Burnaby, B.C. Mayor Derek Corrigan said Kinder Morgan Canada is acting like “Mickey Mouse” when it comes to its application for the $7.4 billion Trans Mountain expansion project. Influential energy investor W. Brett Wilson shot back, comparing the outspoken mayor to comic-book villain “Lex Luthor” in back-to-back heated interviews on BNN.

Relations between Burnaby and the pipeline company have been frigid as the company tries to complete its pipeline running bitumen from Edmonton to the Vancouver port.

Last month Kinder Morgan said it had been unable to gain permits from the City of Burnaby for the pipeline expansion project, and called on the National Energy Board to make a determination.

Corrigan told BNN Kinder Morgan has no one to blame but itself.

“I wasn’t aware how Mickey Mouse Kinder Morgan is when they make these types of applications,” he told BNN. “It’s a story of incompetence, Keystone Kops-types of things in which Kinder Morgan has tripped over themselves as they make relatively simple applications to comply with the city’s bylaws.”

Corgan said Kinder Morgan and the NEB are ignoring environmental concerns the municipality has with the location of the pipeline as well as a tank farm. Ultimately it would be better for Alberta to refine its own oil and sell it to Canadians, he added.

“In Canada it cannot be a trade-off with all of the risks being accepted by one of our provinces and all of the benefit going to another one of our provinces,” Corrigan said.

Wilson dismissed Corrigan’s concerns in a BNN interview just minutes later.

“I think he’s bright, but you know what? Lex Luthor was bright. He’s gone to the dark side,” Wilson told BNN. “This is NIMBYism at its finest.”

Wilson - Chairman of Canoe Financial - said the pipeline’s environmental impact will be minimal and said Corrigan does not understand the economics of the oil sector – a critical business for all Canadians.

“You have to refine close to port or close to market and Alberta happens to be neither,” said Wilson.

Wilson called Corrigan’s complaints about Kinder Morgan’s “Mickey Mouse” approach to the application process “hogwash” and said the mayor was deliberately trying to slow the process.

“Someone is throwing a cog in the wheel of commerce – an intelligent cog – and it needs to stop,” he said.

Construction on the pipeline needs to begin and will benefit all Canadians, said Wilson.

“It’s scary when you see that sort of regionalism undermine the national interest,” he said.