Dear Editor:
As the horror of building an inevitable oil spill disaster in north-central B.C. looms, how far will Prime Minister Harper be allowed to go in using his office to promote the Enbridge plan to pipe the poisonous stuff from Alberta's tar sands to our coast?
In the face of growing opposition to the $5.5-billion scheme by those who would be most directly affected by it, Harper is seeking ways to force it upon us instead of acting in the interests of the people as democratic process demands. Our PM sees himself as CEO of Corporation Canada instead of simply the leader of a greedbased party with a technical majority in Parliament.
As illustrated by his instigation of the hated HST, his dishonourable retreat from the Kyoto Protocol and his endorsement of the toxic tar sands development itself, the Harper agenda puts quick profits ahead of our environment, ahead of the concerns of the people whose children will inherit what is done today, ahead of truth, ahead of everything but the rosy propaganda of Big Oil.
The Harper administration's lies and coverups in supporting the tar sands were disclosed last month when access to information legislation forced release of a report completed in the spring of last year by the government's own environment agency but kept under wraps. It warned of contamination of the Athabaska River and consequent dangers to people and wildlife, urging efforts to contain the industry's collateral damage.
At best, the Enbridge project would supply a couple of hundred jobs, but the pipeline itself, plus greatly increasing the use of huge oil tankers along B.C.'s fragile yet incomparably valuable coast, poses the spectre of an environmental disaster striking the lives of hundreds of thousands.
Little more than a year ago an Enbridge pipeline from Indiana to Ontario ruptured and spewed three million litres of oil into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. They're still trying to clean up the mess. There have been many other, smaller, spills.
All this at a time when the world is beginning to wake up to the desperate need to develop energy alternatives to the fossil fuels that are choking the world.
Should the ego trip of one man be allowed to force British Columbians to risk becoming yet another horrible example of what happens when oil, greed and political ambition are mixed?
Tony Eberts, New Westminster
