Kinder Morgan president says policing costs are not company’s responsibility

BURNABY, B.C. – The president of Kinder Morgan says his company isn’t responsible for the policing bill related to pipeline protests at a Metro Vancouver conservation site.

Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan has suggested the energy giant help pay for police who spent over a week blocking demonstrators from Kinder Morgan’s surveying site on Burnaby Mountain.

But Kinder Morgan Canada president Ian Anderson said during a telephone townhall on Wednesday night that policing costs are a municipal responsibility “and that is what we all pay our taxes for.”

The company was granted a court injunction last month ordering the protesters away from the survey site so its crews could do work for the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, but dozens defied the court order and were arrested.

While the cost of the police operation hasn’t been confirmed, Corrigan previously suggested the National Energy Board and Kinder Morgan should help pay the bill.

Anderson says that he hasn’t been contacted by the mayor on the matter, but he would be willing to listen to his request regardless. (CKNW, The Canadian Press)