Premier Rachel Notley says her government is ‘polishing all the tools in their toolbox’ as they evaluate all the possibilities they have before them to respond to a recent proposal made by the B.C. government.
The B.C. government released what it called a second phase of regulations on pipelines in the province on Tuesday. With it, they included a proposal to restrict increases for the amount of diluted crude transported until the ‘behaviour of spilled bitumen could be better understood.’
That means that B.C. wants to study existing contingency plans to evaluate their effectiveness in cleaning up oil spills. Until that work is done, it wants to cease the shipment of all diluted bitumen to the coast.
The move is seen by many to be a direct attempt to delay the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, a project that has already been approved by the federal government.
Notley immediately spoke against the idea and called an emergency meeting of her cabinet in regards to the issue.
During the meeting on Wednesday, Notley called the Horgan government’s actions an attack on the economies of Alberta and Canada.
“Acting outside the law, the B.C. government took aim at the jobs of hundreds of thousands of hard working women and men in every industry that depends on governments acting within the rule of law.”
She said that Albertans always play by the rules and that’s why Ottawa approved the project in the first place.
“Just because the B.C. government, in coalition with the Green Party, doesn’t like the decision, it gives him absolutely no right to ignore the law.”
Notley said that the proposal by the B.C. government hasn’t gone unnoticed and pledged that there will be consequences.
“The B.C. government is threatening to thumb its nose at this principle and for that, there need to be consequences. I’ve called you all together today at this emergency meeting to discuss and evaluate the range of economic and legal options that are available to us, for example, interprovincial trade in electricity.”
UCP leader Jason Kenney agrees with the idea of slapping B.C. with some penalties.
"We should look at boycotting B.C. hydroelectricity. We should consider tolls on B.C. natural gas flowing through Alberta toll-free to U.S. markets. That we should consider ultimately as a final resort replicating what Peter Lougheed did in the early 80s in refusing to permit the shipment of oil from the Kinder Morgan pipeline that fuels much of the B.C. economy."
The Government of Canada approved the 1,147-kilometre pipeline project in November 2016 along a roughly 150-metre wide corridor.
The exact route the pipeline will take is still under discussion.
(With files from CTVNews.ca)
