VICTORIA—The rubber-stamp approval by the federal National Energy Board fails to meet the concerns of British Columbians about the proposed Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline project, New Democrat leader John Horgan said today.

Horgan said the NEB report does not address the four key concerns he set out in opposing the proposed pipeline expansion project.

“Nothing in this flawed process and proposal will lead us to change our opposition. This was Stephen Harper’s broken and unfair approval process, and Christy Clark hid behind it. British Columbians can’t help seeing this as a rubber-stamp approval that fails to meet the concerns we all have with this proposal,” Horgan said.

“We’ll be reviewing the NEB recommendations, and we’ll be watching closely as the new federal panel and the court-ordered provincial panel complete the First Nations and community consultations neglected by the Harper process.

“For B.C. New Democrats, there are four big concerns with this pipeline proposal that remain unanswered. This a process that ignored climate change. This is a pipeline company that has refused to answer key questions from municipalities, from provincial governments and other concerned Canadians.

“We’ve got zero clarity and comfort around Kinder Morgan’s oil-spill response plans, and we’ve got a failure to ensure that First Nations directly affected by this project have been consulted and heard,” Horgan said.

“Our concerns about the silence of this process on climate change was echoed this week by Christy Clark’s own climate change leadership team, when members of that group warned the people of BC about the lack of action taken by the BC Liberal government to limit emissions.

“We know that inaction by Christy Clark’s government means BC will miss its 2020 climate change targets. As leader of the B.C. New Democrats, I’m committed to getting B.C. back on track to meet our climate change targets,” Horgan said.