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Letter: Dear Premier Horgan, you're not doing enough to fight Trans Mountain

Editor: An open letter to Premier John Horgan: I had such hopes for a long-term relationship after your bold vows to protect our pristine province from the perilous TMX.
Trans Mountain
This week the Trans Mountain Expansion Project announced an “immediate return to work” now that the project has been re-approved, giving contractors 30 days to mobilize equipment and commence the process of hiring workers, procuring goods and services, and developing detailed construction work plans. The city of Coquitlam is monitoring the work closely because some of the pipeline will be dug under city streets in the Pacific Reach industrial park.

Editor:

An open letter to Premier John Horgan:

I had such hopes for a long-term relationship after your bold vows to protect our pristine province from the perilous TMX.  Relationships are based on trust, and I’m no longer sure I can count on you to stand up for B.C.

An article in the Globe and Mail by Gary Mason on Nov. 1 refers to your “apparent resignation that the Trans Mountain expansion will go ahead.”  Mason quotes you stating, “Jagmeet Singh has said the same thing. He recognizes that the Liberals and Conservative members of Parliament far outnumber those opposed to the pipeline. He talks about the inevitability of it also.”

As Mason points out, you vowed on the campaign trail to “use every tool in the toolbox” to prevent the TMX from going ahead. This toolbox appears to be lacking any effective implements, such as B.C. doing its own environmental review.

Premier Jason Kenney spent more than $4.6 million bombarding the airwaves and internet with pipeline propaganda and his predecessor Rachel Notley spent $23.4 million on pro-pipeline ads.

B.C.’s government has been silent, with no ads defending our coast threatened by a 20-fold increase in tanker traffic with its proportionate risk of diluted bitumen spills, the extinction of the remaining southern resident orcas and the very real risks of a tank farm fire on Burnaby Mountain in an earthquake.

The people of B.C. need our premier to stand up for and protect our province.  Our environment is our economy.

Stalwart NDP supporters, donors and volunteers deserve more than empty promises.

The only inevitability about the TMX is strong opposition to it is not going to abate.

Roslyn Hart on behalf of BROKE (Burnaby Residents Opposed to Kinder Morgan Expansion)