As gently as possible given the delicate circumstances, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley delivered a Constitution 101 lesson on Tuesday to her B.C. NDP pals and the new B.C. Green caucus.
In bullet form:
• The government of Canada has authority over pipelines.
• The provinces don’t.
End of lesson.
Notley was circumspect about the B.C. election, obviously because no one is sure what was decided. Alberta this week got intervener status in the heaping pile of Federal Court lawsuits over the Trudeau government’s approval of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
Notley thought that was momentous enough to deliver a widely broadcast news conference. But it seemed aimed more at whoever is going to wind up in charge of the B.C. legislature than Federal Court litigants. There are 16 of them asking for judicial review of the approval for a hodge-podge of reasons that boil down to the simple fact they don’t like it. They won’t be heard until October.
Notley said: “I fundamentally disagree with the view that one province or even one region can hold hostage the economy of another province, or in this case the economy of our entire country. “It’s not how we do things in Canada.”
Her message is that the anti-pipeline portions of both the B.C. NDP and the Green platforms are invalid. They can’t fight the pipeline because the Constitution doesn’t even allow them in the ring.
“There are no tools available for a province to overturn or otherwise block a federal government decision to approve a project that is in the larger national interest,” she said. “If there were such tools, Canada would be less a country and more a collection of individual fiefdoms fighting for advantage.”
The statement is a reference to the B.C. NDP platform, which states: “We will use every tool in our toolbox to stop the project from going ahead.”
The rebuke highlights the single weirdest aspect of the pipeline argument — the gulf not only between two provincial wings of the same party, but between two lifelong friends, Notley and B.C. NDP Leader John Horgan. She worked with Horgan for several years, and staffed some key positions in her government with B.C. NDP imports. But the pipeline breach is severe and getting more so.
Addressing the coastal eco-warriors ready to defend Vancouver from more tankers, Notley said they aren’t the only ones who care about the coast.
“We all treasure Canada’s marine coastlines, they must be protected today and into the future.” But she noted: “They are also Canada’s gateway to the world, and they belong to every Canadian for everyone’s benefit.”
She said coastal access is a foundational principle of Confederation, which is why the federal government has ultimate responsibility for pipelines in the first place.
B.C.’s political future is as opaque viewed from Edmonton as it is from here. But Notley made one clear forecast: Whatever combination or permutation emerges, the party that winds up in power will do so with the slimmest of margins.
“My view is that they will quickly be told that they don’t actually have the authority at end of the day to stop the pipeline. At the most they can extend past what is appropriate their provincial authority to try and delay it, but in so doing they create a tremendous amount of investor uncertainty, at a time when there’s actually quite a bit of uncertainty in the economy there.
“It’s just not the kind of thing that a government that’s got a one- or two-seat majority does.”
Maybe so. But just getting to a one- or two-seat majority could require some contortions by either Clark or Horgan, if they need to secure three Green votes.
Clark backed the pipeline again Tuesday, saying the approval comes with $1.5 billion in marine-safety spending. It’s hard to picture her backing away from that now.
Horgan and Weaver are already united against the line. But if an NDP government with Weaver’s backing opens that “toolbox,” it would have negative repercussions here and across Canada, according to Notley.
The surest bet is that any move against the pipeline that a potential new B.C. government could make would land it in court immediately, even as the Federal Court cases are proceeding.
As a measure of how preoccupied B.C. leaders are now, both Clark and Horgan were asked for reaction to Notley’s comments.
Neither of them heard the news conference, or were even briefed on it.
