Just a week after environmentalists in Canada celebrated the decision by Kinder Morgan to halt most work on an expansion of its Trans Mountain pipeline, citing mounting opposition from activists and regional leaders, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged to provide financial and legislative assistance to enable the project to proceed.

“If Trudeau believes he can ram this pipeline through, he is misreading both the constitution and the electorate, while underestimating the opposition on the ground.”
—Mike Hudema, Greenpeace

“The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is of vital strategic interest to Canada,” Trudeau said after an emergency summit with the premiers of Alberta and British Columbia on Sunday. “It will be built.”

“I have instructed the minister of finance to initiate formal financial discussions with Kinder Morgan, the result of which will be to remove the uncertainty overhanging the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project,” he added. 

“We are actively pursuing legislative options that will assert and reinforce the government of Canada’s jurisdiction in this matter,” Trudeau also said. 

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His comments were met with strong contempt from the environmentalists and First Nations who have come together to protest the pipeline expansion.

“The Prime Minister is saying they are in negotiations with Kinder Morgan to ensure an end to uncertainty. What he is ignoring is that we are the uncertainty. We will not be bought and we will block this pipeline,” responded Will George, one of the organizers of the Indigenous-led “Protect the Inlet” or Kwekwecnewtxw initiative.