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“There’s a probability of an oil spill if you increase tanker traffic. That’s a question that these students, and very shortly as adults, will be grappling with. It’s our responsibility in schools to give them the tools they need to grapple with that issue.”

She said the teaching resources include a link to the official Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline website, but that link is not listed in the “‘What We Stand to Lose’ Poster Lesson Plans” and is instead found in an entirely separate document called “Quick Facts” — a one-page explainer that highlights Enbridges “60 spills a year” and says “a spill could cause irreversible harm to the livelihoods of many coastal and aboriginal communities and the area’s unique marine ecosystems.”

Jordan Bateman, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s B.C. director, took to Twitter to square off against the teachers’ union, accusing it of promoting anti-pipeline materials without similarly promoting pro-pipeline materials.

“A web link isn’t balance,” Mr. Bateman tweeted in response to a union tweet pointing to the Enbridge link.

In a telephone interview, Mr. Bateman said “pipeline education is not a curriculum target” set by the province’s education ministry, and said the federation is “flexing its muscles in individual classrooms, trying to get its point of view across.”

The federation did not craft the actual lessons plans, but the union’s Environmental Justice Action Group — comprised of teachers — determined which plans would be listed as part of its social justice resources. It also decided to promote the poster on its website and on the federation’s Facebook page.