Dear Sir:
Following is text of an open letter in reply to the letter from Robert Blakely, Sept. 14, supporting the Enbridge Gateway pipeline:
Dear Mr. Blakely (I cannot in good conscience write “Brother”):
Your letter supporting the Enbridge Gateway pipeline has appeared in The Terrace Standard newspaper. While I appreciate your concern for workers – and I belong to a union myself, CUPE – your analysis and argument are way off.
Sure, jobs will result, but they are bad jobs for a worse industry. The oil industry is a crime against the environment and the future. Instead of shilling for the dying oil economy, the argument for jobs must focus on developing the infrastructure for the post-oil economy.
Moreover, your assertion that the impact on the environment would be minimal ignores the externalities (look it up) of the oil economy, in everything from global warming (and I hope you understand it) to plastics waste. You have, by your letter, demonstrated little competence or legitimacy to claim to represent the interests of the families of workers whose children and grand-children will have to live with such mischief. Shame.
As a result of your letter, the union movement in this region will now be laughed at as hypocritical and self-serving.
You have set us back, and not only is your competence to represent the long-term interest of workers doubted, but the question of graft has entered.
I put it directly: are you in the pay of the tar-sands industry? That is what you have to answer for here and wherever there is serious thought about our future.
Your resignation for incapacity is requested.
Respectfully, and regretfully,
Dr. David Heinimann,
Terrace, BC