This is a huge vic­to­ry… for the Pacif­ic North­west, for British Colum­bia, Wash­ing­ton State, and indige­nous peo­ples seek­ing to pro­tect their lands.

The Fed­er­al Court of Appeal dealt a major blow to the Trans­Moun­tain pipeline expan­sion Thurs­day, over­turn­ing the fed­er­al government’s approval and effec­tive­ly halt­ing construction.

The court found the Nation­al Ener­gy Board review of the $7.4‑billion project was so flawed it failed to pro­vide the gov­ern­ment with the infor­ma­tion need­ed to approve the project.

The rul­ing is a major set­back and raised the prospects of a lengthy delay that could kill the expan­sion. The court has ordered the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to include project-relat­ed marine ship­ping in its reviews and to redo con­sul­ta­tions with First Nations.

Short­ly after the rul­ing, Kinder Mor­gan share­hold­ers approved the pre­vi­ous­ly announced sale of the pipeline and expan­sion project to the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment for $4.5 billion.

Cana­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau made a mas­sive bet on the pipeline back in the spring when he decid­ed to effec­tive­ly nation­al­ize it by buy­ing the project from Kinder Mor­gan, which had con­clud­ed that pro­ceed­ing with con­struc­tion could be too risky for the com­pa­ny giv­en uncer­tain prospects for completion.

Trudeau’s inten­tion in tak­ing over the project was to give it the sta­bil­i­ty and sure­ty need­ed to over­come fierce oppo­si­tion and logis­ti­cal hur­dles to completion.

But that move has now been foiled. The pipeline’s fate is as uncer­tain as ever.

Read the Court of Appeal’s deci­sion against the Trans­Moun­tain pipeline.

“Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau, and through him Cana­di­an tax­pay­ers, now own a pipeline that may not be built for years, if ever,” observed The Globe and Mail’s Gary Mason. “While Ottawa will make all the appro­pri­ate nois­es about address­ing the con­sul­ta­tion short­com­ings and oth­er issues iden­ti­fied by the court, don’t be mis­led: This ver­dict has the effect of start­ing over again on many fronts.”

The rul­ing is a huge blow not only to Justin Trudeau and his not-that lib­er­al Lib­er­als, but also to Alber­ta Pre­mier Rachel Not­ley and Alber­ta politi­cians who fierce­ly sup­port build­ing the pipeline at any cost.

“Dis­as­ter. Polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, even con­sti­tu­tion­al. Undi­lut­ed disaster.”

Those were the open­ing words of colum­nist Don Braid’s response to the court deci­sion in the Cal­gary Her­ald, in which he lament­ed the rul­ing and pre­dict­ed big trou­ble for Rachel Not­ley’s NDP gov­ern­ment in Alber­ta. His col­league Jason Wood filed a sep­a­rate sto­ry sug­gest­ing Not­ley’s reelec­tion next year is in grave per­il.

No one in Cana­da has been a big­ger boost­er for the pipeline than Not­ley. She made a bad choice to tie her polit­i­cal future to the pipeline’s con­struc­tion and now she will have to live with that choice. It could mean her defeat in 2019.

Canada’s future, and the Unit­ed States’ future, can­not be based on dirty ener­gy if we’re to have any hope of stop­ping the cli­mate cri­sis from get­ting worse.

Yet Not­ley, just like Trudeau, want­ed to bet big on dirty energy.

Next door in British Colum­bia, how­ev­er, Not­ley’s fel­low NDP Pre­mier John Hor­gan was cel­e­brat­ing the deci­sion, hav­ing staked out a very dif­fer­ent position.

Although Hor­gan and Not­ley are both NDP lead­ers at the provin­cial lev­el and would thus seem to be nat­ur­al allies, they are actu­al­ly at com­plete and bit­ter odds with each oth­er on the ques­tion of con­struct­ing the pipeline. Hor­gan rec­og­nizes the threat the project rep­re­sents… to the Sal­ish Sea, to the south­ern res­i­dent orca pop­u­la­tion, to coastal ecosys­tems, and to the world’s climate.

“This case has always been about First Nations assert­ing their rights and today they car­ried the day,” said Hor­gan. “We joined the case to defend BC’s inter­ests and high­light the risks to the province’s envi­ron­ment and economy.”

“Many British Columbians have been say­ing that the Trans Moun­tain project would cre­ate seri­ous risks to our coast,” the Pre­mier added.

“The Fed­er­al Court of Appeal has val­i­dat­ed those concerns.”

“Today’s rul­ing is a vic­to­ry for First Nations’ rights and for all those who have long held that this project was not approved based on evi­dence,” agreed B.C. Greens Leader Andrew Weaver in a state­ment.

(The B.C. Greens have a sup­ply and con­fi­dence agree­ment with the B.C. NDP that allows the NDP, or the New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, to gov­ern the province.)

“I am par­tic­u­lar­ly glad to see the court’s judge­ment that there was an unjus­ti­fi­able fail­ure at the heart of the fed­er­al gov­ern­men­t’s approval of this project: the fail­ure to assess the impacts of marine ship­ping on the environment.”

“This was an out­ra­geous omis­sion on the part of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment that flies in the face of their stat­ed com­mit­ment to evi­dence-based deci­sion-mak­ing. The NEB acknowl­edged that the marine traf­fic from this project posed sig­nif­i­cant harm to the endan­gered South­ern Res­i­dent Killer Whales. The gov­ern­ment must now jus­ti­fy to Cana­di­ans, and to the world, why it is will­ing to her­ald the death knell of this irre­place­able species if it con­tin­ues to pur­sue this project.”

“Com­ing off of the two worst wild­fire sea­sons in B.C.’s his­to­ry, it’s clear that we can­not con­tin­ue down the mis­guid­ed path of expand­ing fos­sil fuel infra­struc­ture. We owe it to our chil­dren and grand­chil­dren to begin the imme­di­ate tran­si­tion to the low-car­bon econ­o­my. B.C. is a leader amongst the provinces, adopt­ing car­bon tax increas­es that are ahead of fed­er­al requirements.”

“Our Cau­cus is work­ing close­ly with the B.C. NDP minor­i­ty gov­ern­ment to cre­ate a clean growth strat­e­gy that will fur­ther advance our efforts. I hope the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment will now real­ize that there is an enor­mous oppor­tu­ni­ty to sup­port B.C.’s lead­er­ship, rather than attempt­ing to force our province to shoul­der the huge envi­ron­men­tal and eco­nom­ic risks that this project presents.”

NPI con­grat­u­lates the Rain­coast Foun­da­tion, Liv­ing Oceans Soci­ety, the cities of Van­cou­ver and Burn­a­by, the Tsleil-Wau­tuth and Squamish First Nations, the Cold­wa­ter Indi­an Band, and all the oth­er indige­nous tribes who have stood up against this mon­stros­i­ty of a project. This pipeline may not be dead, but it looks like con­struc­tion has effec­tive­ly been thwart­ed for the time being. That’s a huge win and one that our coast, orcas, and cli­mate sore­ly needed.

Every­one involved in secur­ing this court vic­to­ry deserves a big round of applause and deep thanks from this side of the border.