CPPIB president Mark Machin
The Council of Canadians is opposed to pension funds financing Texas-based Kinder Morgan’s proposed $6.8 billion Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline.
On February 17, Reuters reported, “Kinder Morgan Inc. has begun talks with institutional investors including major Canadian pension funds and private equity firms to raise capital for the $6.8 billion expansion of its Trans Mountain pipeline project, according to people familiar with the process. Kinder Morgan has held discussions with Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, three of the biggest Canadian pension funds, the people added. It was unclear whether talks with the three pension funds were still ongoing.”
But by February 27, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan had tweeted, “Ontario Teachers’ is not in talks to finance Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion.”
Help us get the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to make a similar declaration.
Please go to our online action alert Stop your pension from building pipelines! that says to CPPIB president Mark Machin, “As a CPP contributor, I urge the CPPIB to take a principled stance and publicly refuse to invest any money in Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline.”
If Kinder Morgan can secure the needed financing, it says it will start construction on the pipeline this September.
The Trudeau government approved the proposed expansion of the 1,150 kilometre Alberta-British Columbia pipeline on November 29, 2016. The expansion would create a twinned pipeline increasing the nominal capacity of the system from 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000 barrels per day. The pipeline would carry diluted bitumen from the tar sands through the iconic Jasper National Park in Alberta, into the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, across the Vedder Fan aquifer and the municipality of Chilliwack’s protected groundwater zone, then across the Fraser River and to the Westridge Marine Terminal at Burrard Inlet for export on 400 supertankers a year.
Overall, the pipeline would cross 1309 water courses in Alberta and British Columbia. It would also enable a continued expansion of the tar sands in northern Alberta and produce between 20 to 26 megatonnes of carbon pollution a year. Two-thirds of the 120 First Nations along the pipeline route have not given their free, prior and informed consent for the pipeline.
The Council of Canadians has been opposing the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline since August 2011.
#StopKM
