Dear Editor: Alberta’s Premier Rachel Notley and Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources Jim Carr are railing again about the Kinder Morgan pipeline being in the “national interest.”
Even if it were, you can’t proceed with a major industrial development involving millions of barrels of flammable, toxic stuff on the basis of a jiggered assessment that tens of thousands of people quite rightly distrust.
Why not? Because of the Halifax explosion.
Halifax had an excellent system of harbour safety in place until it was jettisoned “in the national interest” in 1917. The port was handed over to the British Admiralty and, to speed up the shipment of war materiel, the new management dropped a bunch of safety measures.
The Halifax explosion was the direct result. It killed 2,000 people.
That is one of the reasons the opposition to the pipeline is so vehement. It certainly is a big part of my opposition.
Bob Bossin, Gabriola
