Can`t stop thinking about Enbridge.
Can`t stop thinking about its dirty, dirty oilsands money.
There`s a million different columns to write about a million different things. But the Northern Gateway project is like a Coleridgian opiate fantasy, a stately pleasure-dome decree, the biggest pipe dream in Canadian history at least.
Enbridge and its 1,770-odd-km plan to move oilsands crude to Asian markets through northern B.C. got its turn before the federal government`s Joint Review Panel last week. Project proponents dangled a lot of big numbers. Hundreds of millions in paycheques, revenues for governments, benefits for people in this region, all served up like plump porkchops for any and all with the gumption to just dig - and give - in.
There was a story in the New York Times last week about Spaniards fleeing their country because they fear the eurozone is going to implode and, Argentine-style, their money will be frozen in country with capital controls, eventually turning it from euros into whatever worthless currency their government decides to print by the wheelbarrow. There is a real danger the wheels are going to come off this sputtering jalopy of a recovery and the world economy is going to experience another Lehman Brothers-type event in the near future.
Closer to home, while the mining industry is ramping up, the forest industry is bracing for a supply crisis as it deals with woods short of wood, courtesy of the mountain pine beetle.
And on the national stage, there`s Bank of Canada boss Mark Carney lamenting the private sector needs to invest more to keep the economy.
In front of this backdrop, there`s Enbridge and its six billion dollars from who knows where - China? California? Atlantis? Who cares? - and all it's waiting for is a wink and a nudge to start flowing.
Billions of dollars in private sector stimulus. Jobs that can set up families, buy houses, send kids to university, support communities. All there on a silver platter.
If the Israelites had this kind of golden calf to worship, Moses would be schlepping a batch of stone tablets on eBay under the heading "Never been used."
It's an opiate voice that's the same one that says damn the unions and here's an extra screw for the teachers. It's the voice that loves a fat cigar and a Titleist Pro V1 on the tee. It's the voice that says, "You want to see an economy that relies on tourism? How about Greece?"
It's the voice that tells people to grab the nearest Enbridge executive by the hair and yell, "Now! Build it now! Take the pipeline and ram it down the throats of the naysayers, the econuts, the eggheads, and the First Nations! How can we say no to all that money!"
It's a voice few people want to hear out loud because it is cold, backward and desperate, labels this region struggles to shed. But it's out there and Enbridge's vociferous, muscular opposition knows it's hard to muffle.
They also know they're on uneven ground here. They claim Enbridge's portrait of the benefits are exagerrated, which they probably are, but even if it's half a cherry pie instead of a whole one, it's still a big piece of cherry pie.
They claim the pipeline doesn't make economic sense, which is ridiculous - Enbridge wouldn't be gambling millions to go through the federal review process and take all this public heat if it wasn't worth building the Northern Gateway.
They say government should support renewable energy project that would cost down the road in damage to the environment from the burning of fossil fuels. The voice answers when the renewables show up with six billion dollars to build windmills that knit tea cozies, then we'll talk.
Their most interesting argument comes from Robyn Allen, an economist, who argues that any economic benefits from the pipeline will be erased by the concomitant, inflationary shock of rising gas prices, brought on from the effect of oilsands crude finding new Asian markets. But another economist, Andrew Leach, has questioned whether Allen is overstating the effect an Enbridge pipeline would have on gas prices.
Which leads back to the original argument - the risk of an environmental disaster overrides any benefit Enbridge's pipeline could provide.
But there's a voice whispering regardless of risk, no matter the spill, no matter its size, all you need to do is cross your fingers and say yes to Enbridge's sweet poison. Because you can't afford not to take it.
It's sick, sick madness. But that doesn't mean the voice doesn't have a point.
