I hope since The Citizen has published back-to-back pro TransMountain Pipeline Expansion (TMX) Project opinion pieces, that it will diligently seek out and have a serious and expert counter-voice no less prominently on its opinion pages.
I do understand where Herb Conat is coming from - he is from a union whose membership will no doubt benefit from Trudeau's largesse in investing in TMX, at least in the short term. And neither he nor those members will be alive and kicking when the "bill" comes due and the most dire future consequences of a polluted and overheated world environment catch up with those who are but infants or unborn today.
Journalist Kirk Lapointe presumably approaches the question from a more objective stance -- notwithstanding his affiliation and one time candidacy on behalf of the conservative Vancouver-based Non-Partisan Association, which got its jollies opposing pretty well any progressive idea in that city. Alas, his common sense is thrown into doubt right off, in the assertion that TMX is "the only way forward."
Approaching any complex and significant public decision from such a blinkered mind set is always a strong indicator of neither understanding nor presenting a balanced view. Taking only one of his reasons for this one-sidedness -- that it's a good thing to be "extracting Asian revenue" so as not to be "subservient" to U.S. markets -- is not such a slam dunk now as it might have been before the thug People's Republic of China government started locking Canadians up and imposing utterly unjustified trade restrictions in the wake of the Meng Wanzhou detention. In pushing aside, the very real perils that TMX poses for our magnificent and potentially eternal river and marine environments for supposedly easy money from Asia, we ought to be careful what we are wishing for.
Dear editor, be assured this fight is not over yet, not by a long shot, and, therefore you need to bring to your opinion pages guest experts (and I am not one) who can fully and critically dissect the pro-TMX hype that has already been afforded op-ed prominence. It's called journalistic balance.
Norman Dale
Prince George
