No matter what happens with the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion, the federal government should implement improved marine protections, says NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh.

The NDP leader, in Cowichan Bay on Wednesday as part of a cross-country tour, said that regardless of what happens to the $7.4-billion Trans Mountain expansion project, the federal government must implement its national Ocean Protection Plan.

article continues below

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau launched the $1.5-billion plan in November 2016. It’s meant to improve marine safety and protect Canada’s marine environment.

However, Trudeau said last month that climate change and spill protection programs won’t go ahead unless the pipeline expansion is built.

The expansion would triple the capacity of the pipeline, which carries oil from Alberta to Burnaby.

Singh criticized that decision, citing the decline of the southern resident killer whale population and salmon stocks.

“When our salmon stocks are threatened, the entire ecosystem is put at risk, as well as the jobs that depend on these stocks,” he said.

“Now the Liberals are holding these whales hostage, and threatening our entire coastal environment, unless they get what they want. That is unacceptable.”

Environmentalists and conservationists have been petitioning the federal government to better protect the southern resident killer whales, which number just 76, with no new births recorded since 2015.

Among other things, they want salmon habitat protected, commercial shipping traffic slowed in critical feeding areas to limit acoustic interference, and the restriction of fishing on specific chinook salmon populations that feed the southern resident killer whales.

Singh is in Vancouver today and Penticton on Friday.

ceharnett@timescolonist.com