Re: “Premier expects defeat,” May 31.
The NDP/Green agreement as it relates to fossil-resource development is a classic example of carbon double-speak.
It says the parties will increase the carbon tax, implement a climate-action strategy and “employ every tool available” to stop expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline.
Yet there is no reference to “fracking” for natural gas or the many proposed LNG plants and pipelines. Natural gas is a fossil fuel. And the fact that B.C. natural gas passes by pipeline through two provinces: Alberta and Saskatchewan, and four states: North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and into Illinois. Imagine if one of these jurisdictions took the same approach on natural-gas transmission as B.C. is taking on Alberta’s oil.
And no mention of the coal mines in the Interior. Isn’t coal a fossil fuel? It’s often described as the worst of the fossil fuels. Over the past 20 years, B.C. has exported 20 to 30 million metric tons annually, according to the B.C. government’s figures. We see it on the coast as a huge pile at Deltaport.
I support all this resource development.
But I reject the hypocrisy of those who pretend environmental purity by promoting excessive environmental regulation, increasing carbon taxes, rejecting a neighbouring province’s ability to prosper through oil transmission, all the while ignoring their own coal production and transmission by rail and ship, and their own natural-gas production and fracking with pipelines carrying it through two provinces and four states.
Brian Peckford
Nanaimo
