NANAIMO, B.C. — Justin Trudeau's twin objectives to reduce Canada's carbon emissions and build a pipeline to carry oilsands bitumen to the coast are colliding in a province ravaged by wildfires that the prime minister's own government attributes to climate change.
Several hundred pot-banging, whistle-blowing pipeline protesters have gathered outside the Vancouver Island Conference Centre where Trudeau and his ministers are holed up for a cabinet retreat amid the acrid smell of smoke from the hundreds of wildfires burning across British Columbia.
They're accusing Trudeau of fiddling while B.C. burns.
And they're questioning how Trudeau can claim to be concerned about climate change when his government is intent on expanding the Trans Mountain pipeline from Alberta to B.C.'s coast.
B.C. Premier John Horgan, who has vowed to use every possible avenue to block the pipeline project, met this morning with the cabinet.
He says there was some discussion about the pipeline but the focus was more on the many issues on which the two governments agree, including the collaborative effort to fight the forest fires.
