When I say “Northern Gateway,” I can hear you yawning from here. And, as a politics guy, I could let that bother me. But I won’t, because I get it. There has been so much talk about Enbridge’s proposal in the last few years that it really has been beaten to death.
In fact, we hear so much about it that the story gets lost in the headlines. What you need to know right now is that the Harper government is probably going to approve the pipeline this month.
I know I’m not shocking anyone by being another spoiled island college kid against the pipeline. Sure, I think it’s an awful idea, but so does everyone else around campuses these days. That doesn’t matter.
What does matter is that over 300 scientists from Canada and around the world recently sent Harper a letter begging him to reconsider, accusing the original Joint Review Panel (JRP) review of being extremely flawed.
The review was a laundry list of errors made in the JRP report, accompanied by a request for a delay. When 300 scientists of different disciplines tell you you’re doing science wrong, you should probably humour them.
Well, scientists only know science, and college kids don’t really know anything, you say. You’re wondering why no one asked the working man, or even the unemployed man. Let’s get our heads out of the science clouds and ask Joe the Plumber! Well, we did. And we asked Tom the Lawyer, and Bard the Dentist. They don’t want it either. Almost no one in BC does.
The latest poll conducted among British Columbians shows that 67 percent want the project either delayed or scrapped altogether. Between building, delaying, and scrapping the whole pipeline, the province is split essentially into thirds. But two thirds of us don’t want the current proposal to go ahead.
This goes beyond environmental science and some probable view of BC’s future. This is about democracy. Ignoring the scientific reasons for or against Northern Gateway, we don’t want it, at least not right now. If this really is rule by the people, why are we still talking about this?
I tired of everyone being part of the problem and not part of the solution.
Either you approve a pipeline or the oil will contiue to move in Rail Cars.
The Americans are doing a real good job of paying special interest groups to be part of the derailment of this pipeline in order to keep the differential on Canadian crude.
I would think the people of B.C would pick a state of the art pipeline over moving oil by rail any day.