Why B.C. pipeline shouldn’t be built

If your main source of info on this Kinder Morgan pipeline is what you hear in the mainstream media and what Premier Notley and the PM are saying, you might consider it a worthy project. But do a little digging and you’ll see all the rhetoric doesn’t hold up. Jobs — around 2,500 for two or three years and very few after that. Unifor, the largest union in the oil sands is against it. It won’t bring jobs to Alberta.

The argument about getting higher prices for oil if it’s shipped overseas doesn’t hold up. Pipelines will take Alberta oil through the USA and send it overseas in tankers much larger than what would be used in B.C.

And as far as national interest goes, if people are up in arms about possibly paying higher prices for gas with carbon pricing, do you expect prices will come down if Alberta gets more money by shipping oil offshore?

The majority of Indigenous groups in B.C. are against the pipeline going through their lands — and their rights have been ignored by trying to rush the project. What’s money to them if their water gets contaminated?

Pipelines leak and break, tankers have accidents with disastrous results. Governments should be doing everything possible to address the huge consequences of climate change instead of working against it using Canadians’ money. Many countries are making great strides in developing renewable energy — why aren’t we?

Jeanne Maki, Charlottetown