Galt Pipelines

Ethical Energy Shiny Pony 139 Comments

Federal Court of Appeal quashes construction approvals for Trans Mountain, leaving project in limbo

In the decision released Thursday, and written by Justice Eleanor Dawson, the court found the National Energy Board’s assessment of the project was so flawed that it should not have been relied on by the federal cabinet when it gave final approval to proceed in November 2016.
 
The certificate approving construction and operation of the project has been nullified, leaving the project in legal limbo until the energy regulator and the government reassess their approvals to satisfy the court’s demands.
 
In effect, the court has halted construction of the 1,150-kilometre project indefinitely.
 
Now, the Liberal government is the owner of a proposed pipeline project that could be subject to years of further review.

Well, then.

139 Replies to “Galt Pipelines”

    1. No, because when the .gov proposed to buy the pipeline, they already knew. Elsewhere on this blog is one about a survey on “trust”. I know the numbers are questionable but frankly, nobody trusts .gov…..on anything. It will get worse, before it gets better.

      I don’t give this country two (2) years, before it collapses inwards. Prepare yourselves.

    2. The Alberta government should shut in the existing oil pipeline to BC – after all no consultation was done.
      They should also stop all rail traffic from BC and all truck traffic. After all no consultation was done on the railroads and the highways.

      2. Red Rachel had a chance to do that today, but didn’t. Shows it was all just posturing from her.

      1. With respect, but I don’t think this pipeline is actually being built. Nebraska approved a revised routing, one that ensured delays and more legal challenges. Is the pipeline being built? i.e. is actual pipe going in the ground?

          1. Sorry, should have been a bit more explicit. I was reefing to the Keystone XL pipeline which would pass through Nebraska. The Dakota Access Pipeline does not pass through Nebraska.

          1. Only 1 phase of the Keystone pipeline remains to be built. Phases 1, 2, 3a, 3b are already in operation, most of them have been so for years. The final phase has been stymied to a great extent by activists who apparently would prefer that we all go back to living in teepees, and watching passing trains derail while feeling purified & holy by our diet of roots and nuts. Construction should be starting up in a little while once they finalize the route, which is the current focus of the delay-of-convenience. Having the majority of the project already completed and missing just this link could be interpreted by some as pure spiteful bloodymindedness.

  2. Build a 3 million barrel per day to Churchill, Manitoba along with a fleet of hardened tankers to get at least a 6 month shipping season. And declare Prairie independence.

    1. Again, nope. Build it west through Valdez, Alaska. Our “markets” are on the Pacific. The clowns in Ottywah would blockade Churchill, easily without taking into consideration the seasonal aspect.

      1. Keep it Canada and go thru the Yukon and pay off every citizen there with a yearly royalty…

        1. That is what “going to Valdez”, is…end around BC through the Yukon. I’ve posted several times over the last few years about this. It’s a no brainer for Alberta/Sask/Man. If we build a pipeline, we should also build a railway & bypass BC on just about everything.

  3. This was always going to go to the Supreme Court.

    Let’s see what happens there – most of them owe their jobs to the LPC

    1. Gordon, I agree with you that the Supreme Court judges owe their jobs to the corrupt Liberals. But the Supreme Court is so profoundly left wing, they would easily support this ridiculous Federal Court ruling. So any appeal would achieve nothing.

      1. In the history of the Supreme Court – since the 40s – it has never ruled against the feds on issues like this.

        1. But the Feds are for this ruling. It not only gives them cover to not build the extension, but they’ll run down the existing pipeline and close it.

        2. Gord Turk: If the Supreme Court is going to take the fall for this one. PM Tru-groper will blame the S.Court. To bad the Supreme Court couldn’t think for themselves….Canada will become Venezuela!!

    2. SCOC is a bunch of socialist tree huggers who will support the destruction of Canada along with their fellow travellers. There has never been a bigger group of trough lickers ever.

  4. “most of them owe their jobs to the LPC”

    Most of them were appointed by Harper. Their owe their souls to the LPC.

