Statement from Climate Action Network Canada’s Executive Director Catherine Abreu on the federal government’s plans to nationalize the Kinder Morgan pipeline for $4.5 billion

Unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe Territories [OTTAWA] (May 29, 2018) – It is deeply dismaying that the Government of Canada is willing to dump $4.5 billion of Canadians’ money into purchasing the floundering Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline from Kinder Morgan. This move is a devastating blow to the government’s stated commitment to reconciliation with Indigenous people and it painfully undermines ongoing efforts to implement the Pan-Canadian Framework on Climate Change and Clean Growth.

In a year when Canada, as host of the G7, takes to the international stage to champion action on climate change and oceans protection, we can and must do better. This amounts to billions of dollars of new subsidies to the fossil fuel sector, while G7 commitments bind Canada to eliminating those subsidies by 2025.

National interest would be served by building clean drinking water infrastructure for all Indigenous communities, a robust east-west electricity grid that can move renewable power, and a national public transportation system that services urban and rural communities alike.

Canadians from coast to coast to coast have very legitimate and heartfelt concerns about the growing and increasingly personal dangers of a disrupted climate. Canadian prosperity is not to be found shackled to the dying spectre of long term oil sands expansion and underwriting Texas billionaires’ economic security, but in federal investments in clean energy infrastructure, moving us toward the socially responsible, globally competitive climate leadership to which we aspire.

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CONTACT: Catherine Abreu, Executive Director, CAN-Rac Canada | +1 902 412 8953 catherineabreu@climateactionnetwork.ca

Canada’s primary network of organizations working on climate change and energy issues, CAN-Rac is a coalition of more than 100 organizations operating from coast to coast to coast. Our membership brings environmental groups together with trade unions, First Nations, social justice, development, health and youth organizations, faith groups and local, grassroots initiatives.

Photo: (Chris Wattie/Reuters)