Dear Sir:
I would like to address two areas of concern.
First, The Northern Connector front page of May 23, 2014 contained a photo of Prime Minister Stephen Harper posing with the Terrace U17 girls' volleyball team in Edmonton.
Given the recent Kitimat plebiscite vote against the Northern Gateway pipeline, I wonder if it might not have served his purpose better just to travel out of his comfort zone to Kitimat to do a photo op with the Kitimat volleyball team.
And while he was here in northwestern BC, take a look around at what exactly an oil spill here will destroy.
Second, there's a photo in The Terrace Standard of May 28, 2014 showing Premier Christy Clark posing with northwestern BC students who attended an LNG conference in Vancouver, all expenses paid.
As Anne Hill from North West Watch commented “Students are young minds and easily moulded.... when 90 per cent of the speakers are pushing industry, I don't think they're getting a very balanced view.”
I was under the impression that school policy was to provide a balanced view, so where's the other half of the balance?
I have a suggestion: there is a documentary filmed by members of the environmental group Beyond Boarding, called “Northern Grease”.
In it they travel around northern BC and Alberta to understand resource extraction projects. What they find is a disturbing landscape and problems created by practices such as fracking.
In their presentation to schools, they use the sport of snowboarding as a means of gaining attention, and then educate on social and environmental issues.
Overall, I find both of the afore-mentioned photos disturbing to say the least.
When the two governments use our youth and children to advance their own agendas, and influence young minds to create their future trade labour forces, they have stepped over a line. Their goal is to divide and conquer, ours is to unite and resist.
Brenda Mark, Terrace, BC