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Pipeline posturing hurting B.C.

"Get out the backhoe, the builders and the welders and let’s go to work!"

Why is it that diluted bitumen delivered by pipeline from East to West brings out the envirocranks to screech “tar sands goo” and “environmental Armageddon”?

But, have that exact same product delivered in the exact same way from West to East and the product becomes liquid gold.  Where is the outrage from the NDP, Green, and assorted environmentalists, foreign and domestic?

Alberta Premier Alison Redford, always on the lookout to find markets for Alberta oil, is playing footsie with separatist Quebec Premier Pauline Marois to move the liquid gold across several provinces to Quebec (and further to New Brunswick) to be refined.

“Clickety-click, Barba-trick”.  Magically, there is no hyped fear of environmental spills over a much greater distance.

Meanwhile, with the help of the protest movement (of which both the BC and federal NDP are an active part), British Columbians might lose out on jobs and the building of a super port in Kitimat.

So, when these same protesters whine that there is not enough B.C. funding for healthcare, education, social assistance and other needed programs, perhaps they can count on the foreign philanthropists and celebrities that fund the envirocrank movement, to cut the cheques making up the shortfall.

Also, just where is B.C. NDP Adrian Dix in all of this?  On the one hand, he supports twinning an existing pipeline from the oil sands to the port of Vancouver but not to the port of Kitimat.  On the other, he wants to hold yet another environmental review after the federal review panel finishes its work on the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline.  It’s like watching a ping pong match from the sidelines - ganip, ganop, ganip, ganop.

C’mon, B.C.  Get out the backhoe, the builders and the welders and let’s go to work!

Rose Calderon

Trail