The City of Vancouver is launching another court case in a bid to derail Kinder Morgan's proposed pipeline expansion.
Council members have voted to go ahead with a judicial review of the provincial government's environmental assessment of the Trans Mountain project.
In June, the city filed another court challenge aimed at quashing the National Energy Board's recommended approval of the $6.8-billion project.
The federal government has already approved the expansion, which would triple the capacity of a pipeline that runs from near Edmonton to Metro Vancouver, and increase tanker traffic in the Burrard Inlet seven-fold.
B.C. Premier Christy Clark said last month that all five of the province's conditions for approving the project had been met, including First Nations participation and the creation of world-leading oil spill response and prevention plans.
Several other groups, including the Squamish Nation, the Living Oceans Society and the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, have filed their own applications for judicial review of the project.
Comments
These judicial reviews must highlight the fact that the federal government was already biased, Trudeau stated his intention to consider pipelines. The five requirements by Clark, all for appearances to give impression that they would be seriously looked at. Clark believed they would fool the public, all they do is show her to be disingenuous. E.G. oil spill response, what really can be done in case of a serious spill in serious weather, what can be done about the thick bitumen that will sink to the bottom. Was Clark's First Nations participation really satisfied, when several of the nations have themselves entered into judicial reviews. and what about the issue of climate change, impacts of the huge increase in numbers of tankers, the burning of fuel by the tankers, and the burning of the processed dilbit product once it reaches its destination. Both Trudeau and Clark conveniently forget the emissions, and the promises that Trudeau made at the Paris COP to limit the air temperatures to 2.0 deg C, preferably closer to 1.5 C. Neither Clark nor Trudeau can with a straight face say they are serious about climate change, when they both are going hell bent on oil and gas infrastructure.
Only one other comment? Well, I'll come in on the other side, then.
So what if the two levels of government involved were "biased"? The People, god bless 'em, elected them anyway; that bias expresses the public will under our system.
Our system, however, tasks two whole levels of government - just the one in most countries - with this decision; it's being skipped over by people who don't like that decision that the 3rd level of government is outside its mandate, here; the people of Vancouver didn't elect Robertson to second-guess their other employees.
Robertson, of course, aggravates me, as a Vancouver resident, with his agenda of fake greenwashing to cover up his party's unstinting support of developers. Throw on a little paint and call the cheaply-created bike lanes environmental - when bike ridership in Vancouver doesn't budge an inch from it. Meanwhile, every single relaxation of development rules to put in another high-rise is routinely approved.
Then this, to make sure the Vancouver papers are talking about his environmental creds, rather than this actual environmental record, which is pathetic.
And the whole time, he knows damn well he's just wasting our tax money on expensive lawyers that are going to fail.