In response to today’s announcement that Justin Trudeau and his government plan to purchase the Kinder Morgan pipeline, Aurore Fauret, 350.org’s Canadian Tar Sands Campaign Coordinator issued this statement:
“In a single mandate, Justin Trudeau transformed from a climate champion into a Big Oil CEO. He had an opportunity to walk away from pipeline politics and get on with the real work of leading Canada, and the world, in a 100% renewable energy revolution, but instead he’s opted to ignore science, Indigenous rights and the voices of people across Canada and bailed out a dangerous, unwanted pipeline with public money.
Today is not the end of this story. Kinder Morgan abandoned this project because people organized all across the country to stop it, and we’ll do it again.
This fight is far from over, and now that Justin Trudeau has turned the Canadian government into a fossil fuel company, it’s crystal clear who we’re up against.”
Clayton Thomas-Muller, 350.org’s Stop-it-at-the-Source Campaigner added:
“Justin Trudeau still hasn’t learned two simple lessons; you can’t be a climate leader and build massive fossil fuel projects and you can’t ignore Indigenous rights and preach reconciliation.
Despite tens of thousands of people opposing it, he just used taxpayer money to bailout a project that communities don’t want, that would break his own climate commitments and that Indigenous Peoples are fighting from the frontlines to the court-rooms.
This project is never going to be built.”
NOTES
The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion has been planned by Texas-based company Kinder Morgan. The 900-km long pipeline would increase the existing pipeline’s capacity from 300,000 to almost 900,000 barrels of diluted bitumen a day. The project has been met with strong popular opposition from Canadian First Nations, activists and communities on the pipeline’s projected track. Such opposition had led Kinder Morgan to threaten to abandon the project.
CONTACT
Cameron Fenton, [email protected], 604-369-2155