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Letters to the Editor for the week of June 7

Oppose Kinder Morgan pipeline I am writing this in support of the letter by Angela Mellor in last week's Pique titled "Let Feds know you oppose investment in Kinder Morgan pipeline.
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Oppose Kinder Morgan pipeline

I am writing this in support of the letter by Angela Mellor in last week's Pique titled "Let Feds know you oppose investment in Kinder Morgan pipeline."

This project is not in the national nor global best interest, and has been shown as such numerous times in many different aspects—economic, environmental and safety—through science-based evidence, despite what our current government is telling us with their political doublespeak.

Angela did a very thorough job specifically addressing why this project is not in the best interest, so I will not belabour this point further here.

I would like to add two more issues that are particularly important to consider.

Set aside the fact that this breaks both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's climate leadership and Indigenous reconciliation promises, it also implies that neither he nor our finance minister can do math, because paying $4.5 billion for a 60-year-old leaking asset that was valued at $550 million in 2007, is either bad business or corruption.

Even those who support this project should be outraged that our tax money is being mismanaged on such an alarming scale. Of course, there are hundreds of other uses for that amount of money that could directly benefit Canadians.

But if we are to subsidize the oil industry in Canada, the money should instead be spent building refineries in Alberta so we could be selling a value-added product—thereby keeping jobs in Canada, creating more return for Canadian resources and safeguarding the final product from being produced in a less-than-ideal way abroad. Furthermore, the dilute (condensate) necessary to make bitumen flow through a pipeline would not be needed—and these alternatives are in the national interest.

Secondly, everyone must also realize that the oil tank farm Kinder Morgan is building in Burnaby will be a ticking timebomb—being in an earthquake zone next to hundreds of thousands of homes and blocking the only way out for Simon Fraser University. It should not be built there.

Please take the time to watch the very informative video created by Bob Bossin on youtube at https://youtu.be/tOyceZiLF-Y or Google: "Only one bear in a hundred bites, but they don't come in order."

Burnaby is the only place on the planet where such a storage place is being built in an urban centre—the rest of the world puts them away from highly populated areas—and for a very good reason. This video was a huge eye-opener for me.

The market had already decided this project is not a worthwhile investment. I do not consent to the use of my tax dollars to bail out a failing pipeline and tanker project, which energy companies are not interested in pursuing. Whether you are for or against this project, I hope we can at least agree on that.

Myra Graham
Whistler

Whistler recycling

I am a longstanding seasonal resident of Whistler. I also have a summer place in northern Michigan in the relatively un-prosperous village of Bellaire. The community has an active recycling program. One merely deposits all recyclables in a bin. No sorting is required. It is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is emptied once per week by American Waste. It is happy to do the sorting because considerable revenue is generated from reselling the recycled materials.

No invigilator is required to ensure compliance, although it might be a good make-work project in this region of relatively high unemployment (at least compared to Whistler)! The contrast with recycling in Whistler is striking.  What is wrong with this picture?

Jeffrey Green 
St. Thomas, Ontario