Let’s be realistic here - the pipeline review process is broken. It’s not broken due to a lack of consultation, it’s broken because there is precisely too much consultation allowed.
As a result, those who oppose the pipeline will always claim there was inadequate consultation despite having had several opportunities to meet face to face with Kinder-Morgan and the NEB, as well as write in and obtain a response.
For those who oppose, it doesn’t matter if a pipeline is the safest way to transport oil, their erroneous belief that the voices of thousands of ill-informed people constitutes a “social licence” to object to anything and everything. I am glad people speak up and do exhibit social licence – it results in the most rigorous of engineering and scientific research and testing to ensure there will be no environmental damage. But when that social licence begins to extend to just protest after protest because these people simply don’t want a pipeline, then it becomes counter-productive.
The cold harsh reality is pipelines have criss-crossed this country for decades, and one in particular has pumped oil through this community for more than 60 years without any catastrophic environmental disaster that the protesters seem to think will happen. An oil company does not want to have oil gushing out of its pipeline any more than the locals do – it behooves them to make sure the pipeline doesn’t break as well.
Canada needs these pipelines. These pipelines already exist. By all means contribute constructively to ensuring that the pipelines will be the safest for all concerned, but stop being counterproductive. Unless you live in a cave, weave your clothes from local grasses and eat locally grown vegetable you pick yourself, you need oil to sustain your lifestyle. So stop being hypocritical.
