Washington has ulterior oil motives

Dear editor: What is it about NDP Premiers that they never seem to understand business folk, especially those pulling the wool over their eyes?

Was I the only one to notice the irony in the governor of Washington State standing with our premier supporting the ban on tankers into Vancouver?

Does Premier Horgan not understand that one of the main reasons for the high price of fuel in the Lower Mainland (projected to hit $1.60/litre next month) is that due to lack of sufficient pipeline capacity the Vancouver refineries are importing petroleum from Washington State?

Not only does Washington welcome some 10 tankers a week through Juan de Fuca Strait from Alaska, it then sends its own tankers up into Burrard Inlet. Of course, the governor doesn’t want B.C. to have access to cheaper Canadian crude because it would potentially eliminate the need to buy from Washington.

The governor may be concerned about the environment but not at the expense of bringing tankers down the West Coast.

His interest in stopping a Canadian pipeline is the same as those Americans who fund Canadian anti-pipeline groups: let the U.S. reap the benefits of the increased technical ability to mine fossil fuels.

While we have been dithering and protesting, the U.S. has become an exporter of oil and is about to become a big player in the LNG business. And at the same time I don’t see any of the protesters giving up their cell phones or synthetic clothing made from petroleum products.

Yes, by 2050 perhaps much of the world will have significantly reduced its use of fossil fuels; but if we don’t wake up, our country will have spiralled into bankruptcy long before then, with the assets still in the ground.

We will have lost out in the economic world transitioning to new options.

We will have run out of money for hospitals, for aboriginal issues, for education, for infrastructure.

And then watch foreign interests come in and buy up all the new agricultural lands available due to changes in climate in the north because we have neither the fuel nor the funds to develop them ourselves.

So thanks, premier, for not really hearing what your friend is telling you. Glenn W. Sinclair

Penticton