Trudeau to meet with BC, Alberta premiers Sunday on Trans Mountain

British Columbia Environment Minister George Heyman says he doesn't expect the province to back down on its battle against the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion during a meeting Sunday with the prime minister and Alberta's premier.

The Prime Minister was scheduled to be on a 10-day foreign trip to Peru, France and Britain, but will now return to Canada after the Summit of the Americas in Peru to meet with the premiers "to discuss next steps for moving the Trans Mountain expansion project forward", his office said in a release Thursday. But it has met fierce opposition from residents in B.C. and the province's minority NDP government.

Ottawa has jurisdiction for the pipeline and approved the expansion plans in 2016, but Horgan has thrown up a number of road blocks, including a lawsuit over the approval process and a threat to prevent oil from flowing through it, all of which have helped to spook Kinder Morgan's investors.

McKenna told BNN that environmental concerns over the pipeline, which is the main sticking point for the B.C. government, have already been dealt with by the federal government.

After meeting with Ms. Notley on Wednesday, federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau pledged that Ottawa will meet the tight deadline to provide a rescue plan for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, including possible financial support, so that construction can proceed this summer. "I'm all about action on climate change, but we are also in a long term transition and we need to get our resources to market". "I think people have to talk rationally about the economic opportunity and the measures that have been taken at the coast to address climate change", she said.

An expanded Trans Mountain pipeline would mean additional fossil-fuel development in the oilsands, said Environmental Defence national program manager Dale Marshall, who argues it can't be allowed to proceed if Canada really wants to reduce emissions. The prime minister is set to pile on the pressure in getting British Columbia Premier John Horgan to drop the provincial government's resistance to the pipeline extension that will move oil from Alberta to the west coast of Canada.