PETITION TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA
We, the undersigned, citizens of Canada, draw the attention of the House of Commons to the following:
THAT, WHEREAS the Trudeau administration has announced it will spend $4.5 billion of public funds on acquiring the existing Trans Mountain pipeline from Kinder Morgan;
WHEREAS this $4.5 billion is not inclusive of construction costs for the expansion, projected to increase the cost of the deal to over $11 billion;
WHEREAS the pipeline was valued at $550 million by Kinder Morgan in 2007;
WHEREAS the expansion still has to pass the National Energy Board's 157 conditions and over a dozen court challenges before it can be built;
WHEREAS during the election, Trudeau promised to overhaul the Harper administration's deeply flawed pipeline approval process, respect Indigenous rights, and end fossil fuel subsidies;
WHEREAS a diluted bitumen spill would devastate local ecosystems and economies on the West Coast, or any area surrounding the 800 bodies of water its path crosses;
WHEREAS there is no proven way to clean up a diluted bitumen spill in a marine environment;
WHEREAS shipping out unprocessed diluted bitumen to refineries in other countries ships out Canadian jobs; and
WHEREAS the Trans Mountain expansion will; lock in oil-sands production growth that cannot be reconciled with Canada's greenhouse gas emissions reduction commitments, increase the risk of a diluted bitumen spill, violate the rights of Indigenous communities along the pipeline route, threaten Indigenous communities reliant on the marine environment for their livelihood and cultural practices
THEREFORE, we, the undersigned, RESIDENTS OF CANADA, call upon the GOVERNMENT OF CANADA to immediately halt any plans to purchase the Trans Mountain pipeline or otherwise support its expansion.