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Letter: Feds 'stacked the deck' on Trans Mountain

Editor: I am writing today to voice my displeasure with Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) process and the corruption of the values espoused by our current federal government with respect to its treatment of First Nations and the climate change crisis.
Trans Mountain
This week the Trans Mountain Expansion Project announced an “immediate return to work” now that the project has been re-approved, giving contractors 30 days to mobilize equipment and commence the process of hiring workers, procuring goods and services, and developing detailed construction work plans. The city of Coquitlam is monitoring the work closely because some of the pipeline will be dug under city streets in the Pacific Reach industrial park.

Editor: 

I am writing today to voice my displeasure with Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) process and the corruption of the values espoused by our current federal government with respect to its treatment of First Nations and the climate change crisis.

The purchase of Trans Mountain pipeline by the federal government destroyed any chance of an unbiased consultation process and is a clear case of the fox minding the chickens. The consultation ordered by the Federal Court of Appeal ruling Aug. 30, 2018 was biased on its face as the federal government, through its purchase of the project, is now the proponent with five billion taxpayer dollars invested.

I believe the Federal Court of Appeal intended all options to be on the table in its ruling, including the project not going ahead. If there was no chance to get to No, how could the concerns of the nation be fairly considered?

The federal government has stacked the deck with its purchase of the project and, thus, has violated the court-ordered obligation to perform meaningful consultation and negotiate in good faith.

It is absolutely insane that the feds have wasted taxpayer dollars to buy a bitumen export pipeline that will endanger our coast, remove our ability to receive value-added revenue/jobs and further encourage the heavy oil industry that has proven to be a climate change nuclear bomb.

Geoff Hunt, Port Coquitlam