The Fraser River
Two NDP premiers and two NDP governments. Two provinces side by side in the Canadian west, one – the Far West, Lotusland British Columbia. The other – just “the West”, rough and tumble oil baron Alberta. Alberta is landlocked. It needs to get its oil…. sorry, let’s be accurate here, its bitumen to markets other than the United States (currently, the world’s biggest producer of petroleum). In particular, Alberta wants access to markets where they will pay more money for its bitumen, extracted from its oil sands. British Columbia is a land of milk and honey – okay, let’s be accurate, it’s a land of mountains, rivers and fjords. British Columbians are highly protective of their environment, the ruggedness of which is only surpassed by the fragility of the eco-systems that populate it. Enter the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion (“TMX”).
The feds approved a massive expansion of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline that takes diluted bitumen from Alberta through British Columbia to a terminal located in Burrard Inlet that is part of Metro-Vancouver. Once built, this will mean a huge increase in freighter traffic in and out of Vancouver’s ports. The TMX will result in increased risk of bitumen spills in the port, in the Salish Sea, in the Fraser River and its estuary and all along the route of the pipeline. In short, it will dramatically boost Alberta’s access to world markets for its bitumen but it will equally raise the risk to likely do incalculable damage to British Columbia’s rivers, lands and coastlines.
Constitutionally Canadian 