  5. So our oil exports will be choked for eternity, and our auto industry exports are soon to wither and die under oppressive tariffs, but we will still have a “stable supply of safe and competitive dairy products”. What’s there to gripe about?

    1. Somebody will have to invent an ignition system and carburetor that burns milk to keep our Canadian built cars going.

      2. Ed, that has been invented, butt I think some one through it in the loch ness , and the monster ate it:-)))

      3. I used to fish on a boat with 2 stroke Cummins diesels. If the milk has fat, it would burn it. Seriously.

  7. I guess one should Buy stock in CP and in Rail Tanker building companies. The oil will go out by rail albeit at an increased cost.

    If I was Notley I’d turn the valves off going West for a couple of months in order to put public pressure on the government to do something even if it’s Trudeaus’s Dad War Measures act..

  9. With Shiny’s investment record on Trans Canada, NAFTA and foreign investment levels maybe we should hand over our pension funds to him? Oh, we likely will be. Has anyone else been getting pop-up ads on how to become an investor immigrant to the US?

  10. Meanwhile, benign foreign flagged tankers carrying Putin’s oil continue to sail through the waters of British Columbia on their way to refineries in the great Democratic led state of Washington.
    Nevermind: only 45 days until legal Weed!

  11. Should take a closer look as they pass by. They’re probably mooning us from the main deck.

  12. The courts don’t care if Canadians are unemployed or impoverished by their rulings.

    No doubt the TM protesters are getting out the Tub O Backhole lube for their celebratory orgy.

    1. How can one single stupid, obviously ideologically motivated, judge hold Canada hostage? How much was she paid by foreign oil interests and their cover organizations? Kinder-Morgan followed the guidelines she invented to sabotage the other Westaward pipeline.

      1. Don’t forget about the possibility of Power Corp, the LPC and Butts clandestine motivation to said judge to tow the line either

      2. It was three judges. We should cut off all oil to BC, and cut off the natural gas coming from BC through Alberta to market – ya see not enough consultation was done. Oh and that pipeline built from Vancouver airport to a US refinery, it should be shut in – not enough consultation was done.

  13. I thought the Supreme Court has previously ruled that Indians have an interest but don’t have a veto. Fire the Federal Court judges.

    1. The decision suggests that SOME FNs didn’t get enough consultation (bribery).

      It’s an insult to any thinking persons intelligence that there wasn’t enough discussions with any one particular native group, especially at this point in time.

      The left’s definition of “lack of consultation”, is, “we didn’t get OUR way”.

      And yes, ramp up the rail traffic, and turn off the taps to BC, time to throw a little pain around at the environutters in Wangcouver

      1. “It’s an insult to any thinking persons intelligence that there wasn’t enough discussions with any one particular native group”

        You mean the judges don’t consider 5 years of crocodile tears not to be consultation. Open hearings aren’t consultation? I thought all the bands along the direct route were bought off.

  14. What sweeping incompetence, buy a pipeline company, in effect bail them out, to save them from being crushed by this decision.

    We are a bureaucratic nation, ruled not by electors, but by a ruling class of social engineers bent on scrutinizing every detail of every policy they don’t agree with. A little nugget in the ruling: pipelines over land are ok, so Alberta crude, go east yon pipeline.

    No? Somebody doesn’t agree so we must squander our national birthright? Oh Saudi crude cheaper than Alberta, by $4-$6/bbl? What if we swap it out with exported crude to the US, currently discounted at about $25/bbl?

    Oh, you’ve consulted the collectivist oracles and they still say no? Let’s check in with the voters. No?

    We are losing our liberty in real time folks, if we give these fools another run at our money, we will be paupered as a nation.

  15. Brilliant strategy by Butts and Trudeau, adhere to the Leap Manifesto and ensure Canada halts all energy development without having to sell the concept to voters.

