I had a dream the other night. At my wife’s behest, I was dutifully preparing a hole on our backyard in order to plant a new rhododendron, and guess I got a little carried away with how far I was digging down. The next thing we knew there was a loud whoosh as thick black gooey liquid started gushing and oozing out of the ground. Yep, we had struck oil — not unlike The Beverly Hillbillies — surely, we were made for life.
In Dreamland we soon had our discovery registered, as geological experts all agreed we had struck the mother of all mother-lodes; more than enough to fuel all those factories in China for several decades.
We contacted a company in Calgary, called something like Bridgend, to transport the oil through a state-of-the art pipeline to the nearest deep-water port in the Strait of Georgia, where we built state-of-the-art refineries.
State-of-the-art supertankers loaded refined products every day at state-of-the-art terminals, and there were well-paying jobs for everybody for miles around; building and maintaining pipelines, refineries and oil terminals, and loading the ships. Taxes and royalties were paid to all levels of government to fulfill demands for hospitals, schools, daycare centres, seniors residences, roads, cheaper gasoline and every necessity of life that some Canadians take for granted.
Trouble is, I awoke from my slumber to find it was only a pipe dream, as large numbers of British Columbians have apparently been swayed to believe that any dealings with pipelines and supertankers are fraught with inevitable danger and ruination.
What a shame, when so many other countries embrace their mineral wealth, using their oil resources to great financial and commercial advantage under strict regulatory guidelines. It was such a pleasant dream.
Bernie Smith, Parksville