Adrian Dix’s stance on pipeline was clear to voters
Ben West claims that Adrian Dix had no position on Kinder Morgan Canada’s pipeline before or during the election [“People power can defeat Enbridge”, November 14-21]. Well, if that is true, I and every journalist heard Dix wrong.
Dix’s position during the election was that he would not take a position until Kinder Morgan filed its application. In the last few days before the election, he flip-flopped, apparently without consulting his advisers, and he then stated that he opposed the project. In my view, this identified him as antiresource development to even his supporters and killed him.
West’s claim that the anti-Dix vote had nothing to do with Dix’s perceived antidevelopment stance is, in my view, fiction.
> John Hunter / North Vancouver
Comments
1 Comments
Jennifer Moreau, Burnaby NOW reporter
Nov 20, 2013 at 8:52am
Dix's position was extremely vague, and if you listened closely to what he was saying, there was nothing definitive there. He didn't say he opposed the project per se, he said he opposed turning Vancouver into a major oil exporting port, which is what the Kinder Morgan expansion would do, but by leaving his statements open like that, he had lots of wiggle room to adjust his position if the proposal (which the NEB hasn't even seen yet) changes in the future. If you asked any of the other NDP MLAs to clarify what he was saying, they were equally non committal. Many reporters jumped on Dix's statements and claimed he was opposing the pipeline, which wasn't the case. I tried to clarify and nail him down and what, exactly, he was saying, and he wouldn't even return calls to our paper.
Here are the NDP talking points that were sent around at the time:
“Radically transforming the Port of Vancouver into a major oilsands export facility is not a good idea. It’s too much of a risk to our environment and our economy.
The current Kinder Morgan pipeline has primarily served the west coast domestic market, with a relatively small volume of oil exported via tankers.
The new Kinder Morgan pipeline proposal would see an additional 600,000 barrels of oilsands bitumen pass through the Port of Vancouver in tankers. That’s not a risk British Columbians are prepared to take.
We will not allow Stephen Harper to make the decision on Kinder Morgan, just as the Liberals are allowing him to make the decision on Enbridge.
We will take back control of pipeline decisions and subject both the Enbridge and Kinder Morgan proposals to a rigorous made-in-BC environmental assessment.”
We are not prejudging any pipeline application that may be filed at some point in the future by Kinder Morgan. Once filed, it will go through a fair and rigorous made-in-BC environmental assessment. But we need to make clear that if the purpose of the Kinder Morgan pipeline is to turn Vancouver into a major bitumen export port, that is not something we or British Columbians are prepared to support."