http://business.financialpost.com/
Ottawa must take concrete steps to show leadership and resolve the standoff with B.C.
In 2018, Canada marked its 150th anniversary with activities that brought us together to celebrate our history and to consider our bright future as a nation. Just months later, however, Canadians are confronted with an issue that goes to the very core of our understanding of what Canada is: are we one country, or thirteen?
This is not an academic question. The B.C. government’s attempt to halt Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Expansion project poses a direct challenge to the federal government’s authority, undermines Canada’s regulatory processes and divides our country along the Rocky Mountains.
Trans Mountain received federal approval after an extensive, rigorous, scientifically valid review with input from thousands of stakeholders. At the end of that process, Kinder Morgan accepted the numerous federal and provincial conditions imposed on the project.
Despite all of this, and the federal government’s stated position that Trans Mountain is in the national interest, it remains in limbo because the B.C. government says so, even though the province has no constitutional, legal or moral standing to do so.
This has forced the company, which has already invested over $1 billion in the expansion, to suspend the project at a time when it was ramping up to begin work this construction season. According to Kinder Morgan, that work would have resulted in spending of between $200 and $300 million per month.
For the rest of this column: http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/b-c-is-trying-to-divide-our-nation-heres-how-trudeau-can-stop-it