The environment is Canada’s biggest wedge issue

BURNABY MOUNTAIN in a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia’s biggest city, is a tranquil spot which affords a spectacular view of the North Shore mountains. Yet the area around it is the site of Canada’s fiercest political battle, which pits environmentalists against the oil industry. The Liberal prime minister has been caught in the middle. At the foot of the mountain is one terminus of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which carries 300,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta, the province to the east of British Columbia. Tankers deliver the oil to America’s west coast and to Asia.

The conflict comes because the pipeline is at capacity, forcing Alberta’s producers to ship oil by rail to the United States. The bottleneck cost them C$20bn in revenue in 2013-17. So the province wants to treble capacity by adding another pipe alongside the existing one. But the project has provoked opposition from British Columbia, environmentalists and some of the indigenous groups along the pipeline’s 1,147km (713-mile) route. They have fought it with protests and court challenges. If the planet is to avoid catastrophic climate change, “why are we expanding oil production [by building a pipeline] with a lifetime of 50 years?” asks Sophie Harrison, formerly an activist with Dogwood, a Vancouver NGO.

Justin Trudeau has overruled the objectors....

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