Dear Sir:
Things are heating up in Kitimat as the April 12 Enbridge plebiscite gets closer. Assumptions have been made, and accusations hurled at Douglas Channel Watch for being an anti-development organization, and nothing could be further from the truth.
Our group formed because of our shared concerns regarding Enbridge’s history of spills and their Northern Gateway dual pipeline and supertanker port proposal. We have not stood in the way of any other project currently being proposed in Kitimat.
Many of us believe the tar sands should be refined in Alberta, thereby creating thousands of jobs for Canadians. Royalties and taxes garnered could fund research for better, cleaner energy solutions. The stone age didn’t end because they ran out of stones, it was because of the bronze age...we could utilize our tar sands in a wiser, forward looking way which could put Canada at the very forefront of cleaner energy systems into the future.
When you lay down on an issue, you get stepped on. Douglas Channel Watch prefers to stand firm with our conviction to protect the place we love, stare Enbridge and the Federal Government right in the eyes, and ask the hard questions while also demanding solid evidence, and will not apologize for doing so.
The JRP figures temporary foreign workers can build pipelines in Canada, that Enbridge’s project should be for the export of unrefined, raw, diluted bitumen, and that the Exxon Valdez and Kalamazoo spills, if they happened in BC’s salmon rivers or onto our pristine north coast, would be “justified in the circumstances”.
I, and many others, intend to send a massive, clear message to Ottawa that Enbridge’s Northern Gateway is a bad deal for Kitimat, for BC, and for all of Canada. They need to rethink their priorities, and why we are voting NO! to Enbridge.
Sincerely,
Murray Minchin