Dear Sir:
Enbridge is now in the media-promotion phase of gaining approval for Northern Gateway. A simultaneous media event is the United Nations’ report “Global Environmental Outlook”. Bad news, of course, which Enbridge is party to and Northern Gateway supplements.
Northern Gateway promotes the ideology of the car economy and China is the biggest customer. The pipeline is a supplement, but a side issue. Not until we replace cars with trains will this story end, ruined coast and all. Oil needs to be conserved for the future and refined here for domestic emergency priority that is beyond stockholder interest. All transport other than emergency and utility must, and will, convert to fixed-rail.
On Enbridge’s reporting to have agreement with 60 per cent of First Nations, and given the Gitsxan schmozzle, the natural question is who has signed on with Enbridge? What level of representation has a community had in determining the decision, that is, what democratic process, to the point of referendum, has occurred and is desired? Being clear on that would help others accept, or not, the will of an increasing majority, if in fact there is one. If not, then arguably the environmentally less endangered places on the pipeline route would favour it more.
Separation of the inland and coast concerns is necessary. Polling would arguably show far less support for Gateway among coastal Nations than among interior. Only with equal majority support all along the route can Enbridge honestly represent support as a single a single figure. This is a regional conflict, as well. Majority support everywhere east of Gitsxan but minority west would say a lot, and what would it tell us to do? That is what Enbridge is trying to persuade on, and that may be what the Nathan Cullen is troubled over, as the editor writes.
Dr. David Heinimann, Terrace, BC