    1. That serves Butts agenda, but is not advantageous to Soy Boy. He can’t sell that to voters, as it shows that he is intentionally shutting the industry down, after all his bluster and bravado to say otherwise.
      The current outcome is it will split the left vote, those envirotards that voted for Pony, will now vote either CommieMeathead, or Watermelon. It -could- result in more CPC MPs due to the vote splitting, we shall see.
      It was a dumb move by Soy Boy at the time and remains a dumb move. Really, his only way out is to go Notwithstanding Clause, if applicable and if he really means what he says (LOL). Who is running the country, the courts, or the government?

      1. But now Trudeau can say ‘look I tried, even bought a pipeline, but the courts shut me down’. Pleases Soros and provides a storyline for the ill informed

  16. When Trudeau’s government started there were 3 pipeline projects attempting to move oil east and west. All three are now dead. One by government decree, one strangled by regulation, the third by regulatory mismanagement, according to the court.

    But taxpayers did get to buy the decades old transmountain pipeline for a massively inflated price. So there’s that.

    Let’s not forget the carbon tax that was promised as a way to buy a social license for pipelines – that is working out great for Alberta too. Without the possibility of building new pipelines to ship their main resource either east or west in Canada, getting mugged by equalization annually, new job and investment killing regulations from Ottawa and generally being treated like dirt in Confederation…doesn’t Alberta have the strongest case for separation of all the provinces. All of their exports will be moving south anyway. Alberta having control over their own taxes, trade and regulations has got to better than this mess.

  18. Gerald Butts achieved his enviromentalist goal. Elizabeth (dis)May is happy, proving she is not for Canadian well-being, but that of her US paymasters.

    This is an opportunity for Andy 2% to run an election on resource exploitation and push through all pipelines and unlock Canadian resources to cretae jobs and money for hospitals. He should slag the Liberals as being anti-Canada by halting resource development and economic growth.

    But will he?

    1. But will he?

      Of course not. His platform will be an exact copy what Prince Pride Parade would say. As Garfield, the comic strip cat, would say, “Tweedle dee, Tweedle dummy”.

  19. This is what the airhead in Ottawa actually said, not a paraphrase:

    “You know who tried to force a choice between the environment and the economy? The last government. They said ‘we’re not going to do anything on the environment and we’re going to get all of these pipelines approved.’ Do you know what they did? They didn’t get any pipelines approved.
    (…)
    I have approved pipelines that the previous government wasn’t able to do.”

    Yeah.
    The first part is learned line and pure demagogy.
    The second as of today means zero, nothing, nada, whatever that means.

    1. What about Keystone XL? That one was a good idea. Now I know the company has pulled out. (Wonder why.) But perhaps they can be persuaded to pick it up again. Maybe we should have bought the last link on that one, rather than the Transmountain. I am getting very worried. I do not think that our country can absorb any more economic bad news.

  22. Brian Jean, on his Facebook page:

    “TMX is without question, one of the most consulted major projects in Canadian history. This court ruling today sends a damning message to the world: Canada’s doors are closed for business.
    What’s the point of Canada, our laws and our regulator (one of the most respected in the world) if activists within the judicial branch can make seemingly subjective decisions repealing every major project that is approved? How can a business or any industry function in this country? The measuring stick on consultation keeps moving. No one knows what’s enough or adequate anymore. Foreign funded green groups will always say the process was rigged.
    How is it fair that a business, and now taxpayers, can invest billions in dollars in the process, and constantly have the rug pulled from under them as construction is under way? What’s the path forward for this country? It’s a total disaster for our reputation. Meanwhile, Russia is building pipelines through Europe, Saudis continue to have access to our markets, and the US is under an oil and gas boom.
    For some reason in Canada, judicial appointments go without criticism. It’s time for that culture to change and for us all to give a much closer look to the individuals who seem to constantly rewrite laws and decisions. The federal courts are taking decisions that are beyond their jurisdiction. Redefining the constitution based on their whim. The courts are out of control and the federal government does nothing.”

    1. What’s a cuckservative like Brian Jean going to do about other than a Facebook post?
      Guy was in Harpers Tory party for ten years. They appointed the judges that made today’s decision.
      We don’t need more cucks. We need a Pinochet.

