FORSETH – NDP opposition to pipeline could kill high-paying union jobs
Pipeline expansion will create jobs, says Alan Forseth. (Image: Kinder Morgan)
NOT eco-extremists …
NOT eco- terrorists …
BUT certainly the BC NDP, propped up by Andrew Weavers Green Party, could perhaps now be called eco-radicals!
What else do they DESERVE to be called after fully stating that they will do everything in their power to oppose, and shut down, the twinning of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline?
Running 750 miles, this pipeline has operated safely now for 64 years (since 1953). Not only does the Trans Mountain pipeline run through Kamloops, it is an important part of the pipeline. As Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline portion of their website states:
Refined products from Edmonton are routed to Kamloops for local distribution. Kamloops is also a receiving site for products from northeastern British Columbia that are bound for the west coast. The facility contains two storage tanks with a shell capacity of 160,000 barrels (25,000 m³).
Despite the fact this project is LEGALLY able to go ahead (projected to start in September) after being approved by the National Energy Board, a massive opposition continues to grow. An opposition that is clearly supported by the very government that should be doing everything possible to promote and encourage safe, and environmentally sound, energy projects.
John Horgan’s NDP have been opposed to MANY resource development projects, including the Trans Mountain pipeline, but today they clearly had killing this HIGH PAYING / UNION JOB CREATING project dead in its tracks.
They began that process by hiring former BC NDP leader and Supreme Court justice Thomas Berger to look at current action against the pipeline expansion plan. He will also be applying to be an intervener in legal challenges to federal approval of the project.
YES … the B.C. government — John Horgan’s NDP — will, as I stated, be doing everything possible to stop this project dead in its tracks.
Today, at a news conference, BC NDP Environment Minister George Heyman stated:
“We are committed to use every tool to defend B.C.’s coast [from] threat of tanker traffic … Our government made it clear that a seven-fold increase in heavy oil tankers in the Vancouver harbour is not in B.C.’s best interests. Not for our economy, our environment, or thousands of existing jobs.”
Uhmmmm, excuse me, Mr. Heyman, Mr. Berger, Mr. Horgan, and Mr. Weaver. Have all of you missed the point that this company has operated a pipeline to the B.C. coast SAFELY NOW for over SIX DECADES!!
BC Conservatives … line up your guns (figuratively speaking of course) against the BC NDP, and the BC Green Party.
They are opposed to Nationally Energy Board approved as safe projects …
They are committed to taking every legal step possible to oppose and shut down environmentally approved energy projects …
They will think nothing of wasting taxpayers’ resources to hire a former NDO leader as their legal spokesperson and intervener to stall and halt environmentally approved projects …
They are opposed to thousands of high paying jobs (jobs that would employ hard working union men and women) …
In opposing this LEGALLY APPROVED project, they are green lighting so-called environmentalists to do whatever they want to shut down B.C.’s mining, energy, and resource projects.
John Horgan’s NDP have essentially told them go ahead because they will also be doing everything they can to shut down this, and other projects.
NO political party in B.C. is going to say they are not going to deliver proper standards in health care and education. There’s no need to fight that fight when the next election campaign gets underway.
No, instead, target what the BC NDP and the BC Green Party are weak on. PROTECTING JOBS — good high paying union jobs in fact. The kind of union jobs that will generate taxes, revenue and wealth for the province.
This NDP / Green Party government is sounding an attack on the well-being and prosperity of our province … and they are putting at risk the very future of the women and men who continue to build, power, and protect this province.
Here’s my message to the BC Conservatives, a message that I believe they should take to each and every British Columbian. Tell them …
We will not sit idly by while the Greens and NDP prepare to drive our economy into the ditch.
We will not forfeit the economy, or the environment; we can, and will, protect both.
TODAY … we are serving you with an eviction notice. Come next election, be prepared to be evicted from the B.C. Legislature by the majority of voters in British Columbia.
Today we take up this cause, for there is nothing greater than the safety, protection, and well-being of British Columbians … no matter what their age or generation.
