Kinder Morgan CEO Ian Anderson was at the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade (GVBT) this morning (November 30) and there received an unwelcome message from a member of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation.

 

Just after 9:30 a.m., Will George interrupted a speech Anderson had just begun to make in a ballroom at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel in Coal Harbour.

 

“Ian Anderson, Kinder Morgan, and the proposed Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Expansion project are not welcome on his lands and waters,” George said, according to a media release issued by Stand.Earth, a Vancouver-based environmental nonprofit.

 

“I do not welcome you onto my territory. You are not welcome on my lands, and you certainly cannot be doing business here without Tsleil-Waututh consent”, George continued.

 

George, who’s identified in the release as a small-business owner, was immediately escorted from the room.

 

His disruption of the event was the second of the morning.

 

About one hour earlier, another protester, Peter McCartney of the environmental group the Wilderness Committee, interrupted federal Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr.

 

“I am here as a young person fighting for my future,” McCartney said, according to the Stand.Earth release. “I will hold minister Carr to account for his plans to expand the tar sands."

 

The Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project involves twinning a Kinder Morgan pipeline that runs from Edmonton—where it receives diluted bitumen from the Alberta tarsands—to a port in Burnaby.

 

Upon completion, it will triple the amount of bitumen transported to the Lower Mainland, increasing the number of oil tankers moving through Burrard Inlet from some 60 ships per year to more than 400.

 

The Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion received federal approval to go ahead in November 2016.

 

“Aside from the many and obvious economic benefits, we approved this project because it meets the strictest of environmental standards and fits within our national climate plan,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said announcing that decision. “We will require that Kinder Morgan meet or exceed all 157 of the binding conditions set out by the National Energy Board. These conditions address potential impacts on indigenous communities, the protection of local wildlife, and the offset of greenhouse gas emissions during construction.”

 

The project is officially opposed by the City of Vancouver and by the City of Burnaby.