  23. It would be interesting to know how many manhours (sorry! person hours) and millions of dollars were paid to date for lawyers and other hangers on consulting with activists of various stripes. Add to that the cost of law enforcement.

    This according to our learned judges was totally inadequate. Could they give us a hint on what adequate looks like?

    Foe Canadians who can’t understand why the US economy is booming and Trump is popular with his base look no further. Choking government regulation stifles the economy.

  24. I’ve paid $263.71 for Rachel Notley’s carbon tax that was supposed to get the pipeline built. Charitably, she was wrong. Less charitably, she lied through her teeth. Either way, I want a refund and the tax scrapped.

    1. Every man, woman and child in Canada paid $1,250 for the existing and future pipeline. I want a refund.

  26. Does anyone know of any First Nation that wanted to be heard that was prevented from being heard?

    2. They know where and when to go to be heard, don’t bother to show up, then complain that they didn’t get heard.

  27. Economic suicide is going much smoother than anyone anticipated. Between brainwashed foam at the mouth treehuggers, activist judges and Indians wielding powers that no one gave them , it’s only a matter of time before we all live the NDP dream of no employment outside government and still getting everything for free, ………. just like Venezuela. The only dream the Liberals had was getting rid of Harper so they could follow the NDP template, so It’s really the same dream. Great pride parades though. Good to know our priorities are still intact.

  28. I said at the time that buying the pipeline was always going to be the wrong choice and that the only people who would be happy about it would be KM shareholders because of removing a massive liability from their balance sheet. This is just proving it out further. From a perspective of reasonableness, every single step taken by the Feds was the wrong one. I wonder if Her Orange-Redness in Edmonton will do anything at this point.

  30. Who knew that the Canadian Court system liked Texas so much?

    Thanks for the money and the jobs guys!

    Again!!

    1. When I tell fellow Canadians how the US buys our oil at a discount because we can’t ship to Asia, then sells their own oil to Asia at full price, I usually get a blank stare, or hear “the US always imports and exports oil”. Sorry young native Canadian kids, there are no high paying jobs oil industry jobs for you anymore.

    2. Texas? Try Russia and Saudi Arabia? Right now there is more circumstantial evidence that the 3 judges from the Court of Appeal are Russian puppets than there is on Trump.

  31. Dean Skoreyko (BC Blue) has a good series on Twitter comparing and contrasting the metonyms used in headlines for ‘the office and apparatus of the federal government of Canada’. Depending on the context, positive or negative, they range from ‘the feds’ or ‘the Liberal government’ ‘the Trudeau government’ or just ‘Ottawa’.
    It’s interesting that when it comes to the purchase of the K-M pipeline that most of our ‘moral and intellectual superiors’ are saying that it is ‘The taxpayers’ (not ‘Trudeau gov’t’, not ‘Liberal gov’t’, ‘not gov’t’) who are on the hook for the$4 billion plus.
    Imethisguy

  32. I don’t understand the Federal Court’s expectation. There was an environmental review as required by law. The government made a decision based on that review. There is no requirement that it be the right decision by anyone’s measure, just an informed decision. We elect governments to make decisions be they right or wrong. We do not elect judges.

  34. A couple of points:
    – in my self-directed investment portfolio, I sold by Canadian oil and pipeline stocks a year ago, knowing how patently ridiculous the pipeline approval process is. Our Western Canada energy industry is doomed, given the ruling establishment elites in this country;
    – it may be the case, over the next two days, that the Trump US negotiators will win big time, with the Canadian side caving in. This means there could be two big economic defeats for the Trudeau Liberals within the space of two days. It will be interesting to see how the pro-Trudeau media (e.g., the CBC, CTV, and the Globe and Mail) spin these defeats.

      1. When I was in high school, one of us would point to the rafters during a pep rally and a few others would look up, nodding thoughtfully. Eventually the entire school would be looking at the rafters wondering what everyone else was looking at. Canada is one big pep rally.

