29 May 2018 (VANCOUVER) — Earlier today, Minister Morneau announced the federal government has reached an agreement with Kinder Morgan Canada to purchase the existing Trans Mountain pipeline and infrastructure related to the Trans Mountain Expansion Project for $4.5 billion. In response, Mike Hudema, a Climate and Energy Campaigner at Greenpeace Canada, said:

“Kinder Morgan’s decision to walk away from its controversial pipeline and tanker project is a testament to the hard work of the Indigenous communities who have been leading the fight to stop this dangerous project, and of the people across Canada and around the world who have stood with them to protect water, land and the climate. They aren’t going anywhere.

“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has just signed up to captain the Titanic of tar sands oil pipelines, putting it on a collision course with its commitments to Indigenous rights and the Paris climate agreement. Trudeau is gambling billions of Canadian taxpayer dollars on an oil project that will never be built — a project that Kinder Morgan itself has indicated is ‘untenable’ and that faces more than a dozen lawsuits, crumbling economics, and a growing resistance movement that is spreading around the world.

“The Indigenous-led, people-powered movement that led Kinder Morgan to abandon ship on this project is stronger than ever and will not back down. Today’s decision comes in the midst of mounting resistance against the Trans Mountain Expansion Project. In recent months, over 200 people have been arrested confronting this project and those protests have spread to Quebec and across Canada, as well as to Seattle (U.S.A.), the UK, Switzerland and beyond.

“Two out of five proposed new tar sands pipelines have now been canceled in the face of Indigenous and environmental legal challenges, widespread public opposition and changing economics. The Trans Mountain Expansion faces even steeper obstacles and will soon become the third, and Trudeau just put the public on the hook for the costs.”

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For more information or to book an interview with Greenpeace Canada campaigners, please contact:

Jesse Firempong, Greenpeace Canada, [email protected], 778-996-6549.