Federal Liberals to reinforce Trans Mountain pipeline support with BC
Posted May 11, 2017 12:30 pm.
Last Updated June 15, 2017 4:12 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
CALGARY, AB. (NEWS 1130) – Canada’s Liberal government will make clear its support of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion when it meets with the newly elected government of BC, the country’s natural resources minister announced today.
However, Jim Carr said it first must be established who won the election on Tuesday night. The results appear to hand Liberal Leader Christy Clark a minority government, but this could change with counts of absentee ballots and recounts. Elections BC has said the preliminary count when it comes to those absentee ballots province-wide is 176,104. They’ll be counted between May 22nd and May 24th.
A total of 43 members of Clark’s party were elected, one seat short of a majority.
The NDP won 41 seats and the Green Party nabbed a historic three. Both have said they oppose the Trans Mountain expansion and, if they act together, could potentially try to derail it.
Burnaby South NDP MP Kennedy Stewart says nothing is a done deal yet. “Mr. Carr is panicking. Kinder Morgan was a huge election issue in the recent BC election and the vast majority of people voted against it.”
Stewart is expecting BC’s Green Party leader to side with the NDP on this issue. “Saying no to the Kinder Morgan pipeline would have to be his top priority.”
At an event in Calgary, Carr says the pipeline received conditional federal approval after “very rigorous review” and he continues to believe it is in the national interest as a job creator and means to export Alberta crude to Asian markets.
He wouldn’t say whether he thought the pipeline’s prospects of being built were put at risk by the BC election results.
