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Today’s letters: Cruise ships better than oil tankers

Re: “Albertans fed up with hypocrisy,” letter, April 19.

Re: “Albertans fed up with hypocrisy,” letter, April 19.

I am not sure if it is out of desperation, or if they are just misinformed, but it is intriguing when individuals who support the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion attempt to embarrass us or try to make a point about something unrelated to the debate.

Sewage fallout is one such item, and while not a major problem according to the pundits, it is mostly a municipal decision and not provincial, unlike the other situation. That observation aside, Victoria is about to spend more than $750 million for a new treatment plant, which will force critics to find something else to rail about.

As for more than 240 cruise ships coming to Victoria, that is excellent news. Most locals would prefer to see 240 cruise ships than a single oil tanker in our waters. The cruise ships are a mainstay of our tourism industry that brings in billions of dollars of revenue into our province every year, unlike Alberta bitumen.

In addition, if a cruise ship hits a rock or sinks, our entire economy would not be devastated, unlike a tanker filled with bitumen destroying every living thing in its wake. The worst that would happen after a cruise-ship sinking is a body of water filled with wet and unhappy passengers who might require a refund and dry clothes.

That is sure a lot easier to rectify than the other, which would likely cause permanent and irreparable damage.

John Callas

Salt Spring Island

Politics makes strange enemies

The terribly sad thing about this whole Kinder Morgan pipeline dispute is that I suspect that, if they were not politicians in parties responsible for economies, both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley would be wholeheartedly in agreement with Premier John Horgan, federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and B.C. Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver.

Valerie van Meel

Parksville

Maybe customers want bitumen, not oil

Re: “Alberta, B.C. could build refinery,” letter, April 11.

We have often discussed the logical idea of a refinery built in Alberta. Endless jobs to build and maintain the facility would result, as well as a safer product to ship out via pipelines. At least when a spill occurs (and definitely spills will occur), it could be cleaned up. New jobs could be created to monitor the pipeline and clean up spills.

An argument could even be made for territories and provinces to help support the building of the refinery and then receive a portion of profits for a specified number of years. Options are open to explore. Jobs mean more revenue and a healthier economy.

However, the single thing that concerns us is that the dangerous bitumen sludge might be the actual product that is sought, and that is why it is being shipped raw. Bitumen is used for the building of roads, for one.

Could it be that other countries want the bitumen for this purpose, and contracts are already in place so Alberta can supply this product to them? Could it be that refining bitumen before it is moved would make existing contracts null and void?

One thing is for certain. Moving bitumen is dangerous and is a risk no Canadian citizen should be willing to support.

Linda Horner

Victoria

U.S. tankers sail shared waters

Washington state has the fifth-highest oil-refining capacity of any U.S. state, with five refineries and a total capacity of more than 600,000 barrels per day. This is more than 10 times the capacity of the Parkland Fuels refinery in Burnaby.

Washington consumes just over half of its refined oil products and exports the remainder (including to British Columbia).

All of Washington’s oil refineries are on Puget Sound. The only routes possible for oil tankers to reach Washington’s refineries are through the Juan de Fuca Strait and the Gulf of Georgia.

I wasn’t able to find reliable data on the number of those oil tankers travelling each day through our shared waters with Washington state.

Errol Nadeau

Victoria

Mother Nature is spilling oil

Activists, refocus! Don’t waste your time protesting against the Kinder Morgan pipeline over a possible tanker spill. Go after the ocean oil spillages happening right now off the coast of California.

The culprit is Mother Nature. She just dumped 25 tonnes of oil into the ocean off the California coast today.

She did the same yesterday, too. She is planning to dump another 25 tonnes into the ocean tomorrow.

In fact, Mother Nature has been dumping 25 tonnes of oil daily, by way of natural seeps, off the California coast for the past several hundred thousand years.

Worse, she has no permits or government approvals, and she is set on deliberately dumping 25 tonnes of oil daily into the oceans for the foreseeable future.

Brent Tilson

Mill Bay

Limited-liability democracy

Re: “Kinder surprise sets the stage for showdown,” column, April 10.

Incorporated “Ltd” companies have limited liability, which means that only the assets of the corporation can be attached to pay off its debts. The assets of any parent company, the investors, the executive and employees cannot be touched to pay off any debts or damages.

In the case of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline, the parent company in Texas has created a subsidiary limited-liability company to build and maintain the pipeline. This means that, when catastrophic spills occur in the Salish Sea, only the assets of the subsidiary company can be seized to pay for the costs of the cleanup, for the ecological destruction, and for the lost livelihoods of the hundreds, if not thousands, of people adversely affected by the spills.

The parent company, the investors in the subsidiary and the executive officers will not be financially responsible.

Similarly, the personal assets of politicians who promote and push for mega-projects are not at risk.

In the Kinder Morgan case, politicians such as Rachel Notley, Justin Trudeau and Jason Kenney, and the petroleum lobby have no skin in the Trans Mountain pipeline game. When — and it’s when, not if — spills happen, the damages will be gargantuan. However, those damages will not cost Notley, Trudeau, Kenney and their ilk a dime.

The politicians have no financial responsibility whatsoever; we have a limited-liability democracy.

Robbie Newton

Victoria

Let supporters pay for cleanup

Re: “Majority favour pipeline, poll suggests,” letter, April 20.

I am seeing a growing number of people in B.C. who want the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. You are allowed your opinion.

All I want is these same people to sign a contract that if we have a major spill because of this, they will pay for the cleanup, the cost to fishermen on our coast and to the millions of people who go to beaches each day all year round. Put your wallets where your mouth is.

Carol Dunsmuir

Victoria

Horgan must abide by the law

If, in the end, the courts decide that Kinder Morgan’s addition to its existing pipeline capacity is legal and in the national interest, then it will be Premier John Horgan’s job to ensure that the project is allowed to proceed in accordance with our nation’s history of adherence to the law.

To do otherwise, just for the sake of some politically expedient pact with the Green Party, would be to give in to the mentality of partisan lawlessness that plagues the U.S.

Like it or not, oil and gasoline are going to be significant to our economy for the foreseeable future. As for the exaggerated fear of tanker traffic, I think we on the coast have far more to fear from the many thin-hulled fishing boats and ships moving B.C.’s lumber products than we do from double-hulled oil tankers.

Len Dafoe

Nanoose Bay