I wonder how many of you have come away from making a speech – perhaps the toast to the bride, being presented an award or perhaps just an after dinner speech and said to yourself, “damn … I should have said etc., etc.? I must admit that I’ve often felt that way and, even worse, I suppose, I’ve said to myself, what an idiot I was to say that!
In my recent blog on The Common Sense Canadian, I wrote about Premier Clark’s slow turnaround on the Enbridge pipeline case and in a moment I’ll tell you what I should have added.
The inadequacies of Clark’s leadership are exposed once more; she cannot bring herself to talk about the tanker traffic in the Inside Passage from Kitimat – or the close to 400 tankers a year through Vancouver harbour and the Salish Sea through the Straits of Juan de Fuca that would result from the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion. Clearly the tanker issue must be dealt with at the same time as Enbridge since, as the song says, “You can’t have one without the other.”
Clearly, Premier Clark just doesn’t have the courage to have a position on the issue as a whole.
It is not as if this was a complex issue. We know by Enbridge’s own admission that we will have spills from pipelines and common sense and statistics tell us that there will be tanker spills.
In the face of these certainties, Premier Clark is talking about insufficient financial benefits, on the assumption that money will compensate us for huge, ongoing tragedies over the 1,100 km of the pipeline and tanker spills – in short, our very soul is at stake and Clark is talking money.
Here comes the line I should have used…Premier Clark reminds me of the story where a man asks a lady if she will go to bed with him for $100,000 and she hems and haws, speaks of her needy children and, with apparent reluctance agrees.
The man then asks, “Will you then go to bed with me for $100?”
The lady is outraged and asks, “What do you think I am, a common prostitute?”
“We’ve already established that, ma’am,” says the man. “Now we’re dickering over the price.”
Thus the missing line: Premier Clark has declared British Columbia to be a common prostitute and is now ready to dicker.
Well Deborah, as one liberated female to another, let me diffuse your outrage as to the prostitute analogy. Prostitutes can be of either sex or a combination of both, so Clark being female has nothing to do with the conversation. The analogy is not about our unelected premier being male or female, it is about just exactly what the price will be to sell this province to foreign interests at the expense of our environment and residents of BC. To try and move the conversation to anything else is ridiculous. Clark herself, did not say that BC’s environment was not for sale, she clearly said it was. Now of course, all that’s left is to set the price. That was what Rafe was referring to and I think it was very apt and dealt very well with just how bad this whole Tar Sands pipeline and delivery to China project is.
Now, let’s get back to the real topic at hand. The sell off and of our environment and long term health.
Latest News on Clark here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/gateway-pipeline-risks-exceed-rewards-bc-premier-says/article4435145/
So, off to Halifax this week goes our dunce NON Premier to, no doubt, embarrass our Beautiful Province once again. Alison Redford, through her attempts to get a National Energy strategy discussion going, at least is a statesman (and had the guts to call an election to seek a mandate from the people of Alberta, unlike Christy). Christy continues to do nothing for the people of BC, sneaks out the back door of our neighbours Legislature while hoping for a miracle (for her). What policy flip flop will come next? Election Please!
Re: Gordon Schuk,
You are aware I will assume that we are concerned here about the enbridge pipeline across BC to ship bitumen to CHINA! None of which is in my gas tank or my asphalt nor will it ever be. You are aware I will assume that if this bitumen was refined here for use by me and my fellow ranters the need for this pipeline would cease to exist?? I don’t think I or you need to be a rocket scientist to see what is wrong with this picture.EVERYTHING is wrong with it.
Your opinion is as legitimate as mine, I would only ask you consider what I have pointed out before you have the audacity to tell me I should park my car!
HAS ANYONE BEEN PAYING ATTENTION TO THE LANDSLIDES LATELY?…….HELLO
To all you ranters, who seem to be always against everything that anybody else comess up with. I suggest you get out of your cars and walk, sorry no planes or other means of commuting, Don’t walk on pavement as it contains oil and other contaminants, don’t buy pre-packaged groceries, nor bags to carry them in. Turn off the furnace and power to your homes, and then you may be slightly more believeable. I am not a scientis and come up with ideas to bring our oil to market safer, and make better use of our resourses. So lets hear more about how to do these things better for everyone!
Christy is all for the “Enbridge pipeline and the dirty tar tankers. The Campbell/Clark BC Liberals, actually belong to Harper. Boessenkool another of Harper’s Conservatives, works for Harper and lobbies for Enbridge. He was placed in with the BC Liberals.
I don’t know why Christy even bothers to open her big mouth? No-one believes her, nor trusts her. All Christy has done is to, earn the deepest contempt of the BC people.
I have no idea, how any normal sane person with morals or ethics, can possibly support, Harper and his Conservatives, or, the Campbell/Clark BC Liberals? BC has already suffered a great deal of eco damage and financial damage, from both Harper and the BC Liberals. Why doesn’t Christy ask Campbell about the money, from our thieved resources and assets? We don’t have the money, Campbell does.
However, that’s how Christy thinks, money is her God. She has no clue, we don’t want the damned money. We only want to save our beautiful province, and to hell with the money.
Well, said, Kevin. You warned our readers months ago about Christy’s hidden support for Enbridge: http://thecanadian.org/item/1471-myth-of-bc-liberal-neutrality-enbridge-christy-clark …which is why her sudden feigned concern is so disingenuous – and yet even when she tries to present herself as being tough on Enbridge, it’s half-assed and even less sincere. Indeed, she has nowhere left to run. Perhaps Dix said it best: “She’s taken all the positions so far and it appears to be the result of constant political calculations on her part, but no commitment to principle or a straightforward assessment or the public interest.”
Christy’s key quote: “The balance isn’t there for British Columbia today and I don’t think British Columbians will want this project to go ahead until we can find that balance – unless we can find that balance.” UNLESS and UNTIL. That’s more than leaving the back door open – that’s saying, “come on in – as long as you can meet our price.”
Damn now you tell us.
I need all my quarters for the laundry so it will be up to some one else to pay the dummy I guess.
Keep up the great work you guys.
Clark plans some sort of media charade in the coming days and efforts like this clearly define she has nowhere to run and no clever spin is going to put lipstick on this pig.
Leveraging a few bucks out and some more jobs wont cut it as Rafe makes clear. And its not just about the immense environmental risk and the resulting sacrafice zones on our coast. But this oil and gas agenda is going to alter the fundamental fabric of BC. It invites a whole new paradigm of existence into our communities, altering what we have come to know and love in this province.
And there is no looking back, there is no way of correcting the course once the infrastructure is in place, in fact the agenda only rachets up.
Just look around the world at every hot spot where society has been devolved into primitive tribal guerilla war like environments. Oil and gas is at the heart of every conflict.
A few overnight millionaires and some jobs cannot “balance” anything Christy is currently contemplating.
This unelected leader of a lame duck party will not and must not be able to continue this agenda, an agenda that will put us on a path to a future no one wants.
I feel violated as a citizen of this Province by the lack of leadership of our dear leader Miss Clark.