Was it just me or did the federal budget seem overly oil rich Alberta and big corporation-friendly? As Chantal Hebert of CBC’s At Issue panel said after the announcement, we’ve never seen a budget that is as unfriendly to the environment as this one.
So kind people of B.C., let’s recap what the budget looks like for our province. Six months into the environmental review process for the controversial Northern Gateway Pipeline project, the federal budget has put a cap on environmental reviews to a maximum of two years and this project will fall into this.
So there are now only 18 months left to complete a comprehensive environmental review of this potentially volatile project.
A spokesperson for Enbridge then said that since the window of opportunity for this pipeline is small, the review process should be cut in half and the pipeline approved in nine months.
Is this because the tar sands are in danger of drying up? And don’t think the federal government is finished. There is a recent proposal to take habitat protection out of our fisheries act.
Once DFO no longer has to protect streams for our salmon and the coastline for our whales, the pipeline will no longer need to meet the stringent environmental process that is now in place.
What’s next? Oil exploration in the Hecate Straits? Oil money-backed corporations scare me a lot more than foreign backed environmentalists.
It seems to me that the people of Alberta have already said goodbye to their last remaining herd of caribou as protecting their environment is no longer feasible given the tar sands development.
Are we willing to do the same in British Columbia?
Dagmas Seydel
Qualicum Bay