Letter to the Editor

Re: A Desperate Alberta

Three cheers for Mr. Dix. No tar pipelines across B.C.

Alberta is a petro state that has been addicted to oil since the Leduc find in 1949. Like other petro states around the world, it has seen no reason to diversify its economy, relying instead on a stream of oil royalties and taxes. It also has in common with other petro states the longevity of a ruling dynasty devoid of imagination or initiative and an economy driven deeply into debt from reliance on oil.

The 2012 Alberta government debt came in at $4 billion and it proposes to borrow another $4 billion for capital projects.  The province and its corporate oil sector are manically frantic to find a way to get more tar to market.  If Keystone will not be approved, there is B.C and the Northern Gateway. If not that, there is Trans Canada and eastern Canada where refineries can be retooled to send the tar across the Atlantic.

I am most disappointed that Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources, has turned into the Fuller Brush salesman for Keystone and Northern Gateway. He has done four door-to-door jaunts to the U.S. to sell Keystone. The credibility of our federal cabinet ministers is cheapened as Mr. Oliver turns into an industry lackey. Perhaps he and Mr. Harper will declare the Northern Gateway or the other pipelines “a federal work and undertaking” to try to run roughshod over provincial law? Welcome to 10 years in the courts should they do so. Further, Bill 38 is a travesty pushed through by a compliant Conservative majority that will pay at the polls in 2015.

Premier Allison Redman will not even offer to pay B.C. to push her tar to the Pacific. Such arrogance. B.C. is not an Albertan doormat. I see no reason, even if Alberta is so desperate to get its tar to Asia, why we in B.C. should let them cross our fair province and bear the risk of polluting our land and ocean. Alberta is doing quite a good job on its own of poisoning the people north of the tar sands along the Athabasca River and destroying its own environment. We do not need or want their tar or their pollution.

Ship the tar to the U.S. or Eastern Canada. Leave B.C. alone.

Gary Mac Donald, B.A., B.A.Sc. (Min. Eng.), LL.B.,

Cranbrook

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