May 5, 2017 Bharat Masrani Group President and Chief Executive Officer TD Bank Group Dear Mr. Masrani: We appreciate your efforts to integrate environmental responsibility into every aspect of your business. We are writing to you today in the spirit of helping you achieve that goal. You cannot take a lead role in the finance, or arrange or underwrite the provision of finance, for the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline and be true to the values you profess or the policies that you have put in place. You state that “TD’s environmental responsibilities stretch beyond our own business operation and extend to the activities that we finance through both lending and investing.”1 We agree. You also state that your Environmental and Social Credit Risk Management Procedures include “assessment of TD’s clients’ policies, procedures, and performance on material environmental and related social issues, such as air, land, and water risk, climate risk, biodiversity, stakeholder engagement, and free prior and informed consent (FPIC) of Aboriginal peoples.”2 These are admirable commitments. However, if TD is serious about their implementation, then it should not be underwriting the share offering for Kinder Morgan Canada, arranging a Joint Venture for the Trans Mountain Expansion Project, or providing credit facilities to Kinder Morgan or its subsidiaries that may be used to finance construction of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project. Free prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples: This project clearly does not have consent from Indigenous Peoples. Over 120 First Nations across Canada and the U.S. signed the Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion3 and over 130 First Nations and their allies signed the Save the Fraser Declaration4 to oppose Kinder Morgan. In addition to these broad statements of opposition, there are currently 11 legal challenges5 to the project from First Nations alleging infringements of their rights. First Nation leaders have said Kinder Morgan may be ‘Canada’s Standing Rock’ with many First Nations and allies planning to challenge the pipeline directly on the pipeline route. Risks to water and land: The Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion pipeline would increase tanker traffic in Vancouver’s busy inner harbour from 60 to 400 tankers,6 putting at risk 98,000 coast-dependent jobs,7 salmon rivers, wildlife, tourism opportunities, and the health of B.C. residents. The existing Trans Mountain pipeline has a disgraceful record of 82 separate leak incidents,8 including four major oil spills9 since Kinder Morgan purchased the pipeline in 2005. A spill would endanger local sources of drinking water, and threaten Burrard Inlet and the Fraser River in various locations. In some communities, the pipeline would threaten10 the only water source they have available. Climate risk: Building the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Expansion Project is inconsistent with Canada’s international climate commitments. Its financial success
depends on failure to achieve the goals of the Paris climate agreement. The initial National Energy Board (NEB) review of the pipeline did not consider either the upstream or the downstream greenhouse gas (GHG) impacts of Trans Mountain; however, an Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) assessment11 found that the upstream emissions associated with the 590,000 barrels per day capacity added by the Trans Mountain Expansion Project could range from 13 to 15 megatonnes (MT) of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. To put this in perspective, the entire province of New Brunswick emits 15 MT per year and there is still a 44 MT gap12 in the federal government’s plan for meeting our Paris climate agreement targets. What’s more, these calculations don’t even factor in the downstream emissions (estimated at 71.1 MT per year13), and fails to consider that global oil demand will be much lower than the NEB forecast if the world is on track to meeting its Paris climate commitments. Biodiversity: Even without a spill, the project risks eliminating the endangered southern resident orca whale14 population from B.C. Just a small rise in tankers will have a big effect as the increase in tanker traffic noise is proven to interfere with their habitat and diet. Conservation groups have launched a court case15 arguing that the approval of the pipeline places the federal government in contravention of the Species At Risk Act. By providing crucial financial services which fund and facilitate the construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, TD is ignoring its public commitments to environmental protection and Indigenous rights. There are many other low-carbon initiatives which need and deserve your financial support, so we ask that you terminate your underwriting agreement with Kinder Morgan Canada for its offering of restricted voting shares, cease any work to arrange a Joint Venture for the Trans Mountain Expansion project, and cancel and/or do not renew all credit facilities with Kinder Morgan that may be used, directly or indirectly, to finance the Trans Mountain Expansion Project. We would be happy to meet with you to provide more detail on these issues. We can be reached via email at
[email protected]. Sincerely,
Joanna Kerr Executive Director Greenpeace Canada
Alex Speers-Roesch Campaigner Greenpeace Canada
CC: Mark Chauvin, Group Head and Chief Risk Officer, TD Bank Group Brian M. Levitt, Chairman of the Board, TD Bank Group
NOTES
1
TD Bank, “Responsible Investing”, http://www.td.com/corporateresponsibility/environment/responsible-finance.jsp 2
TD Bank, 2016 Annual Report, https://www.td.com/document/PDF/ar2016/ar2016-CompleteReport.pdf 3
http://www.treatyalliance.org/
4
http://savethefraser.ca/
5
National Energy Board, Court Challenges to National Energy Board or Governor in Council Decisions, http://www.neb-one.gc.ca/pplctnflng/crt/index-eng.html 6
Transmountain, Marine Plans, https://www.transmountain.com/marine-plans
7
City of Vancouver, Why Vancouver Cares about the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion, http://vancouver.ca/green-vancouver/trans-mountain-pipeline-expansion-hearings.aspx 8
Transmountain, Spill History, https://www.transmountain.com/spill-history
9
Conversation for Responsible Economic Development, Assessing the risks of Kinder Morgan’s proposed new Trans Mountain pipeline, http://credbc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/TransMountain-Risks.pdf 10
Tsleil-Waututh Nation Sacred Trust, Would the Proposed Kinder Morgan Pipeline Risk British Columbia’s Drinking Water, https://twnsacredtrust.ca/concerns/drinking-water/ 11
Environment and Climate Change Canada, Trans Mountain Pipeline ULC - Trans Mountain Expansion Project Review of Related Upstream Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimates, http://ceaa-acee.gc.ca/050/documents/p80061/116524E.pdf 12
Environment and Climate Change Canada, Pathway to meeting Canada’s 2030 target, https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/pan-canadianframework/pathway-canada-target.html
13
Mark Jaccard and James Hoffele (May 6, 2015). Impact of National and Global GHG Targets on the Trans Mountain Expansion Project. Report prepared for the City of Vancouver. Web: http://vancouver.ca/images/web/pipeline/Mark-Jaccard-impact-of-GHG-targets.pdf 14
Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Statement of Written Evidence, https://www.raincoast.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/RCFStatement_of_Written_Evidence_of_Raincoast_Conservation_Foundation_-_A4L9F2.pdf 15
CBC News, Environmentalists file court challenge of Ottawa's Trans Mountain pipeline approval, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/pipelines-whales-british-columbia-lawsuitnoise-trans-mountain-calgary-court-1.3904797