BC's Attorney General says he doesn't believe Alberta will actually try to enact legislation introduced yesterday aimed at limiting petroleum exports to British Columbia.
David Eby says the bill is clearly unconstitutional:
"It really becomes so obvious that they are not allowed to do this. It's in black and white in the constitution. Section 92a Sub 2 says you can't discriminate in energy distribution between provinces. It's right there."
Eby says not only is it unconstituional, there a has been plenty of public comment made that this action is being taken to punish British Columbia for standing up for its coastal economy, and saying we have the right to regulate areas of the porovince.
Eby adds BC also has 2 separate trade agreements with Alberta that prevent them from taking such action. He sayts if Alberta moves to enact the legislation they will be taken to court.
Meantime BC is planning to take its jurisdictional question on theTrans Mt pipeline to court by the end of this month.
Meantime the NDP MP for Victoria says Canadians need to realize things never would have gotten to where they are without Justin Trudeau breaking a pre-election promise to British Columbians:
" If we hadn't had the Prime Minister promise Canadians, and particularly people on the coast that this whole review process would have been quote "redone" as he said during the election campaign, I'm not sure we'd be here. We would have had a more robust review by the National Energy Board that would have looked at jobs, it would have looked more at the ocean spills potential and so forth. So a lot of us are very disappointed at the Prime Minister."
Rankin says BC is doing what the federal government should have before okaying the project, trying to find out if a bitumen spill in ocean waters can be cleaned up.