If it takes a rant or two a day

Note:  
I have held back for some time before publishing this column for Our World Tuesday, even hoping that the live-and-let-live side of me might prevail but, no, the indignant, opinionated, never-say-die part of my brain continues to believe the rant I've written here. I'm doing my best to reign in my anger and disappointment, but I admit I may not have succeeded.

Alberta's Premier, Rachel Notley, a member of the New Democratic Party, recently abandoned her party's left-wing mandate, in order to vote with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in approving further construction of Kinder Morgan's crude oil pipeline across the Rocky Mountains, then across British Columbia to the beautiful west coast.
British Columbia's premier John Horgan has been left in their wake to explain the why and wherefore to his concerned constituents in BC.

SECOND NOTE:

Since I wrote this rant, and put off publication until I had my anger under control, something has happened here in western Canada...

There has been an oil spill in

Premier Notley's province of Alberta!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/paramount-resources-zama-city-pipeline-leak-1.4621904

Now here is proof that oil spills can happen anywhere at any time.
Proof right here in oil-producing Alberta.

What now, my fine-feathered friends?

Well, for what it is worth, here is the rant I wrote last week on the subject of mountains, pipelines, tanker ships, coastal waters, and oil spills.

Rachel Notley, left, Justin Trudeau, John Horgan (CBC photos)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may just have sealed the fate of the province of my birth: my beautiful British Columbia. I am very disappointed in young Mr. Trudeau, because even he, from his prime ministerial seat in our nation's capital, cannot guarantee that the expansion of the Kinder Morgan company's oil pipeline across the Rocky Mountains from Edmonton, Alberta, and from there through British Columbia, will not result in an oil spill of disastrous proportions.

Perhaps a mountain or coastal spill won't happen soon, maybe not in what's left of my lifetime, but crude oil pipelines can never be guaranteed safe. And spills do happen, and happen often, as Washington State residents, just across the international border from BC, can attest. And now, as Albertans have learned as well.

https://twnsacredtrust.ca/concerns/spill-record/

So bear with me (no pun intended, though bears can well be victims of a spill) and I'll give you my opinion. It is "an ill-favoured thing but mine own." (Thank you, Will S.)

Canadian Rockies.net

The Prime Minister, together with Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, would seem to have outwitted British Columbia's premier John Horgan in order to force on him, and on his fellow British Columbians, the hotly-protested continuation of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline carrying dirty crude bitumen more than 1000 kilometres (600+ miles) from Edmonton, Alberta, through the iconic Canadian Rocky Mountains, then across British Columbia to huge storage tanks built on the shore of Burrard Inlet, near the mouth of a beautiful steep-sided glacial fjord called Indian Arm.

As Trudeau and Notley and Kinder Morgan all know: any pipeline, anywhere, is a crisis waiting to happen. Certainly BC Premier Horgan knows spills happen, as do most residents of Canada's westernmost province. (See Alberta spill, above.)

The Kinder Morgan pipeline could break underground anywhere along its length, spilling the crudest of crude oil into a fragile ecosystem already strained by human usage. An underground break might take some time to be discovered, increasing the damage, as happened with this month's leak in Alberta.

The Prime Minister said that the oil is intended for foreign markets. This means, of course, moving it long distances in tanker ships!

https://clearseas.org/tankers/https://clearseas.org/tankers/

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pipeline-kinder-morgan-analysis-chris-hall-1.4620823

Stanley Park, Vancouver

From beautiful Indian Arm, near the city of Port Moody, BC. huge tanker ships will carry Alberta's oil some 40 kilometres through Burrard Inlet, past the Burnaby Mountain Conservation Area, under the Second Narrows Bridge, past downtown Vancouver and North Vancouver, under the Lions Gate Bridge, past iconic Stanley Park, West Vancouver, and the University of BC Endowment Lands.

You might well wonder whereof I speak, and with what authority — and you'd be right to ask. Well, once upon a time in Vancouver long ago, part of my job at the Sun daily newspaper was keeping track of the ships that came in and out of Vancouver Harbour. It was interesting — I had to list the names of the ships and their countries of registration, some from far, far away, and I enjoyed the exotic names of some of the vessels. Marine traffic in the 1960s was nothing like it is now, of course, it wasn't unusual to see a dozen or more ships anchored offshore near English Bay, each waiting its turn to move under the Lions Gate Bridge to enter a terminal.
The port of Vancouver, BC, now has 25 marine terminals: 3 container, 17 bulk cargo, and 5 break bulk cargo. As of  this writing in mid-April, there are 104 vessels in port, with 55 expected arrivals.

159 ships is a whole lotta ships, and I don't know if Vancouver should be too nonchalant about the possibility of problems...maybe not this month, maybe not this year, but there is always the chance of disaster, which would undoubtedly be widespread.

According to an Angus Reid poll "67% of Canadians are concerned about the potential for oil spills in Canadian waters. Marine oil spills can occur when vessels are involved in accidents or incidents.  The consequences of large-scale oil spills on wildlife, ecosystems, coastal and Indigenous communities and local economies can be significant."

Any oil spill cleanup is a nasty business

POSTING FOR FIONA'S

OUR WORLD TUESDAY

BECAUSE THIS IS MY WORLD