Though formally approved, the project to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline remains one of the most controversial issues in the country. Opposed by some First Nations, municipal councils, environmentalist groups and the government of British Columbia, the project has become a focal point in the wider campaign against pipeline construction.
Yet the original Trans Mountain pipeline, which the current project seeks to complement, faced few of these roadblocks and little public opposition.
In fact, the first pipeline was seen as an important and positive development throughout Canada, according to an analysis of primary documents and the testimony of experts. The speed with which the project proceeded is a good first indicator: Trans Mountain was proposed in 1951 and construction wrapped up a mere two years later in 1953.
By contrast, the extension project was first proposed in 2013 and approved by the federal government in 2016, yet remains years from completion. It may face lengthy court challenges and intense on-the-ground protests in B.C. — likely encouraged by the provincial government.
In a 1952 speech reported by The Coast News, a paper serving the British Columbian coast, then-B.C. premier Boss Johnson conveyed a very different attitude. The Trans Mountain Pipe Line was “perhaps the biggest thing that has happened to the lower mainland,” he said.
A major project at the time, Trans Mountain was the second in a wave of long-distance pipelines spurred by the 1947 discovery of the massive Leduc oil reserves in Alberta. It was the first pipeline across the Rockies.
Economic considerations were front and centre for the original project. Globe and Mail articles from the time emphasized the substantial investment made in local communities, the importance of the increase in pumping capacity, and the rapid pace of construction.
In the same 1952 speech, Premier Johnson noted proudly that the $82 million being spent on the pipeline would be a boon to B.C.’s economy. That’s approximately $765 million in today’s dollars, according to a Bank of Canada inflation calculator. The price tag for the extension project currently sits at about $7.4 billion.
Despite the ballooning cost, the impetus behind today’s extension is also economic. Another pipeline to the Pacific, its proponents say, would allow Canada economic access to growing Asian market, especially China.
In 1952, when construction began on Trans Mountain, Canadian troops were fighting Chinese soldiers in Korea. And in the midst of the Cold War, the Trans Mountain Pipe Line was seen as an important security project. Canadian officials were concerned that oil tankers serving the Lower Mainland would be vulnerable to submarine attack, according to Robert D. Bott, an oil historian and journalist.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the original pipeline’s approval and construction was the lack of significant or effective opposition. According to Clint Tippett, president of the Petroleum History Society, issues like First Nations Rights, climate change and even the attitude of not-in-my-backyard-ism — all in the forefront of today’s process — were of limited importance.
It is unfathomable today, for example, that the federal government would amend the National Parks Act to allow pipelines in nature reserves, as the Liberals of 1950 did to allow Trans Mountain to cross Jasper National Park.
Parliamentary debate focused largely on the specifics of the plan (the amount that should run through Canada and the cost) not the question of its importance. On the whole, MPs treated the project as an obviously beneficial endeavour.
When faced with the difficult reality of contemporary pipeline politics, the original Trans Mountain process must seem for proponents of today’s extension a distant, happy dream.
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