The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.
Nathan Lemphers is a senior policy analyst with the Pembina Institute, a national nonpartisan sustainable energy think-tank. This op-ed originally appeared on The Mark.
Apparently, Canada is open for business, but closed to criticism, no matter how constructive. This is the clearest conclusion that can be drawn from Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver’s open letter to Canadians (“Radicals threaten resource development,” National Post, Jan. 10), in which he attacks advocates of responsible oilsands development as “radicals,” and dismisses the concerns of thousands of Canadians who want to have a say in the decision of whether to build Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline.
The $6.6-billion project would run two parallel pipelines carrying diluted bitumen and condensate along a 1,177kilometre route linking the oilsands in Alberta with the remote port of Kitimat on the northern B.C. coast. The pipelines would traverse hundreds of salmon-bearing rivers and streams, mountainous and landslide-prone terrain, the Great Bear Rainforest and the territory of more than 50 First Nations.