Bob Plecas has an op-ed piece in the Vancouver Sun – they whose recent papers are celebrating their 100th birthday have carried the art of media masturbation to new heights once thought unreachable.
I assume that the editor in charge of its op-ed page, being a Fellow of the far right Fraser Institute, chooses his op-ed writers with care and, if part of that mandate is to push the government’s agenda, Fazil Milhar has done well indeed with Mr. Plecas.
Mr. Plecas was a deputy minister when I was in government and has written a biography of former premier, Bill Bennett.
I always thought he was a bright lad but clearly he is captive of the right as his article clearly demonstrates.
In this screed, Plecas is telling Premier Christy how to win the next election. Here is one of his suggestions, indeed his first choice:
The Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline. Demand Alberta share in the revenue from the pipeline between the oil (sic) sands and Kitimat as a condition for BC’s support. As proposed Alberta would gain all the benefits while BC takes all the “risks’’ (emphasis mine). Royalty splitting would have BC dedicate its share towards safety, first nations and communities in the North…
You will note that Mr. Plecas, as a faithful follower of the right, says the “oil” sands which is Liberal Party’s mantra. Oil sounds so much better than “tar” sands which has the nasty problem of the accurate description.
Now, Bob, repeat after me: there is no “risk” to BC from these two pipelines – THEY ARE MATHEMATICAL CERTAINTIES WHICH WILL RE-OCCUR FOR THE LIFETIME OF THE PIPELINES.
Bob, your article is simply untrue. Not only will these pipelines burst, you can’t clean up this stuff, called bitumen. Please look at the Enbridge disaster in the Kalamazoo River which happened 18 months ago and has not been cleaned up and never will. And now we learn the company is back at it with a new spill in Michigan this week! The Kalamazoo River is in populated Michigan not the wilds of British Columbia.
You casually toss aside First Nations, as if Victoria had some vague responsibility to look after the helpless Indians thus ought to give them a share of the revenue.
Bob, you know better than this having been involved in aboriginal affairs as a Deputy Minister.
The truth of the matter – better brace yourself (I would take a shot or two of single malt whisky) – is that First Nations make no case for sharing royalties because they oppose the pipelines. They’re no longer clients of the government but have a special place under our constitution as declared by the Supreme Court of Canada. This pipeline is mostly on unceded land the status of which has not yet been determined. Didn’t you know that, Bob?
How dare you patronize them!
I suppose you’ve done them a favour since your remark clearly shows that you and the government haven’t kept up to date and are wrapped in a time warp of 35 years ago.
Bob, I notice you haven’t dealt with the tankers issue. The First Nations on our coast are dead set against tanker traffic and saw what happened after the Exxon Valdez spill.
Yes, the tankers may be double hulled. Do you not know that in the past two years there have been four double hulled major spills and these vessels weren’t in dangerous waters as we have on our coast?
Bob, how could you be so wrong? Don’t you care for our Great Bear Rainforest? Does it not bother you that these two* pipelines traverse 1,100 km through the Rockies and Coast range only accessible by helicopter. Do you simply not give a damn that 1,000 rivers and streams will be crossed including three essential to wild salmon?
I can’t believe that you would dissemble – nor can I believe you’re stupid.
Unfortunately, Bob, it’s one or the other.
*the second pipeline which runs parallel to the one carrying the bitumen, takes the condensate which is mixed with the bitumen so it will flow, back to the Tar Sands
Rafe Mair’s latest book, The Home Stretch, is now available online at www.kobo.com and www.amazon.com at the appallingly low $9.99
Damin, the point I was trying to make was that if you want people who are undecieded to start thinking along your line then give them fresh reasons to do so. Shouting that ” the sky is falling” day after day just turns people off. In order to win the day you have to get the fence sitters to your way of thinking. What I think we all need is more healthy debate and less preaching.
Ok John,
Let’s go with your argument about the tankers. You kindly state that tankers have plied these waters for more than a century with no in your words “serious incidents.”
So are we to understand that the Exxon Valdez was just a minor occurrence and simply a bit of a nuisance?
Let go with your argument then and have tankers. Now how about dealing with the pipeline itself? Have we had one of those for more than a century with no major spills? (Careful now we might have a neighbourhood in Burnaby that is awaiting your response.)
How about the destruction that will be caused just to get the pipe in place? We should just stand back while this pipe transverses 1000 rivers and streams some of them with significantly unique runs of wildlife?