Will they follow my advice? Who knows? But a chorus of agreement, swelling from the people of B.C., will certainly let them know if this is the right path to take.
In Kamloops, I’m Alan Forseth. The floors yours now, so let’s hear from you.
Alan Forseth is a Kamloops resident and former member of the Reform Party of Canada and the B.C. Reform Party, and a past and current member of the BC Conservative Party. His blog is My Thoughts on Politics and More.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
Wow ! This column just killed any interest I might have had towards future columns of yours.
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What Politicians do – Only have to make it look like you are doing what you promised……
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Forseth:
You are a conservative, you dislike unions worse than Trump likes Hillary.
What’s with this tirade?
Who are you trying to fool?
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Hey Pierre … you have obviously missed this from other previous comments / pieces
Early in my career I was NOT ONLY a member of the NDP, I was also a member of the Steelworkers, the IWA, and CAIMAW. In fact, I was both a Shop-Steward and a Negotiating Team member with the Steelworkers at Gibraltar Mine in the Cariboo.
AS A UNION MEMBER, I saw the devastation the NDP wreaked on the province, and saw the 1000’s of union jobs that were lost because of it.
I have been, and continue to be, a supporter of unions! What I am no longer a supporter of however, are most (but not all) policies and ideals of the NDP
They are idealists with no sense of the correlation between their utopian ideas, and what havoc it can / does inflict on the economy — which directly impacts the job prospects of people, as well as causing a reduction in financial resources for programs and services that are not only needed, but required.
Tirade? NO! FACT? Yes!
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An intelligent, well informed and multifaceted factual piece, that discusses various angles of an issue from a disassociated journalistic perspective is good. THE WAY you wrote this column is actually by definition a tirade. It was fragmented, perforated and a disintegrated jumble of rhetoric, from a tunnel visioned and reactive perspective, with no consideration for the political subtlety of whats actually going on beyond the headlines.
It actually reads as if Trump wrote it.
Your response to Pierre here, actually made sense, whether or not we or I agree with you, it was well written in comparison.
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why bother?It would be like talking to a brick wall. Apparently you don’t understand that integrity must be maintained and promises must be kept’
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Alan, the level of anxiety throughout this article, leaves me to think that you might be a little reactionary, then I come across your included message to conservatives, and realize you’re trying to inflame the con base. Sure.
A somewhat more calm, introspective, thoughtful reaction to this news is to understand it, while keeping the larger political environment in mind:
We know that the majority of people living near the pipeline are ok with the expansion, the Nations it actually passes through have signed onto it, and the concerns at the coast (double hull, double tug boat) have been dealt with. As well the coast guard and response crews are equipped to deal with it …
This recent government move is only political necessity to follow thru on vote grabbing promises in the election. The BC govt is threatening taking it to court, which they know they will lose, but it will look good doing so “fighting for BC and the environment”. The project will go ahead but they will say “We did everything we could … those Liberals hogtied us”.
They are not doing what they actually could do: They announced they could deliberately stall permits for the project but will not, which means they are not willing to use the tools at their disposal to stop it at this early date. What else do they announce? A ‘policy review’. Which is basically nothing.
Its obvious … they dont want to stop it, just make themselves look good while its happening.
Lets look at a few other examples; Horgan drops the news about ‘fighting’ site C, which in reality he has no plans to cancel, and couldn’t afford to, even if he wanted to … but it covers an election promise to make a bit of noise.
Then the other day, he then announces a tuition deal for a very, very few select number of students (in 2012 there were 6 schools in Vancouver teaching Adult Ed, now there’s only 2 schools left), so less seats to fund, so in the end its an inexpensive tuition program announcement, but sounds damn good. Again, responding to an election promise.
What he is doing is curating the news cycle, deferring attention and seeming to follow thru on election promises. I for one am not buying this, as more than political pandering to the masses.
It does look like one columnist has bought the rhetoric.
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