Pipeline project poses many risks to B.C.

Re How B.C. blocking the Kinder Morgan pipeline does damage to us all, Olive, April 19

I realize business columnist David Olive was penning an opinion piece in favour of the Kinder Morgan pipeline, but is that also licence for journalists to replace facts with hysterics?

According to Mr. Olive, the “relentless obstruction” and “relentless calls for studies” causing the project to be “ceaselessly delayed” via a “campaign of B.C. obstructionism” are “borderline illegal” and a “clear and present danger to the Canadian federation.”

The pipeline was federally approved less than 18 months ago. While Mr. Olive points out that there is already tanker traffic on the coast, he omits how the new pipeline would cause that traffic to increase about 600 per cent, from five to 34 tankers per month.

He also omits that the additional tankers would be carrying bitumen, a heavier oil for which no safe and efficient cleanup is known.

Finally, he omits that increased tanker traffic would accelerate decline and risk extinction of the resident orca whale population.

If such a project were proposed in your backyard, Mr. Olive, would you not ask the courts to rule on its legality?

That is what the B.C. premier seeks to do. Avi Sirlin, Victoria, B.C.

Re PM makes history in French assembly, April 18

We are told that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked French lawmakers to be “progressive, like-minded defenders against the onslaught of global perils such as climate change.”

How did he do this? Did he ask them to invest in a pipeline project, so that we Canadians can increase our exports of climate-friendly bitumen? Bart Hawkins Kreps, Bowmanville