    2. Well, I have already heard HARPER blamed for both sccrew-ups. It’s only been three hours.

      2. Well, I have already heard HARPER blamed for both sccrew-ups.

        That’ll be Clown Prince Dummkopf’s election platform. He might throw in a bit of something like Harper trying to undermine his government. (Funny, he doesn’t object to his buddy O’Bummer doing that to Trump…..)

    3. If the Canadians cave on NAFTA, I would consider that a win, maybe not for the Liberal phonies, but a win for the country.

    4. It will all be blamed on evil Drumpfenstein. The demented media has total derangement syndrome, everything will be Drumpfs fault, that’s who Trudope will be running against, cuz Trudy didn’t get his way, and Drumpf didn’t buy into Sunny Ways.
      All three of those media outlets are already in full outrage mode, and have been since he was elected.
      Add Postmedia and Glowbull into that mix. There is no diversity, in the media, whatsoever. They all take their marching orders from Butts, and Jerry Dias, Unifor, the union that runs the Canadian media

  35. I can guarantee you Climate Barbie is high-fiving her teenage staff right now.

    Every time Trudeau said he would build the pipe that idiotic woman would tweet about the evils of CO2.

    This is juvenile leadership across the board folks and it is what you get when you elect a stupid, vacuous, spoiled pothead for his looks and his socks.

    I love my country but keep the evidence flowing because Trudeau lovers get what they deserve.

  36. Here’s an outcome that may come to pass if this crap keeps happening.
    Eventually the value thats being held captive and the debt burden that is rising exponentially will put Canadian territory on the auction block.
    Much like Napoleon decided he needed money more than he needed Louisiana, but in this case what I suspect will be the US wanting to keep foriegn powers from getting a foothold in the continent and Canada will be offered a fixed price in exchange for the northern territories with the justification that Canada is not currently maintaining sovereignty over said same territory.

    But hey, its a theory.
    Let’s see what happens next shall we.

  37. Common Canadians know what they want, and they deserve to get it good and hard.

    I know a few guys who paid off their mortgages. The rest of us are boned when rates hit 30%.

    Stop giving to food banks and charities. If people are not allowed to suffer, for the bad decisions they make, no one will ever learn anything.

    2. A lot of people in our food banks made great decisions, they left shitholes to get free stuff.

  38. we need to stop pandering to minorities. they take and take and take from the productive class.

    how are we going to pay for their welfare?

    Indigenous Day….. a day we stay home and get paid – how ironic!!!

  39. Morneau: Nothing is changed by this decision because we have no intention of building that pipeline.

    Now we have another excuse. Ain’t paralysis by analysis grand. We get to straddle those in favour of safe pipelines with those opposed on “principle” that the oil must stay in the ground, so the earth is spared Canada’s 1/millionth of a degree warming.

    Scheer needs to promise all three pipelines will be built if he’s elected PM and give a timeline. His first priority is the Canada East pipeline, which has wide approval from the Canadian public and is unaffected by this Federal Court decision. Get.it.done.

    1. So funny listening to Morneau today trying to spin this.

      Just another incompetent in Junior’s high-school cabinet.

  40. “If I was Notley I’d turn the valves off going West for a couple of months in order to put public pressure on the government to do something even if it’s Trudeaus’s Dad War Measures act..”

    Be careful the real buyer is in WASH state…If you shut the GAS down the whole west Coast including California gets flatlined, maybe Trump will have to cut that connection using Dakota Gas & Oil to protect the USA from Canadian Anti-business practices.. Alberta would be better to build the (OLD) Foothills Pipe line to the USA, bypassing BC

    The Legal Costs paid by Canadian Taxpayers (Both Sides) keeps Lawyers & Judges fat & Happy… The Indian Business is a legal gold rush for Judicial intervention…. One of the BC Indians said Canada did not have Indian approval… If the Courts consider Indian Tribes to have legal rights to sovereignty, Why are Canadian Taxpayers carrying their Indian Tribal debt.. Abolish Indian Affairs & let them sue the queen..

