Feb 22nd, 2019 - The National Energy Board says the Trans Mountain Pipeline Should be Approved Despite Impacts on Indigenous Cultures and the Environment
February 22, 2019 – The National Energy Board released its reconsideration report to the Canadian government on Friday recommending that the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project was in the national best interest of Canada and should be approved.
In its report, the board acknowledged that the project would have, “significant adverse environmental impacts on the killer whales and the First Nations’ cultural use associated with them, that the greenhouse gas emissions from tankers would be significant, and that, while a worst-case scenario spill was unlikely, it would have significant environmental impacts.”
Despite the adverse impacts to 1st Nations, the environment and to the killer whale population the board felt the economic benefits to Canada outweighed the risks.
Benefits, according to the board, include, increased access to diverse markets for Canadian oil, jobs created across Canada, development opportunities for business, communities and First Nations, direct spending on pipeline materials in Canada and considerable revenues to various levels of government.
1st Nations communities were quick to respond.
“Our nation expects our territory and inlet to have the highest protections for our culture, local jobs, and residents. The Trudeau government has been ignoring the scientific evidence (on) the marine impacts on orcas and refusing to do a climate review of this project. We are in a climate emergency and we need to recognize the scale and scope of the emergency and respond accordingly.” Khelsilem, Squamish Nation spokesman
Press conference held by Tribal and environmental leaders following the board announcement.
Watch full video here
Rueben George of the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation, and one of the prominent voices opposing the pipeline, released the following statement:
“WHAT A JOKE!!!!!!!!!! The NEB is not the final decision maker here, Canada will of course take this info and try to go through with this pipe line. We TWN (Tsleil Waututh) have our own referral process dealing with over 500 referrals a year with development projects in our territory. Its a good process environmentally and culturally and all developers work within in our process. Canada and KinderMorgan did not follow our process so we sued them and won.
So here we go again. We have done our own1200 page assessment of the pipeline as well as 3 additional studies the economics, likeliness of spill and you can’t clean it up. Our Federal Court of appeal document was 470 pages, presently we are doing a health study and a air quality study. We have more on board to win this time. They have done no significant changes to their processing and their reasoning is ridicules. In 2016 NEB process Trudeau did not own the pipeline, back then NEB ended up employing multiple people who worked for KinderMorgan a conflict of interest.
Now Trudeau owns it, they will push through with their agenda Buying a broken leaky pipeline supporting his rich friends, hmmmm just like pressuring Jody Wilson-Raybould, SNC-LAVALIN scandalous. This is a disastrous BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO DEAL with tax payers moneys. It is our own policy at TWN political people, accountants and lawyers don’t make business decisions business people do, Trudeau created RED FLAGS with business experts who are saying this is not a good investment when governments step in. So many factual reasons why this will not happen.
In the beginning we said you can do this the hard way or the easy way, they chose the hard way, not long ago we gave them another choice you can do this the hard way or the harder way they chose the harder way! We are comfortable with the Canadian Constitution protecting our Indigenous rights, we have won 90% (over 250) of our court cases around resource extraction project. WE WILL DO WHAT IT TAKES TO STOP THIS PIPELINE!!!!!!!!!!! TRUDEAU WILL LOSE THE ELECTION BECAUSE OF THIS. CONSERVATIVES ARE WORSE SO JODY WILSON-RAYBOULD FOR NDP LEADERSHIP.”