Trans Mountain

The federal Transport Department is refusing to explain why it rejected a marine safety concern flagged by the B.C. government in 2016 that was related to the Trans Mountain pipeline and oil tanker expansion project.

NDP MP Kennedy Stewart is one of over 200 people arrested on a Burnaby construction site in metro Vancouver, where the Texas energy giant is trying to proceed with its Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.

The outspoken climate and anti-pipeline advocate will be an independent candidate in the race to be Vancouver’s next mayor in the fall.

Two have pled guilty to contempt of court for crossing the court-ordered injunction line while protesting the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion at the gates of its Burnaby terminal construction site in British Columbia.

CanLit star Shaena Lambert tied herself to the gates of Kinder Morgan’s Burnaby pipeline terminal in an act of civil disobedience on Saturday. Lambert was arrested by the RCMP along with Cat Roivas, a Chippewayan woman who had already been arrested twice for blocking access to the Texas-based company’s tank farm.

“The facts and circumstances which have given rise to this motion are highly unusual and, indeed, extremely alarming,” said the motion, submitted on May 2 to the Federal Court of Appeal by lawyers for the Tsleil-Waututh Nation.

The incessant grumbling from Canada’s oil industry—on pipelines, environmental reviews, carbon pricing and competitiveness—is obscuring the obvious.

We’re not going to get off fossil fuels overnight!” How many times have you heard that?

Together, Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples need to take action, showing their Members of Parliament that there are thousands of people across Canada ready for real climate action.

The Tsleil-Waututh Nation "is of the view that the new evidence, viewed in the larger context of the existing evidence which is already before the Court, casts further unfavorable light on Canada's approach to 'consultation' with TWN," wrote lawyer Scott Smitt in a letter sent to the Federal Court of Appeal on April 29, 2018.

British Columbia's court case over the flow of heavy oil through the province could be damaged by the NDP government's previous positions against the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, says a legal expert.

A lawyer representing the Tsleil-Waututh Nation has asked the Federal Court of Appeal to compel the release of the Trudeau government's Trudeau government Kinder Morgan secrets.

“I guess that's something that wouldn't have fazed me at all if the Harper government was still in power,” the public servant told National Observer. “But given the change in government, seeing as how we were told to provide serious advice, I was rather shocked at being given that kind of direction. It's not something that I would have expected from a Liberal government.”

The B.C. government is asking the courts to decide whether the province can legally regulate the transportation of hazardous substances like diluted bitumen through the province.

The threat of diluted bitumen spills has been flagged as a major concern by scientists, First Nations and British Columbia. Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna told her provincial B.C. counterpart she has a plan to address this concern.