The community in Comox, B.C. rallied against the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline.
oil industry
Canada's oil: For sale to the highest bidder
Want to know why Canada's currency is sky-high despite our sluggish recovery, our large and persistent current account deficit, and our lousy export performance?
Check out this fascinating story in Friday's National Post, by Yadullah Hussain, on why Canada's oil reserves are such a uniquely hot commodity in the eyes of global oil corporations.
Canada's broken pipeline safety system
On January 9, Canada's Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver claimed that "environmental and other radical groups," including "jet-setting celebrities" funded by foreign money, "threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological ends. They seek to exploit any loophole they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects. They use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada's national economic interest."
Video: Comox rally against Enbridge pipeline
Opponents of the Enbridge pipeline gathered at the NEB Joint Panel hearings at the Comox Rec Centre. The "No Pipeline No Tankers Rally" began at 1 p.m.
Comox, B.C. speaks out against Northern Gateway Pipeline
Speaker after speaker poured out their passionate pleas to an impassive panel at the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline hearings in Comox, B.C., on March 30 and 31. Some described in loving detail their oceanside worlds and the terrible weather on the north coast. Others discussed the economics (risk versus benefit) of the 1,170-kilometre pipeline from Alberta to Kitimat, B.C., where the diluted bitumen would be loaded on tankers to travel the narrow passages of B.C.'s west coast Great Bear Rainforest. A few short-term construction jobs, no royalties, and the enormous financial and ecological risk of oil spills on land and sea, in order to provide oil to Asia do not add up for British Columbians of most walks of life.
Federal budget is all about control and resource industry domination
Finally, it's crystal clear. When it comes to public spending, it's the public, not the spending, the Harper government is really out to control.
The budget that came down last week was a defining moment, though not the way anyone expected. Naturally, Conservative Canada widely assumed the new majority would be all about government austerity. That was a misconception.
There will be government jobs shed, of course, but the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and its ilk were quite disappointed, which was the best thing about this otherwise truly disturbing budget. Economists internationally are in near-consensus that drastically cutting government spending is the fast way to halt economic growth.
