Kinder Morgan Canada shareholders gathered in downtown Calgary Thursday where they voted overwhelmingly to approve the sale of the Trans Mountain pipeline to the federal government. Photo courtesy CBC.
Shortly after the Federal Court of Appeals decision to reject Ottawa’s approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, shareholders of Kinder Morgan Canada overwhelmingly voted in favour of the project’s sale to the federal government.
In a brief meeting in Calgary Thursday morning, shareholders voted more than 99 per cent in favour of the $4.5 billion deal that was struck with Ottawa in May.
The vote came shortly after the appeals court quashed the federal government’s approval of the pipeline expansion, suspending work on the 1,150-kilometre project indefinitely.
Kinder Morgan had threatened to walk away from the project because of continuous delays of the pipeline twinning, facing opposition from the B.C. government, some First Nations and environmental groups.
On May 29, the federal government announced it would buy the project for $4.5 billion, and spend billions more to have it completed.
In a written decision by Justice Eleanor Dawson, the court found Ottawa should not have relied on a flawed National Energy Board assessment of the project to base its final approval in Nov. 2016.
The ruling also said consultations with Indigenous people fell short of those required by law.
The decision means the NEB will have to begin a new review of the Trans Mountain project and Ottawa has to redo consultations with First Nations.
Kinder Morgan advised shareholders before the meeting that the company would have to pay at least $325 million in taxes to the federal government, for a “net price” of $4.175 billion.
With files from CBC.
CHEK News
