Liberal Delay Of Trans Mountain Expansion Decision
“Today’s announcement confirms the Liberals never had a plan to meet the 90 day deadline to make a decision on the Trans Mountain Expansion by May 22nd.
“The Trans Mountain Expansion was expected to be completed and in service by December 2019. Instead, construction will not have started by then – and there is a real risk the Liberals could cancel this project for political reasons.
"Canadians should be concerned about the fact that the Liberal cabinet approved the extension last week, but waited until the day before the Easter long-weekend to announce it, and clearly delayed making the extension public until after the Alberta election. Their failure to make a decision by the original deadline will cause the Trans Mountain Expansion to miss the summer construction season, significantly delaying the completion timeline.
“More than 115,000 oil and gas jobs have been lost under these Liberals, and another 12,500 are expected to be lost this year. The lack of export pipeline capacity because the Prime Minister personally gave the order to cancel the Northern Gateway pipeline instead of getting the consultation right, and the Liberals' meddling to kill the Energy East pipeline with rule changes and standards not applied to other pipelines, and their mistakes and ongoing delays on the Trans Mountain Expansion, is driving oil and gas businesses and jobs out of Canada.
“The Liberals failed to exert federal jurisdiction to ensure the Trans Mountain Expansion could be built by the private sector. Their mistakes in consulting indigenous peoples added eight months and counting to the six month delay the Liberals already imposed on the project in 2016, for which they still refuse to set a deadline. The majority of Canadians and impacted indigenous communities all support the completion of the Trans Mountain Expansion.
“The mistakes the Liberals made on the Trans Mountain Expansion, their ‘no more pipelines’ Bill C-69 and other anti-energy policies and legislation have destroyed Canada’s reputation as a stable, fair, predictable destination for energy investment.
“Within a week of the court ruling, Conservatives put forward a rescue plan for the Trans Mountain Expansion, calling for immediate emergency retroactive legislation to affirm the National Energy Board’s determination that Transport Canada, as the federal department that regulates shipping, was the appropriate department to assess the impact of marine traffic related to the Trans Mountain Expansion, immediate indigenous consultations to fulfill the court's instructions of two way dialogue with decision makers, an immediate appeal to the Supreme Court and a request for a stay on the Appeal Court's decision, and implementation of a constitutional measure to enforce federal jurisdiction over all aspects of the construction, maintenance and operations of the Trans Mountain Expansion.
“An Andrew Scheer Conservative government will cancel the Carbon Tax, scrap the ‘no more pipelines’ Bill C-69, repeal the shipping bans C-48 and C-86, and stand up for Canada’s energy sector with the leadership needed to help energy workers and their families get back to work.”