Two moves within a day signal the new course the NDP government will be taking on matters related to the B.C. coast.
Environment Minister George Heyman declared plans for what amounts to a blockade against any increase in the current volume of heavy oil moved through B.C. Later, four cabinet ministers issued a statement that suggests the days of open-net salmon farming in at least one coastal region are numbered.
Apart from being coastal issues, the moves have another thing in common: They both amount to rule changes imposed on previously approved projects.
Environmental groups are happy. Business interests are worried about the message sent to investors. And our neighbours are furious.
The new restrictions on transport of diluted bitumen were soft-pedalled, and Heyman couldn’t bring himself to say they are aimed squarely at the Kinder Morgan pipeline-expansion project. But Alberta Premier Rachel Notley came out raging.
Notley, who also heads an NDP government, called the rules a direct attack on her province’s economy, said they are well outside provincial authority and promised to file suit. Her cabinet had an emergency meeting Wednesday, and retaliation of some sort was high on the agenda.
“There need to be consequences,” she warned. She said her cabinet is discussing options, including in the area of interprovincial trade in electricity.
Referring to the B.C. NDP’s promise to use every tool in the toolbox to fight the pipeline, Notley said Alberta has been “polishing the tools in our toolbox.”
Her government has been bracing for the moment when the B.C.-Alberta pipeline argument turns into open war, and it looks as if the time is at hand. She said: “We cannot let this unconstitutional attack on jobs and working people stand.”
She appealed to Ottawa for help, and she’s likely to get it, as the federal government supports and has approved the pipeline.
So retaliation is coming, and it could be dramatic.
B.C. is proposing a set of regulations to set higher standards for spill response and restrict any increase in diluted-bitumen transport until the behaviour of dilbit is better understood, which would take years. An independent scientific advisory panel will study the issue.
About 20 million barrels a year move through B.C. currently, most by pipeline and some by rail. But the line is at full capacity and Alberta — and Canada — is losing billions by not moving more volume to offshore markets. The pipeline expansion is designed to address that.
But the B.C. government says the safety of the coast comes first.
“In order to protect B.C.’s environmental and economic interests while the advisory panel is proceeding, the province is proposing regulatory restrictions to be placed on the increase of dilbit transportation.”
The study, the inevitable legal challenges and the political furor would add further delays to a $7.4-billion pipeline that is already well behind schedule, despite having all the required approvals. Which is probably the point of the whole exercise.
Later in the day, another coastal move was made.
Four cabinet ministers and four First Nations released a “statement on work in the Broughton Archipelago.” It came after a daylong meeting in Vancouver to discuss the issue of fish farms in the nations’ traditional territories.
The statement said: “The basis for this meeting was to jointly honour the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and to confirm a commitment to a consent-based government-to-government process focused on the current fish-farm operations in the Broughton area, and the protection of wild salmon.
“We are prepared to do the necessary hard work to find a path forward together” by way of UNDRIP. The NDP government has committed to observe that declaration’s requirement for informed consent from First Nations on most development issues affecting their territories.
No industry representatives were invited.
The statement essentially confirms the threat Agriculture Minister Lana Popham issued to salmon farmers in October.
Popham was an ardent critic in Opposition and soon after she became a cabinet minister, she wrote to one firm warning that its routine restocking plan for one Broughton location could be problematic to its tenure, which could not be guaranteed.
The days of open-net pens on the coast appear limited. And the all-out war over control and access to the coast is about to begin.
