Eby has pipeline "anxiety" vows to thwart Alberta-Ottawa pipeline agreement with First Nations

British Columbia Premier David Eby pledged to block a new deal between Ottawa and Alberta that could finally bring an Alberta bitumen pipeline to B.C.’s northern coast.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

British Columbia Premier David Eby pledged to block a new deal between Ottawa and Alberta that could finally bring an Alberta bitumen pipeline to B.C.’s northern coast, a move also opposed by a powerful coastal First Nations lobby group.

Speaking to reporters in Victoria, B.C. Premier David Eby said he has pipeline “anxiety” as a result of the memorandum of understanding.

“My anxiety about the pipeline proposal that has come from Alberta, that is a key part of this agreement, is that it runs the very significant risk of taking our eye off the prize: of distracting the federal government, distracting resources and pulling time away from real projects that can be delivered in the near term,” said Eby.

Alberta and Ottawa signed the memorandum of understanding on Thursday morning, which gives the oil-rich province special exemptions from federal environmental laws and offers political support for a new oil pipeline to the B.C. coast.

The B.C. government and Eby oppose the pipeline deal, which the premier said would allow tanker traffic on the province’s North Coast despite a partial ban.

Eby has previously argued there is no appetite for a pipeline connecting Alberta oil to a tidewater port in northern B.C., even going as far as calling the possibility of a future pipeline “fictional.”

The premier reiterated those feelings at a press conference on Thursday, saying a potential pipeline has “no proponents,” adding that the existing TMX pipeline is “not at capacity” and “no one wants it.”

“(The pipeline proposal) doesn’t have something the Prime Minister recently said was core in the House of Commons: that First Nations must agree to and support projects before they go forward through the Major Projects Office. This project does not have the support of coastal First Nations,” Eby said.

“That’s important to us in B.C., because all of the projects I mentioned: those billions of dollars of investment and thousands of jobs—also depend on the support of coastal First Nations, whose support we do have for these other projects.”

B.C.’s Coastal First Nations have also pushed back, saying they will use “every tool in their toolbox” to keep oil tankers out of the northern coastal waters.

“Today’s MOU does nothing to increase the chances of a pipeline project to the northwest coast ever becoming a reality. Coastal First Nations, along with the province of BC, will never allow our coast to be put at risk of a catastrophic oil spill,” the Coastal First Nations said in a written statement released on Wednesday.

The Coastal First Nations-Great Bear Initiative is not a First Nation group, but an alliance of Indigenous First Nations along the North and Central Coast of British Columbia and Haida Gwaii. Member Nations include the Haida Nation, Heiltsuk Nation, Gitga’at Nation, Kitasoo/Xai’xais Nation, Gitxaała Nation, Nuxalk Nation, and Wuikinuxv Nation, among others.

The Initiative is organized as a “non-profit society” and is governed by a Board of Directors, typically with one representative per member Nation.