Re: Tanker debate sinks to new low (B.C. Views, May 9)
Thanks goodness someone has ‘ramped up opposition to the Northern gateway project,’ Mr. Fletcher. The Liberals are sitting back ‘to see what comes out of the environmental assessment.’ This project, if approved, serves to have the biggest potential risk to B.C.’s environment than any other so far in its history.
Mr. Fletcher, I think you are mincing words when you write about “the moratorium and exclusion zone” on oil tankers on the B.C. Coast. Even though it may have originally been directed at offshore drilling, the Gateway project risks spills all along the pipeline from Alberta to Kitimat and then marine spills from Kitimat, through Douglas Channel (very narrow) all the way through Hecate Strait, near Haida Gwaii, to the open Pacific ocean.
I’d say this is much more serious than what the original moratorium was directed at.
Mr. Fletcher, you’re starting to sound a lot like Joe Oliver, the minister of the environment, who seems to think its a terrible thing if some environmental groups receive some of their funding from U.S sources and yet seem to feel it’s just fine that the tar sands are supported in large amounts by China and other foreign interests. China has very low environmental standards and a horrible human-rights record. Why are we wanting and willing to sell raw, unrefined bitumen to them?
I’m glad you admit there are legitimate arguments against the Northern Gateway Project. I resent you calling it a “hippy-fantasy tanker moratorium.” I am not a hippy.
I am opposed to this project because of the huge environmental risks.
First Nations and others who live along the route of the gateway project have a democratic right to voice their opinions and concerns about it. For all the species who live and make their home in the areas concerned, we need to speak for them.
I think that we seriously, as a nation and planet, need to really look at shifting away from fossil fuels to alternative forms of energy.
Governments, both federal and provincial, need to pay more than just lip service to climate change initiatives – they need to direct more actual money to making this shift a reality.
Our children and grandchildren have the right to grow up in a cleaner environment not surrounded by an oil driven agenda where the huge oil companies make almost all the money and we, the people, take all the risk. The jobs that will be created with this project are not worth the risk.
Marilyn Goode
Saanich