Harper’s tanker tactics reminiscent of botched National Energy Program

We need to protect our coast from the threat of oilspills. Please spread the word and stand together to oppose Harper and his oil corporation bullies from pushing this pipeline through.

dont quit on this BC!

I like your comparison with NEP. Keep this going BCB4Enbridge!

It's a very good comparison. I moved to Alberta 5 years ago, for family, and I've been amazed at how many Albertans are still whinning about Trudeau's National Energy Program.

It's because they have nothing else to legitimately whine about, so they grasp at whatever straws they can to legitimize their blind support for Harper.

yes, keep up the fight against the bully Harper

Ashamed to be Canadian....

this libral gov.is saying they earth quake proof schools, do they think an earth quake only schools,think what it could to pipelines and tankers.

This is the stupidist thing I've ever read. Comparing the NEP to what this moron is doing, are you nuts? The NEP made sense at the time and would have made ever more sense now. What we got instead was a ridiculous price at the pump. You can thank Peter Loughheed and his oil buddies for this. There is no way we should be paying world price for oil. There is no way we should be selling it to foreign interests at a fraction of what we are gouging our own citizens at the pump for. Albertan's shouldn't be getting royalty cheques from Canadian's wallets.

I have to agree, I am sorry to say - the comparison to the NEP is pretty slim. Will Horter's heart is in the right place, and the headline surely got my attention - I had to check THAT out!! - but if we are not going to hit the nail on the head we won't win this battle.

If BC does actually show solid rejection of the Gateway, and then Harper forces his will on BC, that certainly is a hypocritical stance by Harper... and we know that hypocracy is "no problem" to Harper, he has no values other than "shareholder value is the only thing that matters".

I think you misunderstood my point. My comparison is not to the substance of the NEP, rather to the politics of the NEP - the forcing of an unwanted project now (policy then)on an unwilling province.

I think you misunderstood my point. My comparison is not to the substance of the NEP, rather to the politics of the NEP - the forcing of an unwanted project now (policy then)on an unwilling province.

I've never seen a government so eager and transparent in their drive to dismantle all social and environmental protections and abandon reason to line the pockets of a few wealthy corporations at the expense of our political capital, natural environments, water resources and social well-being.

This is nothing like the NEP, which attempted to put Canada's oil resources in Canadian hands.

I don't like the NEP comparison. The NEP was incorrectly blamed for all of Alberta's early 80s downturn, which would have happened anyway because of global economic events. The NEP might actually have resulted in Canadians exploiting their own oil instead of receiving a pittance for it.

Diane Marie,
I agree with you that the NEP comparison is not a good one as it stands. However, the NEP does enter the decision-making process here through Harper's knee-jerk western-Reform resentment & hate of everything he sees as liberal/Trudeau instigated of which he has always been clear. Added to that is his provincial bias governing his decisions. Those two psychological twists are the issues driving him, as an Albertan, not as PM of Canada, to destroy much that he sees as "Liberal" (read transcript of 2011 interview with Mansbridge) which is much of what many Canadians think of as what is good in Canada.
What Harper is doing, and will never admit to, is getting back at Trudeau's creation of the NEP. Harper is a Westerner deciding what to do for Alberta, not for the rest of Canada, and certainly not in the best interests of BC!

I think you misunderstood my point. My comparison is not to the substance of the NEP, rather to the politics of the NEP - the forcing of an unwanted project now (policy then)on an unwilling province.

You mean unwanted by the Oil Interests particularly those of the USA who energy security is put before Canada's when it comes to the tarsands sounds like a treason under the guise of trade if you ask me. Nothing that comes out of Alberta is not tainted by oil company money politics policy press the whole works. And the people of Alberta better wake up as they are being sold down the river. If you think that oil can't take a big drop in the market of that the market can't be manipulated so as to put all the little player's out of business and the big dogs take over in a prefabricated crisis your still wet behind the ears. Quit sucking on those tar sands it is hurting your head.

Harper doesn't care if he ruins the environment. He believes he has dominion over the earth and he's going to be taken up in the rapture in a few years. In the meantime he's going to do everything he can to hang on to power by filling the pockets of the rich. This is going to be a tough fight - but don't forget Canadians from coast to coast are with you.

This is a poor comparison. Alberta is on the same boat as the bullies this time, and its all about the money. We dissenters are not their voting base , so some serious politics have to be done to win their base to the ethical cause. The country is being stolen as we watch the hockey game!

This pipeline is a metaphor for the narrow, short-sighted, Taliban-like, perspectives of Steven Harper and his oil cronies. They have no sense of the bigger picture. We are fighting a battle in the war against corporate greed and ignorance. wwwrobertsemeniukdotcom

well said Robert! Meanwhile, the BC Liberals are doing the same thing with hydro..us poor taxpayers are the losers

Free energy exists for all people of the Earth ... it is time to end the use of fossil fuels and unsafe nuclear generated electricity. Solidarity from Elliot Lake Ontario. Stop the 1%er exploitation and enslavement of the Earth and 99%.

