Our Fight Against the Northern Gateway Pipeline Has Just Begun by David Suzuki

https://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/06/18


Greenpeace Canada campaigners protested Prime Minister Harper's energy policies with a mock oil spill in 2012. (Credit: flickr / Jeremy Christian / Greenpeace)


Like more than two-thirds of British Columbians and 130 First Nations, I'm outraged that the federal government wants to proceed with the Enbridge Northern Gateway twinned pipeline. In approving it, the government is aggressively pushing an unwanted project on an unwilling public. I don't believe it will be built.

British Columbia and Canada have too much to lose: rich coastal ecosystems known as the Galapagos of the North, the vast Great Bear Rainforest, vibrant First Nations' communities and some of the world's last healthy salmon streams, among other treasures. B.C.'s communities are built on the understanding that healthy ecosystems lead to prosperity.

All this is at risk from a pipeline that will carry heavy oil across nearly 800 rivers and streams and onto supertankers travelling B.C.'s coastal waters. It's hard to imagine a riskier project.

Yet Prime Minister Stephen Harper decided to approve the Enbridge Northern Gateway heavy oil pipeline despite a mounting outcry from Canadians.