Mistakes were made in the past

Dear editor:

I enjoyed the letter from Jim Fisher, “Majority won’t stay silent on pipeline plan” (Courier, Sept. 11). I am not quite convinced that a majority of Canadians agree with him — but I do.

Having lived in Alberta when the oilsands digging began, I have followed it from the start up. And, from the beginning, mistakes were made, due to short-term thinking and plain old greed.

From the beginning, there should have been refineries built right alongside the oil sands pits in Northern Alberta. As we know, 40 years later, the U.S. refused to allow pipelines ship the black stuff down to Texas to be refined there.

Also, the pipelines should have been built to the East Coast a long time ago. There was never any need to buy oil from the Middle East when we had such a surplus of our own in this country. Plus, we have found out recently what the Saudis think of us. The recent federal plan to OK twinning the Trans Mountain pipeline, when they had the nerve to turn down the eastern pipeline for political reasons, was in itself a strong reason for the courts to halt the pipeline out here.

And, words escape me to castigate the governments that allowed the bitumen to be shipped anywhere in tankers from the Vancouver habour.

Since the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, few Canadians wanted dangerous cargo being shipped on our shorelines. You can take that fact to the bank. Instead, it has been going for a while, unknown to most Canadians.

Probably the majority of Canadians did not know that bitumen was being sent through the pipeline for that purpose in the first place.

We are moving to Alberta soon and I can just imagine what our newscasts will sound like. I am sure quite a difference to what we have in B.C. I am looking forward to the fun.

Jerry Tyndall Kelowna