Pipes and tanks are seen behind a barbed wire fence at a Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain facility THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

Sixteen past and present members of Justin Trudeau’s youth council are urging the federal government to bail out of the Kinder Morgan buy-out.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced in May the federal government was prepared to pay $4.5 billion to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline and all of Kinder Morgan Canada’s core assets.

In a letter made public Monday, 16 of the youth council’s past and present members say the move betrays the young people who helped elect the Liberal government in 2015 in part because of the party’s commitment to the environment and battling climate change. A Nanos poll conducted after the 2015 federal election indicated that the Trudeau Liberals had the support of 38 per cent young people, compared to 24 per cent for the New Democrats and 23 per cent for the federal Conservatives.

“It is youth who will be disproportionately affected by the devastating consequences of a warming world,” the letter said.

The Prime Minister’s Youth Council advises the prime minister (who is also the Minister of Youth) on issues affecting young people. It is made up of 30 young Canadians between 16 and 24. According to the council, this is the first time members of the council have directly confronted a decision made by the federal government.

The letter also said the signatories believe the purchase of Kinder Morgan by the federal government will have “profound and irreversible consequences” for Canadian youth and others around the world.

The upgrading of the Trans Mountain pipeline has been a major political battleground for provinces, environmentalists and Indigenous groups. Once it is twinned, the pipeline will send an estimated 890,000 barrels of unrefined bitumen a day by ship from Vancouver to refineries in Washington State.

The bailout of Kinder Morgan to allow the Trans Mountain project to go ahead, the letter said, “violates your promise to protect British Columbia’s coast.”

In 2016, the federal government announced a $1.5 billion investment into the Oceans Protection Fund to protect the country’s oceans from a potential oil spill. The prime minister said the fund would strengthen the Coast Guard, improve the transfer of information to prevent future oil spills and toughen the laws governing vessels operating off the B.C. coast.

“No amount of technology can undo a spill in the Salish Sea,” the letter said.

The Trans Mountain pipeline deal will also make it difficult for Canada to meet climate change commitments as a signatory of the Paris Agreement, the letter continued. Signed by Canada in 2016, the international agreement asks signatory countries to strive towards keeping a global temperature increase below two degrees and to limit greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere.

A report from Oil Change International says if Canada’s oil production continues as planned, it will use 16 per cent of the world’s carbon budget set aside to regulate global temperatures.

“[Trans Mountain] locks Canada into decades of reliance on fossil fuels,” the letter said.

The signatories of the letter also said the project violates federal promises under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples to commit to a renewed government-to-government relationship.

More than 130 Indigenous groups in B.C and Alberta will be affected by the pipeline project. Under Canadian law, the federal government and the company are obliged to contact each group before proceeding.

Kinder Morgan said in April the company had signed more than 100 agreements and Memorandums of Understanding with Indigenous peoples in B.C and Alberta. The company said they have also included these groups in traditional marine use and ecological knowledge studies. However, anti-pipeline activists say there has not been any meaningful conversations with Indigenous peoples about the project on their land.

“Forcing this pipeline through the lands of First Nations that do no consent entrenches the violence of colonialism and moves us away from reconciliation,” the letter concluded.

Kinder Morgan is working with the federal government to find a third party to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline before July 22. If no suitor is found, the federal government will own it.

Trudeau spokeswoman Chantal Gagnon said Monday the prime minister “always appreciates input from the youth council” adding: “It is heartening to see young Canadians engage on political issues that affect them and become involved in the democratic process.”

She also defended the government’s decision to purchase the Trans Mountain pipeline while noting that it was investing more to protect marine safety.

The prime minister sat down in June to talk about the Trans Mountain purchase with the youth council, which was established in 2016 as a non-partisan advisory board comprising up to 30 young Canadians between the ages of 16 and 24.

Nmesoma Nweze, a neuroscience and psychology student at the University of Toronto and council alumna, said some members were disappointed by the lack of consultation before the decision given that Trudeau’s meeting came after the deal had already been announced.

That is when she started to draft the letter, which says many young Canadians supported Trudeau during the 2015 federal election because of his promises on reconciliation and climate leadership, and that he subsequently promised to listen to — and honour — the concerns of young people.

The letter specifically asks Trudeau to: protect the environment and respect Indigenous rights by cancelling the purchase, condemn calls to crackdown on peaceful protests against the pipeline and organize roundtable discussions with youth representatives.

Nweze defended the decision to release the letter, saying the council wants to start doing more outreach and “we know we’re not the only young people who feel this way.”

Fellow alumni Chris Zhou acknowledged having been surprised when he saw that the letter had been made public, saying that past practice has been for members to keep their correspondence with the prime minister private.

“When we send letters to Trudeau, those tend to not be released to the public because we do want to retain a certain relationship with the prime minister in which we can both be candid and genuine with each other,” Zhou said. “This letter is not the case.”

Zhou nonetheless said that he wasn’t opposed to releasing the letter.

With files from Lee Berthiaume, Canadian Press