Toronto Star national affairs columnist Tim Harper comments on the provincial election tomorrow night in British Columbia. He says, “Whoever emerges victorious here Tuesday night, Canada is about to embark on the next chapter of what has become the country’s defining economic issue: Alberta’s irresistible oil and the immovable province of British Columbia.”
If NDP leader Adrian Dix wins the election as expected, “A victory for Dix would be a mandate to simply say no (to allowing Alberta’s heavy bitumen to get to British Columbia ports for export to Asia). He would be holding the cards because a move by the Stephen Harper Conservatives to stake claim to interprovincial pipelines and federal west coast ports under the flag of economic necessity would be political suicide.”
“Dix opposes the giant Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project in the north and has said he would withdraw from the federal environmental hearing within a week of his election and do his own environmental review. A federal environmental review is expected to render a decision on Northern Gateway by the end of the year. Dix would also do his own review of the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion to the West Coast — which he opposes — or any other heavy oil pipeline proposal. The NDP leader has (also) promised to keep supertankers out of treacherous and narrow B.C. waters…”
In October 2012, Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow went on a speaking tour opposed to the Northern Gateway, Trans Mountain and Pacific Trails pipelines. That tour began in Fort McMurray and then went to Kamloops, Burnaby, Nanaimo, Smithers and Prince George.
For more, please read:
NEWS: Adrian Dix appears to reject Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion
B.C. NDP want drug patent issues taken out of CETA
NEWS: Likely BC NDP premier set to oppose Northern Gateway, CETA, health care cuts, Prosperity Mine
POLL: BC rejects Northern Gateway and Trans Mountain pipelines
