Dear Editor,
The Trans Mountain pipeline is a financial burden for taxpayers and needs to be cancelled.
Not only is it a disaster for the climate, the Coast, and Indigenous rights, but it’s fast becoming a government boondoggle of epic proportions.
A new report released by Stand.earth shows that beyond the $4.5 billion purchase price, costs are piling up as delays mount.
Construction activities haven’t once been on schedule. The pipeline route hasn’t been approved yet, and ongoing route hearings are adding even more delays (and even more costs to taxpayers).
Key hot-spots along the route are sure to face determined public resistance.
These hot spots pose serious risks to communities. To finish construction, the federal government plans to drill under the Fraser River and Burnaby Mountain, tunnel under several drinking water aquifers, and increase fire risk by expanding oil storage ‘tank farms’ in Burnaby and Sumas.
The government also plans to bring in worker ‘man camps’, which puts the safety of Indigenous women and girls at risk at a time when the Canadian government has committed to addressing the ongoing crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
Proponents of the pipeline will argue that we need this for the Canadian economy, that we must grow our economy, endlessly at any expense. Canadians must come to the realization that we cannot grow forever. It is untenable. Remember now children: The only thing that continues to grow and grow is cancer, thereby killing its host.
Do the right thing.
Kurtis Ehlert, Aldergrove
