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VIDEO: The Many Faces of Christy Clark on Kinder Morgan

By Carol Linnitt

Jan. 13, 2017 1 min. read

This article is more than 7 years old

On Wednesday the province of B.C. granted final approval for the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline. Exactly one year earlier B.C. announced its official opposition to the pipeline in a final submission to the National Energy Board.

In that final submission B.C. said the pipeline posed unacceptable oil spill risks to the province’s land and water.

Since 2013 B.C. has upheld five conditions that must be met for a pipeline project to receive provincial support. Marine and oil spill response capabilties are two of those conditions.

“We have not at this time seen evidence in the NEB process that those conditions have been met,” B.C. environment minister Mary Polak told the press last year.

Now, one year later, B.C. has reversed its position and thrown its support behind the oil pipeline project.

What has happened in the meantime to justify the reversal of position? One thing that’s for sure is Kinder Morgan did not submit more detailed oil spill response plans.

Emma Gilchrist and I discuss.

Image: Province of B.C. via Flickr

Another year of keeping a close watch

Here at The Narwhal, we don’t use profit, awards or pageviews to measure success. The thing that matters most is real-world impact — evidence that our reporting influenced citizens to hold power to account and pushed policymakers to do better.

And in 2024, our stories were raised in parliaments across the country and cited by citizens in their petitions and letters to politicians.

In Alberta, our reporting revealed Premier Danielle Smith made false statements about the controversial renewables pause. In Manitoba, we proved that officials failed to formally inspect a leaky pipeline for years. And our investigations on a leaked recording of TC Energy executives were called “the most important Canadian political story of the year.”

As the year draws to a close, we’d like to thank you for paying attention. And if you’re able to donate anything at all to help us keep doing this work in 2025 — which will bring a whole lot we can’t predict — thank you so very much.

Will you help us hold the powerful accountable in the year to come by giving what you can today?

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Another year of keeping a close watch

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Published By

Carol Linnitt

Carol Linnitt is a journalist, editor, illustrator and co-founder of The Narwhal. Carol has been reporting on energy and enviro...

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