AFP, Ottawa :
A pipeline project aimed at boosting Canada’s overseas oil sales and reducing reliance on US buyers has pitted two provincial governments against each other, sticking the prime minister in the middle.
The Can$7.4 billion (US$5.9 billion) expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which will allow it to carry 890,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta’s oil sands to the Pacific coast for shipping overseas, was approved by Ottawa in November 2016, and “twinning” of the 1,150-kilometer (715-mile) conduit is now underway.
But a newly-elected New Democratic Party (NDP) government in British Columbia announced last week it would block new oil shipments through the province pending a further review of the risk of an oil spill in coastal waters.
British Columbia is concerned that an oil tanker leak could damage its pristine rainforest coastline, putting commercial fisheries and tourism at risk.
The move outraged the NDP government in Alberta, which has been forced to sell most of its oil to the United States at a discount due to a lack of pathways to other markets.
It hit back by walking out on talks to purchase electricity from a massive new dam project in British Columbia and by ordering a boycott of its wines.
Federal opposition leader Andrew Scheer on Wednesday called the interprovincial trade row a “crisis” and urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to cut short a US trade mission, return to Canada and “take control of the situation.”
“Jobs are being threatened not only in Alberta, but in British Columbia and indeed around the country,” he said.
Trudeau told a local talk radio show during a visit last week to Alberta:
“That pipeline is going to get built.”
But he equivocated when pressed Wednesday before flying south about whether he would step in to end the Alberta-British Columbia feud.
A pipeline project aimed at boosting Canada’s overseas oil sales and reducing reliance on US buyers has pitted two provincial governments against each other, sticking the prime minister in the middle.
The Can$7.4 billion (US$5.9 billion) expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which will allow it to carry 890,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta’s oil sands to the Pacific coast for shipping overseas, was approved by Ottawa in November 2016, and “twinning” of the 1,150-kilometer (715-mile) conduit is now underway.
But a newly-elected New Democratic Party (NDP) government in British Columbia announced last week it would block new oil shipments through the province pending a further review of the risk of an oil spill in coastal waters.
British Columbia is concerned that an oil tanker leak could damage its pristine rainforest coastline, putting commercial fisheries and tourism at risk.
The move outraged the NDP government in Alberta, which has been forced to sell most of its oil to the United States at a discount due to a lack of pathways to other markets.
It hit back by walking out on talks to purchase electricity from a massive new dam project in British Columbia and by ordering a boycott of its wines.
Federal opposition leader Andrew Scheer on Wednesday called the interprovincial trade row a “crisis” and urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to cut short a US trade mission, return to Canada and “take control of the situation.”
“Jobs are being threatened not only in Alberta, but in British Columbia and indeed around the country,” he said.
Trudeau told a local talk radio show during a visit last week to Alberta:
“That pipeline is going to get built.”
But he equivocated when pressed Wednesday before flying south about whether he would step in to end the Alberta-British Columbia feud.