I agree this is not a valid comparison. Dig a little deeper and don't delude yourselves. Its about the money and so is the power base of the ruling (bully) party. As long as they have the power base, they will do what they like. Ethics and the environment are not their concern, and our opposition is not part of their power base, so will be ignored until some serious, committed politics goes down and the power base is drawn to the ethics, away from the money. Until then we will only live in hope and dream on. Our country is being stolen while we watch the hockey game. Consider, in your fantasy, the situation of the opposition to the "government" of Saudi Arabia, the model for these plutocrats. Oh yes, and the "government" does not "own" the resources, the people have given it the right to control them, by the method of "democracy" as we call it.

We have to get it right or they win the arguments - many people are citing CO2 emissions as being the main problem with the Tar Sands, but I don't think that is accurate. The local effects, the human rights issue of "cancer downstream", is a good reason to kill the Tar Sands expansion [read David Schindler's reports], and expansion really does depend on these pipelines.

Other "local Tar Sands issues" such as the tailings ponds, the boreal forest destruction, the water draws on the low winter flows of the Athabasca River, the outrageous use of natural gas to get bitumen, and maybe even the low royalties given to Albertans are more substantial issues about the Tar Sands than CO2 emissions are [although it is a big concern, for sure].

CO2 is a global issue, South Africa takes first place for single source CO2 emissions at the Sasol Secunda "coal to gasoline" plant at 60 to 75 million tons of CO2 annually; the CO2 emissions from the Tar Sands in Alberta is hard to quantify, but "total GGs are around 45 million tons" including methane. Its BAD, its just not the worst thing about the Tar Sands at 6.5%~ of Canada's GHG emission.

Dont get me wrong, I would do anything to shut that dilbit behemoth down!!

Our system is the problem, we are more like Afghanistan where Hamid Karzai is their leader but only represents a small portion of country. In fact George Gallaway refers to him as the mayor of Kabul. By that comparison Harper is the mayor of Edmonton (no offence to the real mayor of Edmonton). We are viewed by other countries as being like Harper when in fact we are far more progressive liberals. Only 18 percent of elligible voters voted for Conservatives, while the rest of us divided our votes among the remainder of the parties. So we end up with with a party in power without a true majority, where ethics and the environment are not their concern and in fact are disdainful to them and they will do as much as they can to destroy our land for profit, greed and corruption. We need a country that is represented by a true majority, not first past the post that results in a minority with all the power and an embarrassment to the majority.

Actually , the comparison to the NEP is very good, in that the citizens of Alberta will probably understand the issue if its couched in those terms. Alberta's problem with it was that it was done at arms length, without their agreement or consent. That is exactly what this pipeline project is doing to BC residents. No consultation, no agreement, no consent. If Harper is still mad at Trudeau, that does not justify him ruining BC as a retaliation.

Actually the comparison to the NEP has some validity, in that it is something Albertans can understand. They are still angry at Trudeau for forcing the NEP on the province without agreement. This is exactly what Harper is doing to BC on the Enbridge pipeline. He is trying to force something on us that was never discussed, not negotiated, and certainly not agreed to by the citizens of BC. Albertans need to understand that we will not sit idly by and watch this travesty come to fruition.

The major difference here is that the opposition to this move will be objected to by more than a single province. With the NEP the majority of the country stood to gain by running roughshod over Alberta. In this case only Alberta is looking at major gains from this project, and we in BC will not allow them to run roughshod over us.

Harper's harpooning of Canadian environmental and social values is scandalous.
Apparently we as citizens of this fair land can no longer debate the declarations of Harper supremo and his corporate conspirators! The sane and sensible are now immediately branded as radicals. Three more years and boot this malevolent dictatorship into oblivion.

Oil Industry insiders have long thought the whole Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline Project has been a red herring to get the Americans to accept the Keystone XL Pipeline. However Harper's constant upping the rhetoric and hyperbole on the issue of Gateway tends to negate this notion somewhat. It may be that, to oil industry insiders, proposing and promoting the Gateway Pipeline made sense as a scare tactic to force Obama to back off on his rejection of Keystone; however, unbeknownst to them, the Harpes is actually deadly serious about pushing this thing through. It would certainly be a big mistake for him if he did: As someone who lives and works in Kitimat, he is going to be in for a rather rude awakening when teachers start manning the barricades. It's one thing to start throwing ordinary protestors in jail, but teachers and other professionals? That ain't exactly going to go down well with the public, no matter how they spin it in the supine and subservient media.

The people of British Columbia should know that Canadians across the country and around the world are watching these developments with shock and horror. I personally stand with your people on this issue and I stand in defiance of a federal government that refuses to acknowledge the wishes of Canadians. Tom Mulcair got it right - we cannot put the cost of the black smudge on the backs of our ancestors. Not only do we not have the right to do so - our ancestors would never be able to afford that cost because the damage will be immeasurable.

Harper has his long sought majority - and now he's doing exactly what he thinks a PM with a majority is entitled to do... well he's dead wrong! As a minority, he could be perceived as a 'well intentioned party blocked by an unreasonable opposition'. Now, his true colours are coming out. He's a bully who takes full advantage of a dominant position without any regard for his opponents. Good! He'll go down in flames, just like he should.

Harpers snap of his finger is the use of Clause 10 of Section 92 of the Constitution.