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Analysis
Energy
Federal Politics
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Environment

Kinder Morgan Through the Eyes of The Tyee

A compendium of stories and opinion pieces produced by our writers and contributors about the Trans Mountain pipeline project.

Barry Link 29 May 2018TheTyee.ca

Barry Link is editor of The Tyee.
Directly-Affected-Pipes.jpg
The reason for all the fuss. Image from the trailer for the documentary Directly Affected.

Over the past several months, writers in The Tyee have urged the federal government not to do one thing: buy or invest in the Trans Mountain pipeline project from Texas-based Kinder Morgan.

Today, the Trudeau government did it anyway.

We’ll have reports and reaction throughout the day.

In the meantime, to provide you with context, here’s a sampling of some of the many stories The Tyee has produced while covering this developing drama about which our readers care passionately.

The $4.5-billion purchase of the pipeline by the federal government should come as no surprise.

Award-winning Tyee contributing editor Andrew Nikiforuk predicted it. He also predicted it will be a disaster for taxpayers and that Kinder Morgan is not a company you want to make deals with.

Mitchell Anderson argued the pipeline project has nothing to do with Asian markets and everything to do with enriching U.S.-based refineries. Three months ago, he also pointed out the project makes no economic sense — explaining Kinder Morgan’s eagerness to sell the pipeline to the federal government.

Contributing editor Crawford Kilian argued the pipeline project is doomed anyway. Analyst Bruce Livesey would also not be surprised by today’s news, arguing that Canada has essentially been captured by the oil industry.

On the other hand, Alberta-based writer David Climenhaga, neither a cheerleader for Kinder Morgan nor a Notley partisan, suggested a federal takeover of the pipeline might be a good thing if it removes the Texas-based corporation from the equation. But he didn’t expect today’s news to happen.

In past months, we’ve examined how the unprecedented squabble between two western provinces and the federal government is untested territory for the country’s constitution. This fight has pitted one NDP premier against another.

And when it isn’t getting two close neighbours into a weird wine war, it might just be producing new forms of Western alienation, particularly here in B.C. Mitchell Anderson believes Trans Mountain could mean the end of Justin Trudeau’s tenure as prime minister.

We’ll have to wait what the courts say about B.C.’s ability to block the project. And we can ask, as Steve Burgess did, if these kinds of conflicts will ever end.

Many people see resistance to the Trans Mountain project as a moral imperative, the “War of the Woods” of this generation. Will Horter argued that those breaking the law to risk arrest at Kinder Morgan’s gates actually have the rule of law on their side. But it hasn’t been easy for protesters convicted of criminal contempt as they learn the hard way about the court system.

Stay tuned. [Tyee]

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