As protestors continue to muck about on Burnaby Mountain, trying to stop Kinder Morgan from their court-earned right to work there, it’s important to consider the benefit to taxpayers of an expanded pipeline.

Our friends over at the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association offer some great statistics in their most recent newsletter:

• Trans Mountain proposes to spend $5.4 billion to expand its oil pipeline between Edmonton and Burnaby.
• $2 million per day over 20 years in additional tax and royalty revenue to government.
• Twinning the 1,150 km pipeline creates person-years of work and $18.5 billion in benefits to Canada.
• Every year, the City of Burnaby will receive enough municipal tax revenue from the expanded pipeline to fund the city’s public library system with enough left over to fund 29 additional library staff positions.
• In Burnaby, in one year alone, tax revenues could be used to hire 132 EXTRA firefighters or more than cover the annual garbage collections costs