Our prime minister’s condescension is rude and belittling. He has not listened to First Nations’ people about the realities a pipeline spill, or what spill from a tanker will do to our coastlines and communities, the sea life which coastal communities depend on, and the impact on communities, ecosystems and wildlife along the pipeline route. The Tar Sands is the dirtiest oil extraction project in the world. It’s poisoning the Athabasca River, causing cancer in Indigenous communities downstream of the Tar Sands and killing wildlife that these communities rely on for food. The air is polluted, the water is unfit for drinking or cooking, washing or bathing, it’s killing wildlife along the rivers and killing fish and other aquatic life in the rivers.
The Tar Sands is so large it can be seen from space. We know bitumen is toxic, and it takes caustic chemicals to extract it from the sands. Yet big business, including the Alberta and the Canadian governments are pushing the continued extraction of toxic bitumen at the exclusion of the rights of Indigenous people, other local communities, water and air quality and the fact that bitumen is a toxic, highly flammable substance that is heating our atmosphere when burned.
I urge everyone to speak up loudly against the continuing extraction of Tar Sands bitumen, and stop the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion. Apart from air quality, the pipeline will be twinned, it is a whole new pipeline, eating up a lot of land along the route, then coming straight through the city of Burnaby, where forested land set aside for posterity as a quiet green space and buffer zone from the noise of industry and traffic. Trudeau doesn’t care. Digging there to install another bigger pipeline than what Burnaby currently uses, will cause huge disruption along the pipeline route through Burnaby. The Tank Farm will be increased in size dramatically to accommodate the increase in bitumen flow, so more tanks will be built with inadequate space around them. Should one tank explode, the rest will quickly follow. Billowing clouds of smoke will rise up Burnaby Mountain, shrouding it in toxic black smoke. There will be pandemonium, with people trying to drive down the mountain, and people trying to flee in their cars from the elementary school just 5 blocks from the tank farm, and their homes. Over 40,000 people live, work or study at Simon Fraser University. Many will perish in the crush to leave the Burnaby Mountain. An explosion at the tank farm will be a disaster of huge proportions. What should we do? Close down an important, well respected university to protect students, professors and staff from getting poisoned from toxic smoke, maimed or killed from fumes and smoke inhalation? I beg you all to look at the facts, and do some REAL SCIENCE HERE. This tank farm is just 5 blocks from an elementary school. There are dozens of condominiums in the neighbourhood, as well as housing co-ops and single family homes. These people have no where to go now…their property values will drop dramatically, and in the case of a horrendous explosion, the mountainside will become an inferno. There is no sane way to proceed except to stop the pipeline.

If the transport of oil doesn’t harm you, an oil spill and or fire at the tank farm, or an explosions or leak while loading or while navigating through Burrard Inlet or the Salish Sea will. A spill or explosion will have dire consequences to both human and animal life.

I VOTE AN ADAMANT NO for the KINDER MORGAN PIPELINE EXPANSION! How about you?