"Let's Not Subsidize Our Own Extinction": Rallies Across Canada Denounce Trudeau's Kinder Morgan Buyout

Expressing outrage at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's announcement last week that his government will purchase Kinder Morgan's climate-killing Trans Mountain pipeline with $4.5 billion in taxpayer money, demonstrators took to the streets at over 100 locations across Canada on Monday in a grassroots effort to stop the Kinder Morgan "buyout."

"This could cost $15 to $20 billion all told," Andrea Harden-Donahue, energy and climate justice campaigner at Council of Canadians, said of the pipeline project in a speech outside of the Ottawa office of Liberal MP Catherine McKenna.

"That is money that could solve the drinking water crisis in Canada on First Nations reserves," Donahue added. "That is money that could halve tuition fees across the country. Think about the affordable housing that we could achieve with that money.   Think about...green jobs that we could build, reduce people's heating bills, reduce climate emissions. That is where this money should be going."

As Common Dreams reported, environmentalists and Indigenous rights groups were quick to condemn Trudeau's decision to rescue the faltering pipeline expansion project, which had been forced to halt major construction operations in April in the face of fierce grassroots opposition and legal challenges.

If completed, Trans Mountain would "triple the amount of tar sands being transported from Alberta to the British Columbian coast," noted Andy Rowell of Oil Change International in a recent blog post.

Denouncing the pipeline project as a significant threat to Indigenous land, the public water supply, and the climate, demonstrators demanded that Trudeau and members of parliament scrap the planned buyout and invest the billions set aside for a dirty energy pipeline in a green future.

"Let's not subsidize our own extinction," read one sign raised outside an office of Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau on Monday.