Prince Rupert mayor sides with Eby over Smith on Northern Gateway pipeline reboot

OTTAWA — The mayor of northern British Columbia’s busiest port city says he’s following Premier David Eby’s lead in taking a wait-and-see approach to rebooting the cancelled Northern Gateway Pipeline project. Prince Rupert Mayor Herb Pond told the National Post on Friday that he’s reserving judgment until he sees a new proposal on the table. “I’m a little bit (more) with Premier Eby… Until there’s a project and a proponent, we’re not going to spend much time on it,” said Pond. “It’s so hard to have a discussion about an imaginary project.” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has pushed heavily for a revival of the shelved pipeline , which would have shipped up to 525,000 barrels of Alberta oil per day through nearby Kitimat, B.C., and ultimately to markets in the Asia-Pacific region via tanker. Smith has said that the revamped North Coast pipeline should end at the Port of Prince Rupert, citing its close proximity to potential buyers in markets like Japan and South Korea. She’s also said that shipping Alberta oil through northern B.C. is one of the best things Canada can do to reduce its economic dependency on top trading partner the United States. But Eby says that Smith is getting ahead of herself with no entity, public or private, coming forward to lead the project. “There’s no proponent, there’s no money, there’s no project right now,” Eby said this week during a trade visit Seoul, South Korea. Pond says he agrees with Smith that Prince Rupert is the most logical destination for a new pipeline carrying Alberta oil to the Pacific Ocean. “If (technical dimensions) were the only thing you were scoring it on… Rupert would score the highest,” said Pond. “Prince Rupert is a very deep natural harbour, doesn’t need to be dredged (and) we’re not moving through a congested traffic area (like) Vancouver.” But he added that a new oil pipeline wouldn’t make or break Prince Rupert economically, and may not be worth the risk of an oil spill in the sensitive marine ecosystem. Pond said that, like Eby, he supports the federal moratorium on oil tanker traffic along B.C.’s northern coast. “There are values around the Great Bear Rainforest and the environment on the North Coast being as pristine as it is,” said Pond. Residents of Kitimat voted against Northern Gateway by a margin of 58.4 per cent to 41.6 per cent in a non-binding 2014 plebiscite. Pond says he’d support any new oil pipeline project being put to the people of Prince Rupert in a similar manner. “When you get to that place, a plebiscite may be one of the things that we want to consider in terms of gauging the community’s voice,” said Pond. Pond said earlier this week that B.C. “owes” Alberta a fair hearing on the question of a new West Coast heavy oil pipeline. “I think we owe it… to our neighbours, our fellow Canadians, to at least examine it very, very seriously.” National Post rmohamed@postmedia.com Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here. Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.