The latest word from the Liberal Government regarding the Transmountain (TMX) pipeline is ”death through regulation” according to Bob Zimmer, MP for the Peace River-Northern Rockies.
This comes in the wake of an announcement last Wednesday from Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi that the government would be moving back to indigenous consultations and reconsidering the National Energy Board (NEB) approval of the pipeline.
Earlier this year, a unanimous vote by three federal court judges said the NEB’s review of the project was so flawed they could not rely on it’s judgement of approval.
“To me it puts it completely at risk. With all those consultations being redone and done over again, 117 – that’s a huge number to go through and the project was literally at the finish line,” said Zimmer.
“To restart the project to me is ridiculous. It shows an intent by the government that they really don’t want to build a pipeline.”
Zimmer said that he’s also heard rumours about cabinet “just handing it (TMX) over to First Nations.”
In terms of how Zimmer thinks things will play out if the project is given to First Nations, he said it’s a lot of unknown.
“Would it be cost recovery for Canadians that have paid 4.5 billion dollars in taxes to pay for this project? Is that going to be recovered? We don’t know what the plans of the government are.”
According to the MP, while he remains hopeful, the Grits aren’t instilling much confidence in the resource sector.
“This to me is the classic example of bogging a project down in red tape so it kills it, and eventually it loses all its oxygen and can’t proceed,” he said.
“This is what death through regulation looks like and it’s sad to see in B.C.”