wherever fish are present.
A number of amendments to the Fisheries Act were introduced in the House of Commons on Tuesday morning to expand the reach of a prohibition against anything that alters or impacts fish habitat to all waters where fish exist.
LeBlanc said the safeguards Ottawa has put in place are sufficient enough to protect B.C.’s coast from an oil spill.
“I think that the best environmental response is prevention,” said Leblanc. “The last thing we want to do is be in any way responsible for not having made the maximum effort possible with a whole series of partners to prevent some environmental circumstance from affecting the oceans and ecosystems.”
The bill will be followed later this week by another one that will overhaul the National Energy Board, as well as revise the Navigable Waters Protection Act.
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“We believe that after rigorous, scientific review and the National Energy Board’s work and 157 conditions that the government put on the approval of that expansion, that it’s in the national interest that the project proceeds,” said LeBlanc.
Justin Trudeau was met by a number of protesters against the Kinder Morgan project at a town hall meeting in Nanaimo last week.
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