Reading Brian Gillowski’s letter regarding pipelines, it would seem that he is the one who is misinformed or confused.
Pipelines through B.C., such as Northern Gateway, will not provide one drop of petroleum for domestic consumption but instead export raw bitumen and the jobs, which would come from upgrading and refining it to China.
Since we need the oil, why are we in such an all-fired hurry to send the raw material elsewhere?
I agree that we should develop our own supply in order to reduce or eliminate our dependence on imported oil, but this doesn’t require any more pipelines through B.C.
Instead, the bitumen should be upgraded close the source, keeping the jobs in Canada and then shipped east as oil to be refined.
This way problems associated with transporting bitumen and dilbit are eliminated and domestic oil can replace imports which make up the majority of petroleum used in eastern Canada.
The barrage of propaganda from the industry and governments would have us believe that exporting bitumen is good for all Canadians, and surely it is for those working in the extraction industry. But the reality is that it mostly good for shareholders, some of whom probably are Canadian, but most will be Chinese and other foreign nationals.
The issue is not pipelines per se, but where they are going and what’s in them.
Howard Brown
Enderby
