The Enbridge pipeline is a risky venture which will endanger our environment while creating few if any jobs. It also restricts our opportunity to employ ourselves as refiners. In reality, there will be environmental damage and actuaries can determine the extent and cost of removing this damage in advance. No approval for this pipeline should be given without a system of bonding and insurance or third party guarantees that insures that all damage will be corrected even if Enbridge, or whichever subsidiary that ends up owning it goes bankrupt.
Enbndge tells us us that the venture will create employment. They do not tell us what employment in B.C. or what employment above other forms of transport. Nor is the pipeline compared with other possible ventures such as a refinery or the rail transport system that is already in place. The sole role of the pipeline is to ship the resource away with few wages or profits for Canadians.
Perhaps we should leave the resource where it is until we have a better plan.
Also, please look at a map. Kitimat, as the terminus for the pipeline is a long way from the
Pacific. The plan has these huge oil tankers traveling the full length of the Douglas Channel then to the open sea 240 kilometers from Kitimat. These inland channels are narrow with heavy tides.
The islands and mainland that the channel traverses has some of the most beautiful and
diversified flora and fauna in the world. This is a restricted channel, not the open sea and should not be used by oil tankers. Enbridge could have avoided the Douglas Channel by establishing a terminus at Port Edward or Prince Rupert where the most modern shipping facilities on the Western Canadian coast exist. However they are not concerned about our environment to even do that. In fact Enbridge is so unconcerned about our opinion that they do not even have a local office. If one was here, then anyone could drop in and meet their representatives and collect information. What would that cost? Not much, but it does indicate how much they care!
I say, tell Enbridge to go home. Their plan is a disaster looking for a place and time to happen. The pity is their pipeline is not even needed.
David Pearson Realtor
MA, Economics of Natural Resources
University of British Columbia
