There is this pipeline that passes through western Alberta, carrying bitumen over the Rocky Mountains, through B.C.'s interior, eventually ending at the densely populated port of Metro Vancouver on the west coast of Canada, filling tankers bound for oil-loving America, as well as oil-hungry Asia.
It exists, it really does. They call this pipeline Trans Mountain and it has been flowing Alberta oil west for nearly six not unblemished decades, including two leaks in the last month.
The pipeline operator, Kinder Morgan, has applied to expand this existing pipeline, which would nearly triple the amount of oil pumped west, to markets in North America and Asia, if all goes according to the company's plans.
Interestingly though, is the rhetoric coming from not only a competing corporation (TransCanada) – which is understandable, considering corporations' sole focus on increasing profits – but also the Alberta and Canadian governments.
Both governments and TransCanada assert that a brand new pipeline, named Northern Gateway, crossing the central portion of B.C. and ending in the less-populated coastal town of Kitimat, across from the ecologically sensitive islands making up Haida Gwaii, is the necessary solution to the seemingly fabricated problem of getting oil to Asia.
There is already oil going to Asia, though the Trans Mountain operator will not say exactly how much.
Not enough, we're told.
Have no fear, that amount will likely increase by 2017, that is, if the Canadian and B.C. governments and the populace have the appetite to go ahead with the Trans Mountain expansion – we know the Alberta government and Kinder Morgan are on board.
Governments should be honest with the people that elected them – it's bad enough the lack of say the public has in the fate of the environment in the name of increasing profits for a few.
The real reason the governments and TransCanada are clamoring for another pipeline, which would ostensibly create jobs and surely further degrade the environment, is not to open Asian oil markets, but to flood them with oil and reap the profits.
Certainly, a growing industrial nation like China will require more oil than it does now, but do we do irreparable damage to pristine areas of Canada to appease another country's desires – especially considering sources of energy will continue to diversify away from a near-complete reliance on petroleum products?
On the other hand, do we risk further damaging an area of the country with an existing pipeline already running through it in order to allow some to cash in on an oil extraction industry that is has become too big to go to waste?
Both options sound unappealing.
It's not that seeking profits is wrong. What's wrong is that they've fabricated a problem to trick a populace into thinking that another pipeline is the solution to the problem they created and they'll be rewarded with profits should the deal go through, while we're all stuck with a poorer future, unless we come up something better, something new.
