We Need Jobs not Climate Disaster
As the government owns the Trans Mountain pipeline to Vancouver it is no surprise the government has approved its construction. They are hardly neutral judges!!
The pipeline will boost climate change by increasing the use of fossil fuels. This approval comes as eastern Canada is still recovering from devastating spring floods, while the fires are already burning in Canadian forests. The Arctic is melting at record rates. Hypocritically, the day before Trudeau approved the pipeline his government passed a motion in the House of Commons declaring a national emergency on climate change.
Canada and the entire world faces more than a climate emergency, we face a climate disaster. Passing a resolution will not stop climate change – it needs action. The present path is to an average global increase of temperature by 40C by 2100. This would mean most of the tropics would be uninhabitable and a massive increase in deserts around the world – a true apocalypse coming.
Even for Canada, the Trans Mountain pipeline will add fuel to the fires and boost floods. Wildfires now cost billions of dollars every year in damage to properties, fire suppression and lost production. The human suffering is beyond measure.
As well as climate change, the pipeline, if built, puts at grave risk the environment along its route from the Alberta tar sands to the Port of Vancouver. Increased tanker traffic will further endanger the orca population. Spills and leaks will happen. This could wipe out salmon in the Fraser River, which would devastate Indigenous peoples’ culture and destroy thousands of commercial and recreational jobs.
When a spill happens in Vancouver’s harbour it will be shut for weeks and be disastrous for the region’s economy with losses of over $1 billion and tens of thousands of jobs threatened.
What is the justification for the pipeline? Trudeau claims it will provide 15,000 jobs. However, there is no evidence to back the claim. Kinder Morgan, when they owned the pipeline, stated that the project would create 90 permanent jobs and 2,500 construction jobs for two years. The rest of the claimed jobs are based on a wild calculation and the assumption that the pipeline will boost the price for bitumen and therefore stimulate expanding the tar sands (adding even more to climate change). The lower price of bitumen is mainly due to the higher costs of shipping (bitumen does not flow naturally) and refining it compared to regular crude oil.
The cost of the buying and construction of the pipeline will be at least $13.8 billion. This money could provide well over 10,000 good paying jobs in renewable energy, constructing green homes, improving public transit and other beneficial projects. These could be part of a bold socialist Green New Deal that would make Canada an example of clean energy and a world leader in green energy technology.
Instead, Trudeau is pushing ahead to build a pipeline. For the Liberals this is about more than one pipeline, which is hardly needed as there are several other pipelines likely to come on-stream in the next few years. This is about showing the capitalist friends of the Liberals, in Bay Street and around the world, that Canada is open for exploitation. They are saying come to Canada and mine the minerals, extract the resources and ship them away. The Canadian government doesn’t even require the raw materials be processed in Canada. Most of the good jobs are downstream in refining and manufacturing the raw materials.
The plan to build the pipeline will face continued opposition. There will another round of court cases, brought by Indigenous groups, environmentalists, and local government. Alongside the court cases, there will further blockades. Trudeau cares more about big business than the environment or Indigenous rights.
One of the latest cynical twists in this saga is the plan to get some First Nations to buy into the pipeline. The argument goes that the pipeline is going to be built and will damage the health of Indigenous people and environment – the land, water and air – they rely on. But at least if they own part of it, they will get some money as compensation for the damage. This, of course, assumes the pipeline makes money after all the costs of construction. This plan continues the long history of Canadian capitalism to divide Indigenous people and, even better, to put them in conflict with each other.
A strong united campaign is needed to defeat the pipeline. Such a campaign needs to expose the sham economic claims of those who support the pipeline, instead pointing out that the alternative of investing in renewable energy, efficient buildings and public transit would respect Indigenous rights and be better for both the environment and jobs.
