Dear editor,
Many B.C. residents have submitted concerns about the Northern Gateway pipeline.
Most were opposed on principle, but that, Enbridge says, is changing. This is my response to the Enbridge rhetoric.
It's my understanding that many of those 3,000 construction jobs would go to offshore workers, as Canada is ill-prepared to take advantage of these skilled trades jobs.
It is great that native Canadians would be employed for a short term on pipeline construction — then what? We need long-term, value-added jobs from our resources.
So the pipeline would create about 560 long-term jobs. In the Comox Valley, more than 560 good jobs have been lost in sawmilling and pulp and paper in the past eight years. Now log exports.
Many value-added resource-based jobs have been lost in the Kitimat/Terrace area. Thousands.
Many "experts" have talked of marine safety. The fact is that the Queen of the North sinking is a fact — just like the loss of resource-based jobs in B.C.
The project should only proceed if there are thousands of long-term, value-added refinery jobs that would will reduce the impact of a tanker accident in Douglas Channel.
Phil Harrison,
Comox