It's only the sound of one hand clapping over the decision by the Obama administration to put the Keystone Pipeline on indefinite hold because the pipeline isn't killed outright as it should have been. But it remains an important development in the ongoing process to stop Keystone.
I think some credit must go to former President Jimmy Carter for his impassioned letter calling on President Barack Obama not to give the OK on Keystone. It reminded me of the last days of Meech Lake when Mulroney thought he had it in the bag until Pierre Trudeau held a talk and tripped him up but good and saved the country.
I'm against Keystone as I'm against the Northern Gateway Pipeline and for the same reasons: it's ridiculous to endanger our environment for the sake of Big Oil's wanting to sell our energy to the Chinese market. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's drive to help his friends back in the oil patch puts our country at risk, not just from damage to the environment, but to over-dependence on the sale of fossil fuel.
Now Harper wants to scream that Obama has played politics but what has our beloved Stephen done except do the same thing? He's silenced government scientists on climate, on environmental damage, and become the most obstinate prime minister in my memory hell-bent on turning us into an economy based solely on resource extraction. And when those non-renewable resources are gone what then? The boom will have gone bust along with our future.
Robert T. Rock
Mission