Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
It is entirely possible that codes and standards were not altered, and that the disaster at Mount Polley was unavoidable, no? Based on Peanut's very tempered and rational response, it seems to me that there probably is not a connection to be had between campaign contributions made by Edwards et al. to the BC liberals and what happened at Mount Polley, and that is kind of the point. There are two very important things to keep in mind here in this whole discussion:
1) We don't know yet based on the available information the precise cause of the breach, and by way of extension, we also don't know who is ultimately the most culpable.
2) Businesses make political contributions, but this bit of information on its own in no way confirms the impact on specific regulatory bodies and codes. At this point we have absolutely no idea what Edwards "bought" with his contribution to the BC liberals, but it would seem to have nothing to do with regulations and codes for tailings ponds, which Peanut says were put in place in 2000.
Unless you have some kind of proof to make the connections between one and the other, it's a moot point in this discussion.
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You are 100% absolutely right, and until we know, we simply don't know. We still have to assume that people are innocent until proven guilty.
My posts (except with a bit of a cheap-shot at the end of the last one) was more directed to what goes on in general. Reading a lot of posts, people seem to defend these big companies and say they have our best interests at heart. They quite often have the opposite in mind, unfortunately.
Is Edwards guilty in some way? At the start of this thread, I was 100% thinking that Thymebalm was just assigning blame haphazardly. Really felt that Edwards just happened to be the wrong shareholder at the wrong time, so to speak. However, with more things coming out in the media about his political contributions, it does make me wonder. Certainly casts a shade of grey over him, in my opinion. However, this does NOT prove he is guilty, and there should be no lynch mob yet. Could be unrelated.
However, just as we should not go around and being so quick to condemn and assign blame, we should also not be so quick to bury our heads in the sand and assume that these large companies have our best interests at heart, and that these large companies donate huge sums of money just because they like to. History does show that they are essentially influencing (or trying to influence) government.
Many posters here do seem to think that these companies do have our best interests at heart, the best interests of other people in other areas of the world, and the best interests of the environment. That is (unfortunately) often very far from the truth, and that was where my posts were really more directed at - generally at what often happens. I (nor anyone else) know enough about this particular incident to know one way or another. Those contributions definitely don't look good at the moment, but it does not prove anything one way or another.