Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will interrupt his trip to Latin America and Europe to return to Ottawa for a meeting with premiers of Alberta and British Columbia try to end a deadlock over a controversial pipeline expansion project that threatens to degenerate into a full-blown constitutional crisis.
Trudeau, who left Canada Thursday for a three-day visit to Peru, will fly back to Ottawa from Lima, instead of flying straight to Paris as previously scheduled.
The Prime Minister’s Office announced the itinerary change was just minutes before Trudeau’s plane departed for Peru, where he is joining more than 30 world leaders for the Summit of Americas.
Trudeau will come back to Ottawa for a meeting with British Columbia Premier John Horgan and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley to mediate an increasingly acrimonious dispute between the two Western provinces over the fate of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
Minister of Natural Resources Jim Carr speaks to reporters with Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna and Minister of Infrastructure and Communities Amarjeet Sohi, after an emergency cabinet meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Tuesday, April 10, 2018. (Justin Tang/THE CANADIAN PRESS)
The Liberal government held an emergency cabinet meeting Tuesday to come up with a strategy to deal with the escalating battle between British Columbia and Alberta over the future of the controversial pipeline to pump oil from Alberta’s oilsands to sea terminals on British Columbia’s Pacific Coast.
The cabinet meeting came after Kinder Morgan announced late Sunday it was calling a halt to all non-essential spending on its Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, giving Ottawa a deadline of May 31 to convince the company and its investors that the pipeline can prevail over the opposition that now threatens to block it.
The $7.4-billion expansion project, which was approved by the Trudeau Liberals in November 2016, is facing fierce opposition in B.C.
The 1,150-kilometre pipeline built in 1953 currently carries about 300,000 barrels of oil per day from northern Alberta to the oil terminal in Burnaby, a suburb of Vancouver.
The project to expand the pipeline is expected to nearly triple its capacity to 890,000 barrels per day, raising concerns among opponents of the project of possible oil spills, as well as increased tanker traffic in the narrow waterway.
British Columbia Premier John Horgan speaks during an announcement about child care, at a daycare in Coquitlam, B.C., on Wednesday March 28, 2018. (Darryl Dyck/THE CANADIAN PRESS)
While the pipeline is technically within federal jurisdiction, Horgan, who heads a minority NDP government with the support of the Green Party, is trying to use provincial powers to limit how much oil can be pumped through the new pipeline, effectively killing any reason for expansion.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau met with Notley in Toronto on Wednesday.
She said she left feeling “more convinced” that Ottawa will soon take action, but did not say what options were on the table.
“I will say that he did assure me the Canadian government plans to take swift action on this file,” she said on a conference call after the meeting.
After meeting with the premiers, Trudeau is now scheduled to travel to Paris for his first official visit to France and a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. He will also address the French National Assembly and attend several speaking engagements.
He is scheduled to then travel to London, where he is to meet the Queen and British Prime Minister Theresa May before attending the Commonwealth heads of government meeting.
With files from Kathleen Harris of CBC News
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