With the future of two proposed pipelines at stake, the transportation of oil from Alberta to British Columbia has become a major issue in the election.
But while there is much debate over whether transporting diluted bitumen from Alberta's oil sands is dangerous or economically necessary, there is less talk about the damage done
when we fill our own vehicles up at the gas station.
The two issues aren't identical: anti-pipeline activists are right to point out that the oil sands diluted bitumen is an unknown quantity. And the northern British Columbia coast, in particular, does pose unique dangers for tankers.
But it's worth stopping for a moment to question the danger posed by our own prolific use of gas. After all, the oil we consume is not pumped in Burnaby - although it is stored here.
It comes from Alberta or Texas or Nigeria or Venezuela, which is to say, it is transported from its source. Sometimes, spills happen, damaging the local environment. Other times, that oil breeds corruption that stifles democracy.
That does not invalidate all opposition to pipelines, but it should cause pipeline detractors - and promoters - to take a hard look at their own purchasing decisions and how they affect people thousands of kilometres away.
Similarly, last week hundreds of garment workers died when a factory collapsed in Bangladesh. That we buy clothes (or oil) from the third world is not necessarily a bad thing; just like oil revenue can pay for government services, low-wage jobs can be the first step an economy takes towards first-or second-world sustainable development.
But if we, as consumers, are going to buy goods produced in Bangladesh or oil from Nigeria, we have a moral obligation to demand as much protection for workers and the environment as we would like to see here.
After all, the demise of the Northern Gateway pipeline would be an exercise in futility if it only adds to the misery of people in another oil-producing part of the world.
