Dear Editor:
The mayor of Burnaby is against the Trans Mountain expansion, but has he converted all the Burnaby vehicles to electric and, as a good NDP supporter, he is also against the Site C dam.
Note that B.C., according to the National Energy Board, imports about 10 per cent of our power now. Maybe Mayor Derek Corrigan is looking into horses.
Now we have those protesting the pipeline: Do they have cellphones made out of plastic? Are the boats they use in the protest wood (unless they are against logging, too)? Most kayaks are plastic, but being against fossil fuels, maybe the boats will be made of seal skins (don’t tell PETA).
The Lower Mainland wants more money from the federal government for transit. Sixty-five per cent of the transfer payments come from Alberta and Saskatchewan; that is money Justin Trudeau needs to give to B.C., and also the $10 billion a year to Quebec, and without this pipeline, that money is needed to pay for all this since the federal government has $25 to $30 billion debt each year.
The First Nations want money, cities want money, and Alberta has it: 65 per cent of the transfer money.
We now import 50 per cent of our oil through the narrow, icy St. Lawrence River with tankers that don’t even meet the new safety requirements needed on the West Coast with no icebergs.
The protesters are hypocrites like the mayor of Burnaby. Without oil from Trans Mountain, no trucks would run. Without trucks, there would be no food, and we in the Lower Mainland only have about 15 days supply of food; most is on trucks from Alberta and California.
For any reason we lose Trans Mountain, which provides 100 per cent of the fuel to B.C., we would have food shortages in 15 days.
Natural gas is the same, electric power is the same. We are very dependent in the Lower Mainland. We don’t grow enough food. We can’t generate enough power or provide enough gas.
All we produce in the Lower Mainland is garbage, and lots of it. Before we protest, we should look at how vulnerable we are.
Everything we see around us was brought to us by a truck. Everything we see has been mined, came from oil or was farmed.
We create nothing in Burnaby but pollution.
Roger Reimer, Burnaby