I like the Easter Bunny. He is environmentally friendly and does no harm to anyone; well maybe a bit of a sweet tooth there….ok..
Every one of these half-decade old “80% polls” start with the false statement that the federal government banned crude oil tankers from the Inside Passage since 1972, and that the tankers are about to reappear. Did the respondents know that many ports, including Haida Gwai and all of Vancouver Island, depend 100% on forms of tankers for liquid hydrocarbon fuels and that crude and product tankers have plied our coasts for nearly a century without serious incident? Did they know the 1972 ban is pure fiction?
If this 1972 tanker ban existed, why did Imperial Oil build the BC coastal tanker Tofino in North Vancouver in 1973 with tankers “banned” since 1972? Why does former federal environment minister David Anderson’s 140 page November 1989 report to the BC Premier “Oil Transportation and Oil Spills” mention the offshore oil and gas moratorium but not the tanker “moratorium”? Given the false information provided, the age of the polls, and the general lack of public knowledge of the impact of a tanker ban, are these polls a basis for new policy?
A tar is a dry distillate, says the OED. Dry distillates are not found in the oil sands, and calling them oil sands is therefore not some sort of conspiratorial act. This is true no matter what your position is on Northern Gateway, Keystone XL, the oil sands, hydraulic fracking, or the Easter Bunny.
Sure lets have that referendum. At more than 80% opposed to this pipeline it will be a slam dunk for the entire province. And I have been informed that my estimate is low for BC’ers and the rest of Canadians.
Irh, why do you think that a referendum has not been proposed already by the pro pipeline crowd?
Here let me help. It is because they will have their asses handed to them on a platter same as the HST that is why.
And now we learn Christy has hired Harper’s former press secretary – this on top of hiring a former Enbridge lobbyist as her chief of staff…http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Christy+Clark+hires+Stephen+Harper+former+press+secretary/6171363/story.html#ixzz1mgT8Z5lH
For all the the repetition, lrh, it’s still not sinking for you.
Come on Rafe your starting to sound like a scratched record. Same old bullshit every week, the first nations don’t want it, there will be a leak with no access to fix it, it will wipe out all of the great bear rain forest. Give me a break, maybe some people in B.C. want this to go ahead. Maybe we should have a referendum but if you loose you go on 6 o’clock news and say you were wrong.
If you want to know about Enbridges commitment. They already said that they won’t be responsible for tanker spills, the owners of the ships will be.
In case of a spill, the terrain in northern BC would make it just about impossible to clean up the bituminous sludge, more so in the winter time
One country’s media said, how badly Harper is destroying Democracy in Canada. Harper is taking our Civil Rights and Liberties away from us. He is taking our Freedom of Speech from us, by snooping on our inter-net. Toews is right off his beam, we are supporting Child Pornography, by protesting snooping on our web. Harper just doesn’t want the truth about him posted of the net because, he has a lot to hide.
Then we have Oliver going nuts, on the Enbridge pipeline. There is not enough money in the world, to pay us to destroy our beautiful province. The F.N. should not have to constantly fight, to save their food sources, from government greed. It’s bad enough, filthy diseased fish farms, are killing the wild salmon, which are also a staple food for F.N. to feed their family’s.
There have just been three freighters that lost their cargo’s, being torn off by the legendary bad storms, off BC’s coast. The ships came limping into BC harbors.
We hear wind warnings of hurricane force and 40 to 50 foot rogue waves, every other day. The channel narrow, the tankers massive, which have to make hairpin turns. All of them need a mental evaluation for the Enbridge stupidity.
Plecas is one of the oldest haunts of the BC political scene. No doubt his skids are being greased by big oil to apply his unique skills to his dusty old rolodex.
That said, a revenue sharing discussion is premature and is a bad idea. We should not be fighting over the crumbs that fall of the tables of the largest companies on earth.
Furthermore, Albertas royalty regime is pathetic and has resulted in a free for all for the oil majors leaving the actual resource owners holding the bag and Albertans have suffered as a result with lack of services, high cost of living and deficit budgets.
If and that is a big IF, this disasterous project moves forward, the oil majors who are actually pushing the product through the pipe and profiting handsomely, need to be responsible for properly compensating British Columbians. And this is not simply Enbridge, whom have they have successfully used as a spearheand to negtiate pathetic deals with stakeholders, primarily First Nations.
Lets see the majors quit hiding behind governments, Enbridge and Ezra and actually show their faces and their wallets.