Sarnia-Lambton's MP says the Justin Trudeau government has shown a lack of leadership on the Trans Mountain pipeline project.
The federal Liberals have decided to buy the pipeline and all of Kinder Morgan Canada's core assets, but don't plan to be long-term owners.
On CHOK's The Talk Show, live from Parliament Hill Tuesday morning, Marilyn Gladu criticized the spending of $4.5-billion of taxpayers money to try to get the pipeline built.
"Keep in mind Kinder Morgan wanted to build this, with zero taxpayer dollars, but they were getting so much resistance and the government was doing nothing to try to get the provinces on board or to introduce legislation to move things ahead," said Gladu. "And so here we are at the eleventh hour, they waited until Kinder Morgan was ready to walk away, and their answer is to throw billions of taxpayers dollars at this project."
Gladu said it's particularly frustrating from Sarnia-Lambton's perspective after Ottawa denied funding for key projects.
"What really aggravates me, is for the low, low price of $10-million, this government could have had 3,000 well-paying jobs in Sarnia-Lambton with the oversized load corridor, they could have had an open border and the restoration of the Sombra ferry crossing, and they could have plugged the rural Internet holes that are a big deal for people in Sarnia-Lambton."
Finance Minister Bill Morneau has hinted there'll be additional costs to the Trans Mountain project, but says they'll be defrayed by revenue generated by the pipeline itself.
The project has been in difficulty since British Columbia went to court to try to block it.
-With files from Dave Dentinger
