Imagine if our MPs felt obliged to represent our best interests. Wouldn't that be great? They could sound the alarm when we were about to do something stupid, like this whole selling tar balls to China thing. Sounds like a good gig, kinda like a vacation on the Titanic. Really, what could go wrong?
Big honkin' supertankers take miles to stop and don't handle well at slow speeds. Storms and currents will push the boats off course. Each one carries enough hazardous material to screw up hundreds of miles of coast until long after your grandkids have grown up. Supertankers are so delicate that loading and unloading is done in special sequence or they break in half. Same rules apply for double hulled tankers. The reality is that when a tanker goes off course the momentum from 900 million pounds of Fort Mac black will press her guts out on any coastline she chances to hit.
What passes for "cleanup" usually compounds the disaster. Dispersants dumped at spill sites are only to make the mess less visible. Most dispersants are deadly toxic to man and beast alike.
Our MPs have full access to Transport Canada and how they assess risk. Transport Canada does not say that oil spills are preventable, they only introduce regulation as a way to reduce frequency. Even Enbridge recognizes the hazards, still they want to run about five shipments per week. 250 tankers per year where presently we have none. In plain language, if yer gonna have tankers yer gonna trash yer coastline. What kind of economy is that?
Maybe the reefs and islands in the Douglas Channel aren't on your Member of Parliament's radar, or maybe MPs only exist to enforce party doctrine. Either way responsible Canadians are forced to fight both industry and government to protect our coastal heritage. Regulation is not protection; refusing tanker traffic is the only reasonable solution.
Brian McKirdy
Valemount
