Quote:
Originally Posted by Slava
Well I think that you're laying it on a bit thick here. I mean the Liberals have only been in office for 3 months, and there was a lot of job loss before they were even elected.
Isn't that first line a little bit disingenuous? The pipeline wasn't going to be given the greenlight "tomorrow", as far as I understand? The delay is basically 6 months added isn't it?
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I don't think its laying it on a little thick.
From a Alberta Economy standpoint, he's now taken two actions that appear to be both piling on and bad for the Alberta Economy.
The first was his mandate letter within days of being elected concerning tanker traffic off the BC coast (Kittimake sp?). Which essentially killed any pipeline projects to the West.
Then he doesn't change the review process, but instead adds extensions to it, because they want to have more native consultation in the review. Well forgive me for being a bit opaque, but it seems like the review process is already incredibly lengthy because they have these consultations happening, and they are pretty much not only taking over these reviews, but its now a tactic of environmentalists to throw a wrench into these things, by intentionally over loading them with everyone related and unrelated to these projects being invited in.
They're not changing how they review environmental impacts, they're not streamlining the process, they're actually building in a time line to make these things more ineffective.
To me there are three questions that need to be addressed.
Are the Oil Sands producers working to reduce their GHG emissions?
Are pipelines more GHG efficient then transporting by rail and truck? Is it a safer method of transport?
Is the economic reality of Canada being negatively effected by not building these pipelines, and conversely does Canada as a whole benefit from these pipelines?
We're not stupid here, we're not buck toothed rednecks wearing coveralls and playing banjos, no matter what they think in Ottawa and Toronto and Montreal. We know that Trudeau can't wave a magic wand and have pipelines built tomorrow. However if his announcement would have been based around, lets look at how we can make the review process more effective and efficient, instead of, hey we know this whole process is BS and has been hijacked, but we're merely going to add more time on to how long it takes to do it, and probably allow it to be hijacked anymore.
Personally, I think that any environmental group that wants to participate in these reviews, or any native group that wants to participate in it cannot receive funding from groups like the Tides or Rockerfeller. There that should knock down the consultations by about 50%.