Talking Points - Trans Mountain Expansion Project 

ISSUE: 

Justin Trudeau’s government announced that the Liberals will use taxpayer dollars to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline from Kinder Morgan for $4.5 billion.  The Liberals will also take over the expansion and core assets – but Justin Trudeau can’t tell us the final cost. 

Prime Minister Trudeau vetoed the approved Northern Gateway pipeline and killed the Energy East pipeline with last minute rule changes and a regulatory standard that doesn’t apply to any other sector of the Canadian economy. His decisions to impose an oil tanker ban, a job-killing carbon tax and new regulations that penalize Canadian oil exports have damaged investor confidence and forced companies to reconsider future projects.

Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives will reverse these job killing policies.

KEY MESSAGES:

• Kinder Morgan never asked for one dollar of taxpayer money. All the company wanted was certainty.

• Today the Prime Minister is forcing Canadian taxpayers to pay for his failure.

• And what’s worse, the Prime Minister is nationalizing a pipeline and he can’t tell Canadians how much this will cost them.

• Justin Trudeau would have Canadians believe that the only way to build the Trans Mountain pipeline is to use billions of taxpayer dollars. It’s not.  Four pipelines were built under the previous government without spending one cent of taxpayers’ money.

• Canadians have been waiting for over a year and a half to see a concrete plan to make sure that the Trans Mountain pipeline extension is built.

• Instead, ‎Justin Trudeau has offered one delay after another, and he’s failed to champion this project in British Columbia.

• Canada’s Conservatives understand that by setting the conditions for success, low taxes and less redundant regulations, projects like Trans Mountain can be built without a burden to the taxpayer.

• We will continue to stand up for Canada's resource sector, and most importantly, the men and women whose livelihoods depend on it. They can count on Canada’s Conservatives to give them a voice against a Prime Minister determined to phase out their jobs.