BC NDP to argue Trans Mountain pipeline expansion not in national interest:
British Columbia’s new NDP government will argue its case against the expansion of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline by turning on its head the federal government’s contention that the project is in the national interest.
Lawyers for the province will be in court next week seeking to overturn the federal approval of Kinder Morgan Inc.’s project.
The B.C. legal strategy is being shaped by lawyer Thomas Berger, a former judge with a deep background in resource and Indigenous issues. He has crafted a simple argument: That Ottawa failed to evaluate the project’s risks to the marine environment, which is a breach of its obligation to consider the national interest.
Ottawa approved the controversial pipeline project last November, stating that the economic benefits of getting Alberta’s landlocked oil resources to tidewater are in the national interest. But Mr. Berger will argue that the federal cabinet did not give equal and independent consideration to the environmental and economic risks British Columbia and its people would bear.