Enbridge Gateway Pipeline Back on Track in B.C.
by Ingmar Lee
We met with North Island NDP MLA Gary Coons in Shearwater last week and he explained the local politic to us from his perspective. He said that he was proud of his record on no tankers and fish farms on the north coast and Haida Gwaii, and that he will fight tooth and nail against those things. He said that the NDP almost has an official stance opposing tankers as well.

Nevertheless, he said that internal politics prevented the NDP from taking any position against the pipelines, on account of his NDP colleague from Kitimat, who was, as he said, elected on a pro-pipeline position. Of course, the tankers and the pipeline are all the same thing, _we don't get one without the other. We told Mr. Coons that the spinely position, and I believe it also to be a beneficial political position that will only get stronger over time, is for the NDP to just take a foundational stance right now: NO TANKERS, NO PIPELINE PERIOD and stick to it.

[The Encana pipeline in Northeastern British Columbia has, at time of writing, been bombed four times. CSIS and the RCMP terrorism units are in the area, canvassing door to door for help from the locals. Unsurprisingly, few are eager to aid the company who has treated them all like crap. This letter response by B.C. environmental champion, Lee is part of a response in an active debate going on within the environmental community regarding the direct action occurring now in the north. - lex]

We said that the NDP's opposition to Gordo's carbon tax just wasn't getting them any mileage whatsoever, was making them look brown and stupid. I'm not saying that I have any respect for Gordo's carbon tax scheme, -I have such disgust for that fellow that I won't waste my energy even trying to understand it. Obviously, if Gordo is attempting to get Green mileage, while simultaneously allowing this Enbridge nightmare to totally subordinate British Columbia to the grotesque Alberta tar sands project, then the entire thing is nothing but a crock...

I don't care a whit what anybody says about the ethics, the strategy, whatever argument people might have to say about whether or not the pipeline should be destroyed, our proper leaders, our best scientists, every informed, awakened and progressive person on the planet is telling us that we are in a state of global emergency right now, that we're already waaaay too late to really expect to turn things around.

So if due process fails to stop the project, I just fail to understand why anyone would have a problem with doing what needs to be done. I say congratulations and three cheers to whomever is doing their non-violent duty blowing up all those Encana sour gas pipelines. People in NE BC support that action. It is not violence to destroy unacceptable infrastructure. Is it violence when the system destroys a house that wasn't built to code? That happens every day. That pipeline and it's associated tanker traffic will destroy my coast, and it will make us all slaves to the Tar Sands project.

If folks think they can defeat this monster through polite due process, all the power to them. I will do everything I can possibly do to help. But in the end, as an environmental community, as people who give a damn, -who could live with themselves, if that whole thing went through. I could not, and I expect that there are plenty of people out there who feel the same way I do.

Friends have told me that I'm stupid for stating all this right up front. They say that if one has plans that way, one should keep it a secret, plan it out carefully and try to get away with it. I don't see how skulking around like some criminal while doing their rightful duty helps anyone. Those horrible creeps pushing the tar sand disaster need to know that people are adamantly opposed to this project and they will do whatever is necessary to stop it.