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Northern Gateway: The Walking Dead

With opposition increasingly coming from all corners, the Enbridge Northern Gateway oil pipeline project is on its way out the door. Like a zombie that still roams the earth after its death, the Northern Gateway pipeline project is no longer among the living.

By Tony Wanless /

Enbridge pipeline opposition | BCBusiness
According to Tony, the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline is nothing more than an animated corpse.

With opposition increasingly coming from all corners, the Enbridge Northern Gateway oil pipeline project is on its way out the door.

Like a zombie that still roams the earth after its death, the Northern Gateway pipeline project is no longer among the living.

But who knows, Enbridge might pull some rabbit (i.e. a federal government edict) out of a hat to save the reviled pipeline (and allow me to weasel out of this prediction). But I doubt it, so let’s admit it: the pipeline project that is currently undergoing hearings for the approval of the National Energy Board is dead.

Gone. Disappeared. Toes up. An ex-project.  

The only problem is that Enbridge doesn’t know it and is continuing on as if all is rosy.

Why the pipeline is dead

There are just too many forces aligned against it for it to show any indications of continued life.

  • Most of the First Nation groups whose territories the pipeline will cross don’t want it. They fear leaks will ruin their lands.
  • B.C.’s powerful environmental groups vehemently oppose it, fearing spills from tankers supplied by the pipeline will foul the coast with gooey bitumen for decades.
  • Most of the province’s citizenry oppose the project. According to a recent CTV poll, 57 per cent of respondents oppose it.
  • The NDP, which is itching for an election that it expects to win, flat out opposes the pipeline. Premier-in-waiting Adrian Dix has made that clear from day one.
  • Premier Christy Clark, desperate for an election issue, has waded into the fray with her five demands for support and has taken an increasingly harder stance. Of course, she’s trying to appeal to the province’s great big middle electorate, which appears to be leaning toward turning down the pipeline. 
  • Recently, Clark’s environment minister, Terry Lake, criticized Enbridge/Northern Gateway for its vague answers to questions about leaks that were posed by the province’s lawyer at hearings. This indicates the B.C. government is beginning to see which way the wind is blowing.
  • But the most damning evidence of the current status of the $6-billion Northern Gateway project comes from former B.C. energy minister and now Conservative senator Richard Neufeld, who questioned whether the project will ever go ahead. Neufeld said Enbridge has so badly mismanaged the project it’s left a “sour taste” in most people’s mouths.

Now, there’s always a chance that the feds, backed by the Chinese, who are promising to inject billions into the Canadian economy, will pull a reverse Trudeau and create its own energy rules that will allow the pipeline.

But overriding a board charged with evaluating such large projects plus extreme opposition from the province where the pipeline will be delivered is a dangerous move for any government. It trounces on the principles of confederation and would be fought by all provinces.

No, with all these wounds, the Northern Gateway project is looking pretty sickly. I’d call it our own version of The Walking Dead.