  41. I am so glad my wife and I made the decision to sell our home in Toronto 2 years ago and rent. We are planning to move more C$ to US$ fairly quickly as so many of our excellent posters here at SDA underline the looming financial disaster.

  42. This decision surprises no one… the courts once again dictate social and economic policy because they are a political body that are unaccountable to the public, just as intended… a dictatorship disguised as “law”. Turd and Nutly are ecstatic and so are the foreigners that used to pay PM Butthead. The Indian Mafia should be getting another big payoff, a real big one. This country is a corrupt joke and should end as soon as possible.

    1. Dictatorship of the bourgoise if I recall my teenage Marxism correctly. At the time, I didn’t understand that they were the Marxists and we were the proles.

      1. Actually dictatorship of the proletariat, which always ends up being the dictatorship of the neo-bourgeoisie.

        Replace dictators with unenlightened, self-righteous and incompetent despots. What could go wrong?

  43. We should decide whether or not Canada is a sovereign nation under the Crown or we fall under Indian “Law” given the apparent rules that dictate that nothing gets built in Canada without their say so. I vote for Indian “Law” as we no longer need to pay taxes, we can kill and or make slaves of Indians, no environmental regulations, no more politicians and better still, no more Lawyers. We could barbecue the supreme court justices as a celebration.

    The Green theocracy continues to rule the deranged dominion!

  46. Stupid Liberal Justine’s feminist troll surfaces again.

    “Wait till Andrew Scheer hears about this!”

    1. Well, I, for one,am waiting breathlessly to see what Andrew Scheer (of the Dairy cartel) is going to say about this, but his other backers are probably Power Corporation and the Irvings, who both benefit from keeping Western Canadian oil in the ground.
      We need an Opposition who will attack Trudeau like Nigel Farage did to Herman van Rompoy. So far, nothing.

  47. I just heard some aboriginal lawyer say that the First Nations peeps are now the de facto environmental gatekeepers for Canada. Paraphrased, but that was his clear gist.

    1. “de facto environmental gatekeepers for Canada”

      Is that why they throw their fast food containers and empty liquor bottles all over the ground?

      I don’t bother picking it up anymore.

    2. If that’s the case we’re doomed. Look around a reserve.

  48. Did I hear that the Squamish First Nation has taken a vow to cease the use of fossil fuels? No, I didn’t think so. What a bunch of hypocrites.

  49. If the people in BC are celebrating, they might want to think a little further down the road because they live on land that will be subject to similar “consultations”. If I owned land in BC, I’d dump it as fast as I could. And if I owned a business in BC that deals in resources, I’d pull up stakes today.

    1. I was in northern B. C. earlier this week. After speaking with some people there, I got the impression that they weren’t impressed by what Victoria’s doing to that region.

      I have a house that I inherited from my father in the area and, yes, I’d like to sell it as soon as I finish settling the estate.

      1. If I could sell out my holdings, with minor penalties, and emigrate to the US, I would do it in a heartbeat.

        Two problems, I’m white, and Canadian. In that kind of baseball, I’m out. No greencard, and, the US has tightened up their HB-1 visas and TN-1s. Still, they have a hot economy, and word is, they are starting to have challenges finding skilled technical experts in my field……

        There’s always Mexico, yes, there are still some safe areas for residency, there’s Belize. If you’re 55 or over, forget Australia.

        Canada has always been a welfare state, but now it is turning the corner into the next Venezuela. There is no doubt, a recession is on its way, dependent on whether or not Barney and her SJWs can negotiate any kind of trade deal with any value (unlikely). They burned their bridges, hard to see how they can get any kind of win, given that.

  50. Trudeau never had any intention of allowing our energy to survive, until he found out the money was drying up. By that time he had painted himself into a corner, with one small escape route, and now that has slammed shut. The good thing of it all, perhaps this will seal the fate of Trudeau and the misbegotten Liberal Party of Canada.

    2. Raymond, you must not be watching Canadian media. Donald Trump is the Devil. Justine and his gang of morons are trying to save us from him. He will be re-elected by Ontario and Quebec again.

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