BC Liberal Government Surrenders to Enbridge, Ottawa

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The BC Liberals have just offered the sword of surrender to Enbridge and Ottawa as the organ-grinder’s monkey, Environment Minister Terry Lake, made clear in a statement today.

Separating the pepper from the fly shit, the Liberals want more money and more environmental safeguards imposed upon Enbridge, which must be severely monitored by the feds. (With the same enthusiasm the Department of Fisheries and Oceans safeguards our Pacific Salmon, no doubt.)

As I said here recently, Premier Clark has declared that BC is a whore, the only thing to be decided being how much?

Let me place matters on the table once more:

  1. There will be ruptures in this 1,100 km. pipeline by the admission of Enbridge and now conceded as the only possible inference to be drawn from Lake’s statement demanding better clean-up arrangements.
  2. This pipeline goes over two mountain ranges and through a dense wilderness and is inaccessible to any cleanup undertaking. To make this plain to this corrupt bunch, you cannot get to the spills.
  3. Such is the nature of the bitumen to be piped you can’t clean it up even if you could get to it.
  4. The pipeline becomes a permanent serial polluter with one environmental catastrophe following another.

Of course Premier Clark will have her “demands” met.

More money is a slam dunk because there’s a hell of a lot of it available. It will start with offers to build the port facilities at Kitimat – which is sort of like offering to donate your the grave and headstone if you’ll commit suicide. There will be royalty sharing offered along with lots of cash to buy off First Nations.

Of course the feds and Enbridge will meet the demands in the press release which were:

The province wants limits to liability in the event of an oil spill to ensure there are sufficient financial resources to properly address the effects of a spill and it is calling for increased federal government response.

B.C. also wants tougher federal rules requiring industry to provide and replace marine response equipment.

And the province wants a Natural Resources Damage Assessment process to give certainty that a responsible party will address all costs associated with a spill.

The naiveté is breathtaking! Why, I imagine Prime Minister Harper will even say “cross my heart and hope to die” when he makes the solemn pledges!

This is an act of craven cowardice to help the bedraggled, leader challenged BC Liberals for the May 2013 election.

Harper will come up with oodles of safeguards just as the BC government did with fish farms and will pursue them with the same diligence his government and the BC government has with the Fish Farmers.

I don’t mean to be rude, folks, but how do you compensate for lost or badly polluted fish habitat, starving caribou and polluted rivers? How do you put a dollar figure on shattered ecologies? How do you compensate First Nations for lost hunting grounds? How do you compensate the tourist industry for their lost revenues?

Perhaps most importantly, what is the going rate for a province that has just sold its soul?

Premier Clark and her bedraggled, divided gutless cabinet and caucus have sold us out in hopes they can rally the right wing back into the fold and you can bet the ranch that Harper will go easy on the BC government when the HST expires next April as part of this surrender package.

Our provincial government, in place to protect our province’s integrity has, as predicted, sold us out for a mess of pottage in a sorry attempt to save its grubby political hide.

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About Rafe Mair

Rafe Mair, LL.B, LL.D (Hon) a B.C. MLA 1975 to 1981, was Minister of Environment from late 1978 through 1979. In 1981 he left politics for Talk Radio becoming recognized as one of B.C.'s pre-eminent journalists. An avid fly fisherman, he took a special interest in Atlantic salmon farms and private power projects as environmental calamities and became a powerful voice in opposition to them. Rafe is the co-founder of The Common Sense Canadian and writes a regular blog at rafeonline.com.

9 thoughts on “BC Liberal Government Surrenders to Enbridge, Ottawa

  1. Christy is acting like an abused FAS halfwit… (she looks FAS too) “oh corp. masters… BC Rail made me do it… my new bo is less corrupt! Enbridge… I believe you… take me back… I will do your bidding… oh.. those 805 oil spills to your name? I know your love me and won’t do it again.” SMACK. (insert sucking noise here) Every BC community threatened has voiced their official opposition. This nondemocratic “appointee” needs to call an election.The only thing coming out of this “appointees” mouth should be ” The election date is…” Hopefully she won’t do too much damage before then.

  2. Why do I feel so violated by my own prov. and fed. governments?
    Why is the insanity of oil extraction escalating at such a rapid pace in light of the clear threat to the planet and the atmosphere?
    Why is the natural heritage that makes BC “the best place on earth” being turned into a sacrifice zone for the sake of greedy, suicidal, psychopathic corporate invaders?
    Who are these corporatist politicians standing on guard for when they sing our national anthem?
    Keep our land glorious and free. It’s a farce and beyond embarrassing.
    The tar sands are not only destroying the land, they are also destroying the Canadian brand. There must be some corporation out there that cares about that.

  3. Am I the only British Columbian who thinks this Northern Gateway Project is nothing but a huge red herring? Nobody, not even Enbridge and it’s government co-horts could be stupid enough to think they could successfully ship bitumen down Douglas Channel and out to the open Pacific.

    No, I think we are being fed a bunch of BS to distract us from something even more sinister. Am I being paranoid? Maybe…

  4. You’re right, the ROW where the pipeline is constructed will be completely inaccessible. Wait that didn’t contradict itself did it?

    by the way, BITUMEN, turns into a gel in open air, you can pick it up like dough, the stuff being shipped is a mixture so it moves a bit better, and can be completely cleaned up in any occasion. Take a trip out to Alberta sometime! It’s not a bad place.

  5. Well, Harper is a traitor committing High Treason. He has, just sold Canada out to Communist China. Communist China, now controls, the dirty Alberta tar sands.

    Christy and her BC Liberals, work for Harper, as Campbell did before her. Christy has another of Harper’s henchmen working for her. Boessenkool, who works for Harper and lobbies for Enbridge. Christy only kicked up a stink, because she knew, Harper’s theft of Canada was a shoe-in, for Communist China’s ownership of our country. She will say to BC….gee whiz people, I tried really hard to stop the Enbridge pipeline, even if she was two months too late, with her asinine objection. Meanwhile Christy was busy stabbing the BC citizens, in our backs, just as her evil Liberal God, Gordon Campbell did.

    No Canadian has to obey, Harper as a traitor committing High Treason, by giving Canada to Communist China. Don’t forget, Communist China hacked into other country’s secret files. Most country’s despise Harper, as much as we do. Other country’s also despise Communist China, as much as we do.

    Shame on Premier Redford, for backing up Harper treason, forcing BC into the filthy Enbridge pipeline.

  6. I am so disgusted…..and when she goes, BC has continue her pension, along with Campbells, Coleman’s, Falcons, etc etc…What a crock!

  7. Christy’s government cannot make demands like these pathetic ones her minions outlined today.

    The NWPA (TILMA on Steroids) lets such projects cross borders unhindered and when thwarted by governments they will be sued. Her own government insisted on it.

    http://www.newwestpartnershiptrade.ca/the_agreement.asp

    Moreover, her government signed away any leverage or ability to make demands with the unnecessary equivalency agreement, a ministeral power devolved to staff to avoid the scrutiny of selling out BC.

    http://thecanadian.org/item/1471-myth-of-bc-liberal-neutrality-enbridge-christy-clark

    Clark is toast. They did not surrender because you dont surrender to the side your on.

    She simply continues a highly deceitful charade.

    Uganda is cutting better deals with CNOOC and other oil majors and Stiglitz is suggesting they need to do better.

    Somebody please have Stiglitz come to Canada and stop the rape and pillage.

    http://allafrica.com/stories/201207231590.html

    We are being raked over the coals by oil and their politicians.

    Worse than third world countries.

    Its time to wake up.

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