Re: John Harding’s editorial in the Jan. 15 edition of The NEWS.
I am a concerned local citizen and member of Communities to Protect Our Coast and not a paid, full-time employee or tree-hugging anarchist as your term “professional protester” suggests.
Several of the citizens heading up our organization originate from Alberta, some with offspring working in ‘the patch’.
They are united in our cause because they have chosen to take their heads out of the sand to see the broader picture, something the federal government has failed to do.
All energy is cyclic. With the sophistication of modern extraction techniques in Alberta and the United States, oil has been pushed past its ‘sell by’ date leaving it vulnerable to global politics and economics. The cost to the environment is enormous. Canada has no plan ‘B’.
As Canadians, we are not celebrating the struggles in the tar sands, there are difficult times ahead for all of us.
Bill VintonParksville