It sure makes you wonder when two cities in Saskatchewan have to import clean water because of what the media consider a small spill of something they call ‘Heavy Oil’ but is really bitumen and a diluent. Citizens of North Battleford and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan have been finding out the difference between ‘Heavy Oil’ and bitumen for themselves
Would all this bafflegab be because of the National Energy Board starting hearings in the East on the Energy East pipeline? They are starting with the easy end at Saint John, New Brunswick. There will hardly be many there who worry about spills or other accidents when the shipping port planned for there will be loading foreign tankers with bitumen for third world refineries. Jobs also come first in New Brunswick.
The real resistance to the Energy East pipeline is in Quebec. Neither the first nations nor the provincial government are convinced that a heated, higher-pressure pipeline for bitumen would be a good idea. Maybe TransCanada Pipelines can buy off some of the first nations’ intervenors but the provincial government is much more expensive.
They already own the Calgary-based National Energy Board who are beholden to former Prime Minister Harper for their extended jobs. He obviously knew where his government was headed in last year’s election and he added to the board members’ tenure before his inevitable defeat. (You would think the members would resign but they seem to have a mission to approve pipelines.)
But it is the news media that have been suckered. Even the CBC’s Ombudsman is ignoring complaints from environmentalists about the CBC news readers calling bitumen heavy oil.
The real audience that needs to understand this cover-up by Premier Wall’s people in Saskatchewan is in the Prime Minister’s Office in Ottawa. Prime Minister Trudeau must have a serious crease across his backside from sitting on the tar sands/bitumen fence. The problem he has is that he will never be an environmental hero in any country if he is going to let the Kinder-Morgan pipeline be twinned or the Energy East pipeline be built. Approval in either case will be built on a tissue of lies.
But if you really want the truth about bitumen and pipelines, there are about 70,000 Canadians living along the North Saskatchewan River today ready to explain it all.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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