A tale of two provinces
ALBERTA PREMIER RACHEL NOTLEY is again acting like the churlish premier she has become as she shifts from attacking B.C.’s wine industry to threatening all B.C. residents with the spectre of limited or no fuel for the province.
In last week’s Throne Speech, Lt. Gov. Lois Mitchell laid the premier’s cards on the table when she said, “In the past, when workers in our energy industry were attacked and when the resources we own were threatened, Premier Peter Lougheed took bold action.” And elaborated by declaring, “We will not hesitate to invoke similar legislation if it becomes necessary owing to extreme and illegal actions on the part of the B.C. government to stop the pipeline.”
The dark cloud Notley sees for her government is British Columbia’s desire to further research the dangers posed not so much by the pipeline as by the bitumen from the tar sands it will carry to our coast.
They have the oil, we have the tidewater port and Alberta wants the port and a swath of land stretching across B.C. for an expanded pipeline. They don’t want to share the oil revenue, they don’t want to be held responsible for all the costs of a spill and they don’t want us doing a complete environmental assessment of the dangers posed by bitumen. We don’t even know right now if, in fact, bitumen can actually be cleaned up.