Ontario will defend Line 5 pipeline, energy minister tells Sarnia hearing

Sarnia’s mayor continues to warn an embattled pipeline on which local industries rely could become a target if US president-elect Donald Trump’s threats of a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods spark a trade war.

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Mayor Mike Bradley said he raised the future of Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline, which the state government in Michigan has been attempting to shut down, while meeting Tuesday in Sarnia with Stephen Lecce, Ontario’s minister of energy and electrification.

Lecce was in the area to speak at a Sarnia-Lambton Chamber of Commerce event.

When asked on CTV’s Question Period Sunday about the possibility of Canada responding to Trump with an energy export embargo on the US, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said, “What I can tell you is everything is on the table.”

Bradley worries, “the collateral damage could be Line 5.”

He said Alberta Premier Danielle Smith also spoke this week about the risk of the pipeline being impacted by a trade war.

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The pipeline carries oil and natural gas liquids from Western Canada, crossing Wisconsin and Michigan on its way to Sarnia, home to three refineries and several other chemical manufacturing sites. The pipeline also delivers oil on its way to refineries elsewhere in Ontario, Quebec the US Midwest.

After Michigan went to court to attempt to shut down the 70-year-old pipeline over environmental concerns, Ontario warned loss of the pipeline could put more than 4,900 jobs at risk.

Bradley told Lecce “consequences could be severe, not just for Sarnia, but Ontario, Quebec and for Michigan” if the pipeline is shut down.

“We need to be careful,” Bradley said. “My experience in the past is no one wins a trade war.”

If one happens and Line 5 becomes a target for the new US administration, even a pause in its operation could cause “huge economic damage,” Bradley said.

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“We continue our advocacy to the US, and we look forward to having more of those discussions once the new president’s inaugurated,” Lecce said Tuesday about the pipeline.

“Our government is supportive of our natural resources sector, natural gas, petroleum, our refinery capacity. . . and the workers within it and we’ll defend them,” he said.

Lecce said the pipeline also is “consequential to the energy supply in the US” and Ontario will “advocate forcefully” for the pipeline with officials in Michigan and Washington.

“We are on guard, and we are ready,” he said. “We’re going to keep that healthy pressure on.”

With files from the Edmonton Journal

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