Editor:
Last month the federal and provincial auditors general released a report that noted Canada is not expected to meet its 2020 target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GGE), and it is unlikely to meet the 2030 targets. The report shows that while almost every province has reduced their GGE since 2005 (including B.C., Ontario and Quebec), Alberta and Saskatchewan have increased theirs by 33 per cent and 22 per cent respectively. Due to the extraction of oil and gas, those two provinces currently produce almost half (48 per cent) of all emissions in Canada. They produce 67.1 metric tonnes of emissions per person, more than five times higher than for the rest of Canada (12.4 tonnes per person), placing them in the dubious company of the world’s highest per capita emitters.
In spite of that, the Canadian government is pointing to the alleged economic benefits as justifying their statement that the Trans Mountain pipeline project is in the national interest.
In November 2014, the SFU Centre for Public Policy Research published an analysis of the costs and benefits of the pipeline. They determined that the economic, employment and tax benefits were significantly overstated and that Kinder Morgan had vastly underestimated the costs of a major pipeline rupture. Only 30 per cent of the increased revenues would go to Canada, two per cent to B.C. and 68 per cent to Kinder Morgan. The report concluded that the pipeline project is not in the economic or public interest of the citizens of B.C.
Overstated revenues, understated risks, Canada failing to meet its international emissions commitments, and a federal government deciding a project of dubious value is in the national interest is a recipe for political and economic mayhem. The consequences of this pipeline are neither in the national interest, nor in the interest of my grandchildren.
Norman Gleadow, Roberts Creek
