Re: Protest over B.C. pipeline hits Nanaimo, Oct. 20.
I would think anti-pipeline protesters would be linking arms to celebrate the demise of Northern Gateway rather than forming a “wall of opposition” to it.
But perhaps they don’t follow the news.
Most of what I’ve read lately points to Northern Gateway being, as one writer put it, a “dead pipeline walking.” And the fickle finger of fault is pointed mainly at pipeline builder, Enbridge Inc.
Besides having some high-profile pipeline spills, Enbridge neglected to go to school on other large B.C. projects that have failed due to environmental concerns.
It underestimated the impact of First Nation unhappiness and B.C.’s environmental protest industry. Not to mention the funding of those groups by various U.S. foundations.
And the ‘green’ movement certainly wouldn’t be interested in the improvements to equipment and methods used in transporting oil.
Naturally the NDP, smelling the enviro-vote, jumped into the anti-pipeline parade. Nanaimo MLA Leonard Krog, showing the party’s usual lack of economic sense, claims there is “very little, if any, fiscal upside” to the pipeline.
How did he miss the employment impact of construction and operations, or the revenue producing taxing options, or even the possibility of equity shares in the project and therefore a share of development profits?
More than one-third of the taxes generated by oil and gas development go to Ottawa, paying for services in every part of the country, including B.C.
How can the tax-and-spend NDP be so oblivious to the obvious?
Jim Corder
Nanaimo