Jan. 11, 2012 - Issue #847: The great indoors
Vuepoint
Enemies everywhere
Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver must see enemies everywhere. Well, he does now. After this week's comments about "radicals," "jet-setting celebrities" and foreign money pushing to delay the Northern Gateway pipeline through BC, Oliver not only failed to recognize the years of work by local and Aboriginal groups, he also risks pushing away those who consider themselves moderates by engaging in inflammatory name-calling.
While Oliver seems to understand the flow of international currency, he doesn't seem to get that the waters of the Pacific Ocean are not limited to the BC shores. Were a tanker to spill at Kitimat, Americans would have every reason to be concerned. Environmental impacts are not the sole concern of one province or region, they are deservedly an international conversation, one that can't be shut down when we don't like the answer we hear back from our neighbours.
Perhaps more concerning than the inflammatory language used by Oliver is the conclusion he came to because of all this foreign involvement. The federal government will be looking to shorten the regulatory review process of industrial projects such as the Northern Gateway pipeline. It's the opposite conclusion President Barack Obama came to when the White House was faced with massive opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline. Concerns over the pipeline's impact on the Ogalla aquifer in Nebraska, a major source of drinking water and over $20 billion in agriculture. Obama's statements on the issue of the pipeline were starkly direct in the need to balance environmental concerns. The project is now delayed until 2013.
Meanwhile Oliver has stated he is looking to a committee of deputy ministers the Conservatives have created to cut through regulatory red tape. The regulatory review process and environmental impacts assessments are necessary processes to understand, at least in part, the potential impact of running a pipeline next to the Kitimat River, through remote areas of the Rocky Mountains, and into the Douglas Channel. Ecosystems and their impacts are not easily understood. In order to research the impacts tar sands developments have on the Athabasca River, water researchers had to collect samples from 35 sites in February, March and June of 2008. And the results were not understood until the summer of 2010. What Schindler's major findings revealed pointed to an inadequate regulatory assessment and monitoring process.
There are legitimate environmental and economic reasons to be opposed to the Northern Gateway pipeline. Calling people names because you don't like their opinion does not help to bring clarity to a complex issue.
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