Dear editor,
Last week I heard the presentation of Steelhead LNG to the Comox Valley CRD on the company’s proposed pipeline project. It was informative, especially in terms of what presenters skirted around – or simply ignored. So let me name, and briefly comment on, certain parts of this elephant in the room – those body parts labelled as economic, environmental and social.
First of all, we will receive little or no economic gain to the Comox Valley. No permanent jobs. And whatever taxes our province or municipalities receive will be minimal, so no bumped-up services of any kind.
Almost all revenue will go to the corporation’s individual shareholders – shareholders that if they are typical of most in Canada will practise the most up-to-date tax-avoidance strategies money can buy.
Secondly, we will not only risk loss of scarce Valley space for housing and farming, we may well compromise one of the most biologically rich estuaries in North America. And there are other environmental questions – do we want to continue enabling LNG production from fracked gas in B.C.’s interior? Especially when such fracking destroys huge amounts of irreplaceable groundwater? When the process only produces greater and greater amounts of CO2? Worse yet, produces a much higher proportion of methane – a far more potent driver of climate change?
Finally, do we want to enable the exploitation of the Huu-ay-aht on Vancouver Island’s west coast? Because it is exploitation – providing only bits of private money in exchange for their land and sustainable resources. Not the kind of Reconciliation that will give them ground rent in the same quality of services Canadian governments provide our settler population.
I do not think progressive citizens of the Comox Valley will want any such “body parts” from any such pipeline project.
May Partridge,
Courtenay
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