The federal government, you may have noticed, is frustrated at what amounts to filibuster of the Northern Gateway Pipeline review by individuals and groups opposed to the project.
This week, both Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Davos, Switzerland and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver here at home vowed to introduce legislation that would streamline regulatory review processes to avoid, in Harper’s words, “delay for the sake of delay.”
Ok, then: Does that mean the government will introduce legislation to short-circuit/streamline the Northern Gateway Pipeline review.
On the Daily Brief last night, we asked Minister Oliver that question once, twice, and three times. You tell me if he answered:
King Steve Harper and his Chancellor Joe Oliver are frustrated that they can not get anyone to understand that they are trying to save Canada from the global banking crisis. King Steve told Europe and the US while he was in Davos – that Canada would take whatever steps necessary to provide monies for the next generation of Canadians. A very general statement it is true and not one that results in any actions on King Steve’s part to defend. I think David Suzuki’s open letter today is more important than fighting against all oil pipelines, tar sands projects, and the shipping of jobs to the US Gulf and to China. What David Suzuki is proposing is that we as Canadians start creating an energy policy that benefits all Canadians. Shipping raw oil to China is like shipping raw logs from BC to Washington State — as soon as it is across the border it becomes and American log that is sawed into value added lumber. Meanwhile in BC we have lost the value added jobs as mil after mill in BC has shut down (or does not get rebuilt after a terrible fire e.g. Babine Forest Products in Burns Lake, and the one near Kamloops four or five years ago. Canada continues to pursue the same old hinterland – metropolis theory (reversed on purpose) that they practiced with Western Canada shipping raw resources to Toronto in favour of value added products back.