Election issues: Pipelines

“The BC NDP does not feel that Kinder Morgan is in the best interest of our province,” Kamloops-North Thompson NDP candidate Barb Nederpel said.

The BC Liberals, however, take a different stance.

“Our party is the only party in this election that supports pipelines, and supports the Kinder Morgan project in particular,” Kamloops-South Thompson Liberal candidate Todd Stone said.

Stone says the Liberals have established five stringent conditions on the movement of oil, resulting in a $1.5 billion federal investment to ensure a strict marine response in case of a spill.

The NDP don’t buy it.

“We don’t have a world-class response when it come to spills,” Nederpel said.

The pipeline expansion would triple the capacity of the existing pipeline, which flows from Edmonton, through Kamloops, and down to Burnaby.

“Your choice is either to do it on rail cars, or to do it through pipelines,” Stone said, adding, “pipelines have proven to be much safer, much more reliable over the years than the transport of oil on rail car.”

“We’re looking at a seven times increase in tanker traffic in the Lower Mainland,” Nederpel said, “and a single spill or leak could potentially cause quite a disaster.”

While the pipeline’s environmental impact is also a major concern for the Green Party candidates, they’re equally concerned about shipping away raw product.

“Why not process it in Canada, in Alberta?” Asked Kamloops-South Thompson Green Party candidate Donovan Cavers. “Why not do the processing there, rather than shipping out the most raw form possible, diluted bitumen, and then having it processed somewhere else, in China or wherever. Why not do that here?”

Pipeline construction is expected to create hundreds of jobs in Kamloops and the surrounding communities.

“Those are short-term admittedly,” said Kamloops-North Thompson Liberal candidate Peter Milobar, “but then there’s always the long-term jobs that come with it, and there’s always spin-off jobs, there’s spin-off property taxation, and if you talk to someone like an Interior Plumbing and Heating, that’s a lot of people that are employed regularly doing maintenance work for Kinder Morgan. These are very real jobs that happen in our communities.”

“There’s nothing in Kinder Morgan that is saying that B.C. workers are actually going to get this work,” Nederpel said, “and they’re not even using a Canadian pipe in order to build this.”

Although many local candidates are calling for investments into alternative energy sources, all indications are the pipeline project will move forward.

by Jill Sperling

Election issues: Pipelines

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