Delays and construction costs are piling up for the troubled Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (TMX), increasing the financial risk for the owners of this climate-damaging pipeline, Canadian taxpayers.
A report by West Coast Environmental Law shows that the Canadian government is using corporate shells and accounting wizardry to hide Trans Mountain's losses and mislead the public about its financial situation. Federal finance Minister Chrystia Freeland promised that no more public money would be spent on TMX, and claims that the project remains commercially viable. The report shows that both claims are false.
Rather, the report found that the government is setting the stage to forgive $17 billion of Trans Mountain's debt, and that the pipeline will never be profitable.
The economic benefits could never have justified the harms associated with TMX, including the risk of oil spills, further entrenching the climate crisis, and violating Indigenous rights. Now that the pipe dream of economic benefits has evaporated, it's time for the federal government to come clean and address the uncomfortable truth: Trans Mountain is also a bad investment.
Join us in calling on Finance Minister Freeland to stop misleading the public, and cut our losses by cancelling this risky pipeline project. Let's invest in a cleaner, more resilient and sustainable economy instead.
