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Atta girl Christy, you tell ‘em!
Kootenay Crust
I’ve stayed out of the latest knee-jerk money-head plan to help screw up our world (Enbridge’s proposed $5.5 billion Northern Gateway pipeline) because, frankly, I am sick and tired of screaming into hurricanes.
The sorry insult to intelligence and First Nations people called Jumbo Glacier Resort has hurt my throat and my knuckles are raw from swinging away at that, so I’ve let the sleeping pigs lie in regard to the pipeline issue.
But I have to make a grand shout-out to B.C. Premier Christy Clark for standing up for her province on this matter.
Aware of the growing public hatred for this plan, as well of her parties’ continued sag of support in the province as Adrian Dix’s NDP keep gaining steam, Clark stated on CBC Radio today, “Alberta’s interests in this are pretty obvious. Alberta gets the large bulk of the benefits, takes very little of the risk. B.C. takes most of the risk and we get very few of the benefits. So I think it’s pretty obvious that we have some talking to do here.”
Sounds right and reasonable to me and I appreciate my provincial government leader standing up for her province.
However, as seems to be the norm in our increasingly loopy and irrational world, where logic and common sense are constantly shoved to the back of the line in favour of Big Bucks Smoke Up The Ass ideas, usually flying out of the ethers on wings made of complete stupidity (see also: Jumbo), this rational position is being considered irrational by Clark’s Alberta equal, Alison Redford, who claims Clark is being ‘un-Canadian.’
“It’s not how Canada has worked. It’s not how Canada has succeeded, and I’m disappointed to hear the comments. We will not share royalties and I see nothing else proposed and would not be prepared to consider anything else at this time,” Redford stated. “Leadership is not about dividing Canadians and pitting one province against another. Leadership is about working together. That’s when our country benefits, that’s when Canada leads.”
Pause to sigh, as I just did while writing this.
So… what we have here is a failure to communicate, to borrow from Strother Martin (Cool Hand Luke).
In one corner we have Clark, who is worried about her province’s environmental health and is hearing the concerns of the communities that stand to be crossed by this pipeline, and who is also worried about this issue being the downhill ride that derails her parties’ hold on power, asking for Alberta to at least scratch her back.
“FARG YOU,” shrieks a completely unsurprising shrill Alberta Tory politician, who couldn’t give an ocean full of piss for how Canada conducts its business.
Since when has Alberta been the flag waver for provincial cohesion? I guarantee you, there are people in Ottawa who have had to go home and change their pants/dresses after reading Redford’s statements, because their poor bladders exploded from the gales of hysteria.
This is just PR 101 – damage control of the ilk that has been proven to be too transparent and poop-stinky in recent years for smart governments or corporations to use. And yes, it’s exactly what Clark is doing. But hey, she’s my Premier – B.C.’s premier – and seeing as how I am a Kootenay resident and British Columbian, I have to back the lady.
How can we throw this back at Redford and Alberta in a way that will make them understand that they are literally intruding on a vast tract of British Columbia in their bid to keep the big oil MFers bloated and sassy and hiring Newfoundlanders? Because, as we all know, oil pipelines are fool proof and no threat to the environment.
As Saskatchewan’s premier Brad Wall is backing Redford, let’s paint a scenario involving that (recently) big-oil-money-seduced province.
British Columbia strikes a deal with Manitoba to ship its hippies to the Arctic via Churchill, but the only way to transport the oleaginous creatures, highly valued for their ability to grow cannabis and quickly organize into phalanxes of well-researched opposition to any number of shit-ass schemes dreamed up by ‘the man,’ is by pipeline, beginning near Nelson, across Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Some of the finest semi-arid farm land in the nation, as well as some Canadian Shield majesty, would have to be crossed. Naturally, hippie-hating communities such as Calgary, Hanna, Saskatoon and Prince Albert would be in the path of the hippie pipeline. They pee and moan and look to their governments for support in their plight and, unless they’ve all become oil poisoned meatheads, they back their people and demand revenue sharing and compensation from B.C. to help reduce the political heat.
Clark responds by flicking the proverbial ‘two-hoots-left’ roach in their faces and calls them ‘un-Canadian’ and ‘doody-heads’ and demands that they just shut up and get back on the bandwagon that is always well-occupied by those who love money and corporate growth over the fragile, precious world that is home to those they love.
In the end, marijuana is legalized and the hippies, still in B.C. because Alberta and Saskatchewan are successful in denying the bid for the pipeline, help turn the province into a new age wonderland of economic and psychoactive chemical success. Nelson explodes to 50,000 people, as the black market turns white collar and an exciting new economic driver takes over from the traditional ones.
Will it be the end of the world if Enbridge is told to ‘fuck off’ by British Columbians? No, I would think, judging by Premier Wall’s sycophancy to Alberta, that Saskatchewan would LOVE to have its pipeline run across its landscape, and Manitoba, jealous because Saskatchewan is experiencing a boom, and because the Riders have been better than the Bombers lately, will also give in and the hippies will flow to Hudson’s Bay and off to the world through the Arctic. I mean, it’s the Arctic – who gives a tinker’s winkie about the Arctic? A few Inuit, a few musk-oxen and a few hermits – that’s all. That seems to be the general attitude with Alberta and Enbridge and B.C. Conservatives with brains smaller than their capacity to give a shit about what matters.
Besides, climate change means longer sailing seasons in the north. The pipeline will be constructed in the same flawless manner as they are elsewhere in the world, including Alberta, where only a few hundred terrible pipeline disasters have occurred in the last few decades.
Problem solved; Bob’s yer uncle. And Alison and Christy make up – until Alison rides an ATV over Christy’s lawn, claiming it’s her right as a big-oil-money spending Albertan to sully B.C. Crown land whenever and wherever she feels.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3TepIgGztA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pipeline_accidents
Above image from CBS News – of a pipeline explosion in China
Ian Cobb/e-KNOW
