With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/411627
66 BCBusiness december 2014 there is support for the pipeline project within the community and can vouch for enthusiasm on the part of cham- ber members. Several of those are in tourism and accommodations, where recent investments have totalled almost $100 million in anticipation of the pipeline and other major proj- ects, she says. Mayor Peter Milobar says there are two conversations that people should be having. "One is about how much oil we consume, and that's a very valid conversation. But the other is about transporting that oil in the safest possible way." Oil is currently passing through Kamloops on both railcars and trucks, he points out, and beyond the safety concerns, it's becoming difficult to find rail space for non-petroleum products—including even people, with, for example, the Rocky Mountaineer tourist train hav- ing to vie for a share of the tracks. Still, he says, "the discussion is generally low-key here." There are issues, of course. Among them is a routing debate that echoes the situation in Burnaby: the company wants to avoid the original right-of-way in favour of a nature preserve, due to urban development that's taken place in the six decades since the pipeline first went in. While homeowners don't want pipeline construction in their back yards, and Kinder Morgan doesn't want to have to buy a lot of land or spend a lot on compensation, there is opposition as well to running the line through the Lac du Bois Grasslands Protected Area. Generally, though, Kinder Morgan's plans for pipeline expansion face significantly less opposition in Kam- loops than in the Lower Mainland. Ian Anderson thinks he knows some of the reasons why: "We've been there for a long time," he says. "We have a strong presence in the community; we have an employee base; we're well-known, not just our company and our busi- ness but the companies that contract with us; we've got a great safety record there." And too, people are a little different in the Interior than on the coast, where mayors like Corrigan, as well as many business and community leaders, see their cities' futures linked more closely to advanced technol- ogy, cultural creativity and the global appeal of pristine natural environ- ments. "They know that it's a resource- based province," Anderson says of Kamloops residents. "They know that commodities have to get to market." a few kIlometres north of Kamloops there's yet another aspect of the same phenomenon, Anderson thinks. Earlier this year the tiny Whispering Pines government became the first of what may end up being a majority of First Nations to come to an agreement with Kinder Morgan and the federal government; if the expansion comes to pass, the band will collect taxes that would have oth- erwise accrued to Ottawa. "What we had is a relationship," says Anderson of the process that led to the agreement. "I knew Michael. I'd been there many times. I knew what the history was." Michael, in this case, is Chief Michael LeBourdais, who frames an agreement that will bring Whispering Pines's 100-odd members a reported $5 million to $10 million annually as, primarily, an opportunity to assert sovereignty. He allows that some other bands have been critical of the move. "Oh sure, that's what they say in public," he says. "Then, over coffee, they're asking, 'How did you do it?'" LeBourdais believes that behind the scenes most bands along the route are in negotiations and almost all will come on board with similar agreements. Ian Anderson confirms this. "We're essen- tially in discussions with all the bands between Edmonton and Sooke." So it's possible that Kinder Mor- gan will find its way around the First Nations objections that currently seem so formidable. The National Energy Board panel has already been listen- ing to First Nations submissions, but potentially some of the issues that have cropped up will seem less significant to bands after they've come to agree- ments. Given municipalities' very limited jurisdiction over an approved project, for both Kinder Morgan and avowed foes like the City of Burnaby these NEB hearings loom as the end game—a game that Derek Corrigan believes is rigged. "I don't want to sound paranoid," the former trial lawyer says after running through a list of a few of the things that he feels are stacked against his side. There's the generous salting of National Energy Board panels with oilpatch veterans, he says, and the situ- ation that has had governments reduc- ing their own scientific and monitoring capabilities and shifting most aspects of environmental assessment onto the pipeline builder: "You can't even hire an expert in this country in regard to any of these issues because they've all been conflicted out," says Corrigan. Then there's the surcharge that the National Energy Board allows Kinder Morgan to bill its existing customers in order to fund its expansion efforts. "To surcharge people who are moving oil through those pipelines in order to have an application made—in many ways you are well down the road of commitment to ensuring that the proj- ect goes ahead." Meanwhile, the mayor doesn't buy into the idea that the NEB should be cut some slack because it has to weigh local and individual considerations against the national interest. "If you ask the NEB, they'll tell you that the only thing that's being considered is the invisible hand of the marketplace," ian anderson, Kinder Morgan president.