Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just did what Stephen Harper wouldn’t: He approved Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline.
I'm devastated, but there's one thing that gives me hope: the sheer amount of resistance to this project. Virtually every municipality that has a stake in the pipeline’s path officially objects to it. Tens of thousands of Canadians have been steadfast in opposition. And, most importantly, First Nations have pledged to resist the pipeline by any legal means necessary.
Texas-based Kinder Morgan -- founded by two ex-Enron executives with money from their severance packages -- has a well-earned reputation for corporate arrogance wherever it goes. It thinks because it has the money and the backing of Big Oil, it can do whatever it wants. Ottawa seems to agree -- but you know what? We don’t.
Let's show Trudeau that people power beats corporate power when it really matters. Sign the resistance pledge now.
Right now we're teaming up with the Union of BC Indian Chiefs and gathering pledges from coast protectors who are ready to stand beside Indigenous people and do whatever it takes to stop the Kinder Morgan pipeline -- with our voice, in the courts or the streets, on the water or the land. Join us.
Tripling the capacity of Trans Mountain to 895,000 barrels a day of raw bitumen would spell disaster for the climate, for the future of the ancestral lands of the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation, and unacceptable risk for communities along the route, the orca population and the coast.
While this shortsighted approval by Trudeau and his Cabinet is a setback, we take comfort and energy from the unprecedented scope and diversity of the people still determined to fight it. Nearly 12,000 SumOfUs members emailed Trudeau and his Cabinet directly this past weekend -- several every minute -- urging him not to approve Trans Mountain.
Mayors, scientists, Indigenous leaders, oil workers and ordinary citizens who have never held a protest sign in their lives are banding together to stop this thing. We’ve really not seen anything like it before. That’s how we know we’re on the right side of history -- and that we’re going to win.
Let’s show Trudeau just much resistance they will face in the coming days and months.
Join this incredible, inspiring movement and pledge to resist Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline every step of the way.
More information
Trudeau cabinet approves Trans Mountain, Line 3 pipelines, rejects Northern Gateway
CBC News. 28 November 2016.
CBC News. 28 November 2016.