Archive

Dear Justin…

June 21, 2019   ·   0 Comments

By Laura Campbell

Dear Justin Trudeau, 

So this week you did what we all knew you’d do. Your government re-approved the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline… a day after you ‘historically’ declared a climate emergency. But it mustn’t be too much of an emergency to you if you’re willing to expand fossil fuel infrastructure at this late stage of our scientifically confirmed impending doom. 

But this is just par for the course with a Liberal government: one step forward (with much fanfare) and two steps back, only to end back up in the comfortable (and apocalyptic) status quo. More of the same. More stimulus, more subsidies, more desperate policy maneuvres to protect an industry that even some of the largest banks in the world are uninterested in investing in (remember the HSBC snub? We do. HSBC declined to offer any new loans to Suncor Inc. or other oil sands projects). 

But from the start, the pipeline purchase was a political disaster. Who advised you on this? What kind of strange bravado was it intended to convey? The initial owner, KinderMorgan, wasn’t exactly entitled to a bailout. They gave you an ultimatum, the deadline, and instead of simply allowing this Texas-based corporation to absorb the blow of massive opposition and jurisdictional hangups, you decided it was better to send them back to Houston with billions of our public money. It was THEIR bad investment- and now it belongs to all of us. The second you made the purchase, you were dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t. Those who want it expect it to be built; otherwise you’d be roasted for wasting that money. And for those who don’t, the purchase meant the pipeline was a done deal, and they’ll likely never forgive you for it. 

I know you are aware of how detrimental the oil sands are to the environment (let alone the expansion of that industry). I don’t need to tell you about the toxic tailings ponds, where  over 1 trillion litres of toxic waste can never be disposed of safely. I don’t need to tell you about the deforestation, about the methane emissions, the poisoned rivers and wildlife, the cancers in downstream indigenous communities. And yet, in all of your public conversations, you only seem to assure people that “spills aren’t going to happen.” As if spills can be prevented, when all evidence points towards the fact that they happen? And secondly, as if spills are the only thing we are worried about? Can you promise that expanding the oil sands won’t create any more other externalities? No you can’t, because: science. 

What about the workers? I don’t need to tell you that every few years volatile global oil prices set the industry into a downward spiral only to see folks get laid off two days before Christmas. I don’t need to tell you that the hard times are unbearable for them and made worse by displacement associated with wildfires and summer-long smoke induced darkness across much of the West. Public and private debt grows, as our polar ice caps melt and our forests burn.. but cool, you’d like to keep that growth model going, because that’s the only way to ‘fund the transition,’ as you say.

Only, that doesn’t make sense, does it? Because by your own logic, the market is moving toward renewables and clean tech, and in my opinion, you’re holding it up. The transition itself will create way more jobs and wealth than this pipeline can. The pipeline will create around 2500 jobs during the construction phase, and 90 full-time jobs once it’s completed. But in 2014, The Globe and Mail reported that the Clean Tech sector was already employing more people in Alberta than the oil industry was (it was updated this year, and the data stands). So why put British Columbia’s southern coastline at such detrimental risk (not to mention all of the rivers it passes over)? Instead of buying this pipeline, you could have followed through on your promise in 2015 to end fossil fuel subsidies ($3 billion per year +) and have used that money to fund the transition to a carbon neutral economy. 

Your supporters are trying to show that the Liberals are the only party that can deliver a climate solution, since the Conservative Party denies that climate change is even a problem because they either don’t believe in science or because the science is too inconvenient for their investment portfolios. But because you failed to pass electoral reform, there is a real chance that the good things you’ve done could be overturned and replaced by a dark unknown. 

I want to finish off by acknowledging the good you’ve done. Thank you for saving the 50 million tree plan in Ontario after our Premier cancelled it. Thank you for banning tankers off the North Coast of BC (though it’s not like you can serve eviction notices to the Salish Sea Orcas and ask them to kindly move a bit further up the shore). Thank you for talking about climate change as much as you do. Thank you for acknowledging the plastics pollution problem, and thinking alongside with us, about a broad solution. 

All of these are good things, that myself and many Canadians have been asking for. I wish you had done more of this.

But there is a stark generational divide now between the youth who want aggressive action on climate change and building a new economy, and those that want to take the longer road. The longer road includes this pipeline purchase. The longer road, even though paved with good intentions, is the road to a scorched earth. 

Kind Regards, Laura Campbell

Readers Comments (0)