To the Editor,
Re: B.C. sets conditions for pipeline OK, July 26.
It seems like Christy Clark would sell off our environmental integrity and economic self-determination – the only detail left to decide is the price.
Today’s fantasy economy will provide little or nothing for the protection of our environment.
Once a disaster happens and it will, the Northern Gateway Pipeline companies will just go broke, the shareholders will walk away with the profits made prior to the disaster and we the people will be on the hook for all recovery and clean up.
To properly address the disaster in advance is to demand that the pipeline be insured for at least $200 billion dollars, and that, by multiple insurers so that we, the people of this province, can be confident that even the insurance companies will not use the same trick, leaving their favoured shareholders with profits as they in turn bankrupt themselves.
When the cost of doing business is too great, the return on the invested dollar is not great enough and thus, there is no point to business.
Only when a government is willing to grant, at public cost, concessions that will insure profitability, can many of these projects like the Northern Gateway Pipeline be done.
These concessions include the government, on behalf of the people, taking on the liabilities that a corporation could and would not be able to profitably afford or absorb.
The responsibility of a good government, any government, is to serve and protect the people and the environmental heritage that the people have granted them custody of.
Hearing all of this haggling between countries, corporations, provinces and stakeholders, I am reminded of that old story in which the gentleman asks the lady to sleep with him for $1 million.
The lady thinks about it for a while and then says “yes, for that amount I would.” The gentleman then asks if she would sleep with him for $10. The lady, shocked, says “what do you think I am?”
The gentleman replies, “we have already determined what you are, we are now discussing price.”
Alan MacKinnon
Nanaimo