Editor:
Re: An open letter to federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh:
The 2019 federal election has given you a golden opportunity. To be sure, your party's caucus was reduced in size, but in a minority government situation, you have a pivotal position in influencing the direction of the next Liberal government.
With one single policy, you can show a firm commitment to a fundamental plank in your party's platform (https://www.ndp.ca/climate-and-jobs) – to end subsidies to fossil fuels, and to take firm action on climate crisis - render meaningful your welcome declared opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project (TMX), and also represent your constituents in Burnaby, which disproportionately bears the brunt of TMX's potentially devastating environmental risks (including pipeline ruptures, tank farm explosions, and super-tanker collisions).
That policy is to pledge to vote against any speech from the Throne that proposes completion of TMX, and any federal budget that includes public funding for that project.
While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the fossil fuel lobby have done everything possible to make TMX seem inevitable, it is not.
It cannot proceed without an injection of further billions in public funds for construction and liability insurance. Major challenges from First Nations are before the courts.
And if a sober look at the business case for the project could supplant its role as a political symbol, its economic risks would become more evident. Independent analysts like Robyn Allan and J. David Hughes have argued compellingly that there is no large Asian demand for Alberta's bitumen, TMX will not hugely increase its per-barrel price, relatively few permanent jobs will be created, competing delivery routes will be online soon, and the existing capacity of Canadian pipelines is not efficiently used (https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/11/26/analysis/false-oil-price-narrative-used-scare-canadians-accepting-trans-mountain-pipeline; https://novel.robynallan.com/; https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/can-canada-expand-oil-and-gas-production-build-pipelines-and-keep-its-climate; https://vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/david-hughes-politics-versus-the-future-canadas-orwellian-energy-standoff.) The cancellation of TMX spending could save Canadian taxpayers billions of dollars.
And if by chance TMX does help expand Alberta bitumen sands production, it will shred Canada's shrinking reputation as a climate leader, and our chances of meeting our Paris climate accord commitments.
At the same time, a just transition to a low-carbon economy means that resource-dependent regions and workers should not disproportionately bear the costs. The hundreds of thousands of jobs that the NDP called for through shifting public investment and subsidies from fossil fuels to renewables, should prioritize sun-rich Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Now is the time to ask you, as a federal party leader and the MP for Burnaby South, to accept a historic role in helping to create the new economy that we desperately need.
Bob Hackett, Burnaby Residents Opposing Kinder Morgan Expansion
