Editor:
Re: Kitimat Oil Refinery.
China is about to become the world's largest economy, and it desperately needs energy to fuel its economic growth. Canadians with a lot of money want to invest in China. And Chinese state-owned companies with huge amounts of capital want to invest in the Alberta tar sands and it's enormous infrastructure.
But there is a problem. Many mountain ranges, entire ecosystems lie in the way of that sticky bitumen getting to it's final destination. There are environmental protections meant to protect the land, water, fish and wildlife and there are Indians with land claims in the way. The brute physical challenge can be mastered quickly with the latest in pipeline laying technology but these legal protections and these pesky First Nations are threatening to slow down this precious flow of black gold.
Therefore Prime Minister Stephen Harper is acting decisively to change the Canadian environmental laws and the definition of property rights for First Nations through legal instruments such as Bill C -45 and FIPA. These legal instruments are designed to transfer power over Canadian natural resources to the highest bidder: i.e. the Chinese, with no questions asked. Environmental protections — Fahgetaboutem!
Thanks be to God, the First Nations woke up to Harper's plans while the rest of the nation was in a deep slumber of denial and we got "Idle No More", a grassroots movement that outdoes Occupy Wallstreet in global influence.
Never fear, though, Stephen Harper has a new knight in shining armour in David Black, newspaper magnate who has proposed a refinery for Kitimat that would use — let me guess —tar sands bitumen.
Gosh, that oil just gets into everything doesn't it? It's there in Alberta, but there is big money that wants that oil in China and money talks louder than democracy.
I say we draw a line in the sand to keep the tar sands out of northern B.C. You can have eagles, herons, otters and salmon and you can have oil tankers and oil refineries, but if you have them all together, the only jobs left will be cleaning sticky goo and dead birds and fish off the beaches.
Charles Justice