Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver is calling on the British Columbia government to create a ‘made-in-B.C.’ environmental assessment of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.
The Federal Court of Appeal ruled last week that the federal government’s National Energy Board (NEB) process did not adequately consult Indigenous communities nor did it properly account for the increase in tanker traffic off B.C.’s coast.
“It is clear that B.C. cannot rely on the federal government to protect our environment from the risks of this project,” Weaver said.
“The Federal Court of Appeal has ruled that there were ‘successive, unacceptable deficiencies’ in the NEB report. As a result, they found that the NEB’s report and recommendations could not be relied upon to make a decision in the public interest.”
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in B.C. this week and acknowledged the flaws in the process but also vowed that the project was going to be built. There is no timeline from the federal government on how long consultations with Indigenous communities may take or how much of the environmental assessment will be redone in order to meet the standards set out by the courts.
“We are looking closely at the court ruling to understand what the path forward is,” Trudeau said.
“Building a strong, resilient economy for the future means taking into account relationships and partnership with Indigenous people and full reconciliation and also means making sure the science and environmental protections are world class. The court ruling indicated we still have a little bit of work to do in those areas.”
The previous B.C. government signed an equivalency agreement with the NEB in 2010, which meant that B.C. relied upon the NEB report in issuing its environmental certificate for the Trans Mountain expansion. The federal government has since purchased the existing pipeline for $4.5 billion.
Weaver says Trudeau’s “rhetoric shows” that they have already determined that they are going to go ahead with the pipeline no matter what Indigenous communities say as part of the consultation.
“B.C. needs to be in control of our own environmental review process, to make sure it is objective and evidence-based,” he said.
“The provincial government should terminate the equivalency agreement signed by the previous administration. Now is the time to use the tools at our disposal to ensure our environment is protected from the risks of an oil spill.”