Victoria, B.C. - Andrew Weaver, Leader of the BC Green Party and MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head has issued the following statement in response to the publication of the Report from the Ministerial Panel for the Trans Mountain Expansion Project:
“I want to commend this panel for identifying and discussing a number of the gaps that existed in the NEB hearing process into the Trans Mountain Pipeline. As an intervenor in the process, my office was continually struck by the narrow and limited perspective that was used in assessing a project that has significant national and intergenerational ramifications.”
“I have heard from thousands of students during my time as a professor at the University of Victoria, and there is a real sentiment of disillusionment and hopelessness that threatens to take hold if governments don’t start acting in the interests of the next generation of canadians.”
“I hope that this report and the questions it asks regarding canada’s climate change commitments, its responsibilities to first nations, and the lack of a comprehensive energy strategy are taken seriously and afforded the appropriate weight as the Federal cabinet deliberates on the fate of the Trans Mountain Pipeline.”
“In both my professional and political capacity I can state with certainty that the Trans Mountain pipeline must be rejected if we are to move in the right direction on these important questions. The time for halfway measures is at an end.”
“The Ministerial Panel Report was released the same day as the United Nations Environment Programmed released its Emissions Gap Report 2016 noting that the world is on track to break 3.0°C warming this century, well above the “well below 2.0°C” value pledged at COP21 in Paris."
“If world leaders understood what they signed in Paris, they would know that meeting the 2.0°C target is incompatible with the investment in any new fossil fuel infrastructure that is planned to be used in the next several decades.”
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Media Contact
Mat Wright – Press Secretary, Office of Andrew Weaver, MLA
1 250 216 3382 | [email protected]
http://capacity4dev.ec.europa.eu/unep/document/emissions-gap-report-2016-unep-synthesis-report