Sometimes, The Regina Mom wonders why she bothers to write her long blog posts, when others do it excellently with a short quote and video or are capable of piecing together a few headlines about the HarperCons' visit to China, the trade trip on which the Enbridge CEO has accompanied the prime minister presumably to tout the pipeline projected to forever change the B.C.

With the spotlight on the federal government's aggressive push to export tar sands bitumen via the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat, and from there by tanker on to China, the B.C. government reclaimed some attention on the energy file when it released its Natural Gas Strategy last week. With lots of glossy pages, but little detailed content, it is reflective of Premier Clark's signature style. The short of it is that shale gas from B.C.'s Northeast is to be pipelined to Kitimat and loaded onto tankers in liquid form (LNG) to be exported to China.

The HarperCons are certainly giving The Regina Mom a lot of opportunity to diss them. And that would be fun! Perhaps, if we give them enough rope... I know. It's wishful thinking, mirroring theirs, apparently. As a poster at one of the web boards I frequent said, "It's like the entire country is having a Stress Test." It does feel that way these days, for sure.

Last week's signing of the Fraser Declaration on the part of First Nations in Alberta and the Northwest Territories marks a high point in a series of actions directed at the National Energy Board hearings in Edmonton.

As described in the below press release, the Fraser Declaration was led by the Yinka Dene Alliance; it is a formal declaration opposing the Enbridge Gateway project and supertankers on the B.C. coast.

Two obvious but generally unstated details about the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline are climate change and that oil and gas companies stand to make mega-profits. An honest appraisal of the project would be something like, "yes, putting in the pipeline will facilitate even more greenhouse gas emissions from the Alberta oil sands, but our buddies stand to make bucketloads of cash." Of course, proponents cannot say that so they have to resort to bullying and name-calling to disguise the indefensible.