Cabinet to pick up where Kinder Morgan left off with tax dollars

VANCOUVER, BC – Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s announcement that Canada will buy Kinder Morgan’s pipeline and oil tanker proposal is a disturbing and outrageous use of taxpayer funds that will only embolden opposition to the proposal, says the Wilderness Committee.

“What a dark and shameful day for Canadians,” said Climate Campaigner Peter McCartney. “Our government is now using billions of taxpayer dollars to violate Indigenous rights, fuel climate change and put coastal communities at risk of a catastrophic oil spill.”

Morneau said the government would pay $4.5 billion to bail out Texas-based Kinder Morgan and volunteered to take on skyrocketing construction and legal costs.

“When an oil company owned by the Government of Canada is dragging protesting Indigenous youth off their own territory to make way for its reckless pipeline and tanker project, I hope Prime Minister Trudeau is ready to answer for the fact that all he had to do was let this thing fail,” said McCartney.

That ongoing protests, legal uncertainty and political power have managed to scare Kinder Morgan off of the project is a testament to the strength and power of the opposition movement. Now Canada has decided to take on all that risk.

“Trudeau’s desperate attempt to revive this zombie pipeline is only going to make things worse for him,” said McCartney. “People are absolutely furious — and now the guy holding the wheel of this monstrosity is up for reelection in 2019.”

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For more information, please contact:
Peter McCartney | Climate Campaigner, Wilderness Committee
778-239-1935, peter@wildernesscommittee.org