Ottawa, January 26, 2021 —A collection of labour, faith, health, science, youth, environmental, community, social justice and indigenous groups representing more than 3.5 million Canadians have sent a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau and his entire cabinet asking for him to cancel the taxpayer-funded $12.6 billion and counting Trans Mountain pipeline project (TMX) because it directly conflicts with the federal government’s recently announced climate plan and it does not have permission or consent from affected Indigenous Nations.

Groups, including Mères au front, British Columbia Government and Service Employees’ Union, Canadian Unitarians for Social Justice, Amnesty International Canada, Le Front commun pour la Transition énergétique, Leadnow, the FTQ and Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment are among the close to 100 signatories of the letter, which states:

As the Biden administration prepares to rejoin the Paris Agreement on climate and unveil the most ambitious climate plan in America’s history, Canada will be left behind if it does not reconcile the contradiction it has systematically ignored since 2015: you can’t solve the climate crisis while expanding the oil sands by building new pipelines.

Signatories contend that all the same conditions and realities that made President Biden cancel Keystone – a low oil price, a worsening climate emergency, a quickly developing green economy – apply to the Trans Mountain pipeline. They are asking Prime Minister Trudeau to take a hard look at these realities and his government’s own analysis that shows TMX is not needed with even minor climate action.

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For more information, please contact:

Chief Judy Wilson, Neskonlith First Nation, (250) 320-7738

Professor Thomas Gunton, Resource and Environmental Planning Program

Simon Fraser University, (250) 477-7601

Eugene Kung, lawyer, West Coast Environmental Law, (604) 601-2514