CUSJ President Margaret Rao wrote to Prime Minister Trudeau on February 23 2017, urging him to rethink his approval of these backward-looking pipeline projects. The reasons are obvious:
- These pipelines make it impossible for Canada to honor the CO2 limits that it promised when it ratified the Paris agreement;
- These two pipelines would increase Canada’s emissions by a further 27 megatonnes of CO2 every year and set a dangerous international precedent;
- The possibility of a spill is omnipresent and could contaminate BC waters and wildlife;
- The proposed route of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project crosses 700 rivers, goes through lands prone to landslides, in a region at risk of earthquakes. (No, we are not making this up!)
If that is not enough to move Prime Minister Trudeau, I would invite him to consider this: Can the Liberal government really afford another proken promise?
Editor’s postscript: We learned today that ExxonMobil Corporation will admit this week that it can no longer profitably develop up to 3.6 billion barrels of its Alberta tar sands/oil sands reserves unless oil prices rise.