If you live in B.C., or anywhere else in Canada for that matter, you have likely heard of the plan to build an Enbridge “Northern Gateway” Pipeline, and the large amount of public resistance that comes with it. As a project that would cut through 1000 streams and rivers, many of which are critical Salmon-spawning and vital-habitat waterways, the unceded traditional territory of dozens of B.C. First Nations, and the last intact temperate rainforest in the world, the Great Bear forest, and is a means of oil transportation quite susceptible to destructively toxic spillages (Enbridge’s average record is one spill a week),(1) there is no question why such large opposition exists. It is unfortunate, then, that Harper’s government is so keen on pushing the project forward: “The Harper government is spending more than $100 million on infrastructure to support the proposed Enbridge pipeline, before it’s even been approved.” (2) It is precisely because the government seems so unwavering in its dedication to build the pipeline despite the damage it can and will cause that I believe recent events, namely the devastating Lac-Megantic oil spill, and the more recent Lemon Creek jet fuel spill, are merely acts something among the likes of propaganda. In the midst of the push towards the Enbridge Pipeline, all of the sudden we find ourselves with two new and very large spills, caused by two alternate means of oil transportation- train and truck. And both come at a very convenient time in the proposed pipeline’s approval process, showcasing just how a pipeline might be better than these two alternate, “clearly unsafe” means of transporting oil. I can’t surely say whether these two incidences are the results of government opinion-manipulation, or merely stories blown up in the media because there was little else going on at the time, but I do know it all seems pretty helpful for those trying to convince others that a pipeline is the way to go.
(1)http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/campaigns/Energy/tarsands/Get-involved/stop-the-pipeline/