And those aren't the only oppositions raised by scientists to the Northern Gateway Project so thank you for eventualy agreeing that an oil pipeline to the coast is a very dangerous and stupid idea.

Now back to your interest in seeing a natural gas pipeline built instead. I do appreciate that you've given up your arguments about how we need to transition towards natural gas as a rationale, I assume because shipping it off our North Coast via tanker traffic to China doesn't exactly aid that goal.

Now to answer the other questions you've been insisting of me...

I don't really have any hidden agenda Frank, I dont want to see tanker traffic allowed onto our North coast for the first time, that would be my agenda and it's certainly not hidden.

To answer your question about would I accept the NEB's ruling on the pipeline, I will if it rules the way I want it to. If it does not, I will blame government influence as very clearly, many in the scientific community have already come out against the proposal.

It is a bad idea and so is a gas pipeline because it too will mean tanker traffic and I believe that any gas pipeline will inevitably be followed by an oil pipeline next. You do not carve an energy corridor out an untouched wilderness and then not utilize it for other energy exports eventually.



You know Frank, my issue with you is really about how you landed on this thread. My perception is that you pretended to want to have a conversation while in reality you wanted to advocate on behalf of a natural gas pipeline, because you have professional interests vested in the oil and gas industry.

Had you been upfront about your special interest instead of making me drag it out of you I might not have picked on you so much, or maybe I would have anyway because you do tend to skirt, skate and evade the same way the Harper government does when speaking to British Columbia about projects they want to ram down our throats.


It is unfortunate Frank, I honestly believe in many ways you are a smarter man than I but you make for a very easy target because of your willingness to sacrifice something irreplaceable and precious for the sake of a few bucks.

You actually see the monetary value in shipping our resources off to China at what I and most perceive to be the peril of an unspoiled marine paradise.

I know you dont believe there is a significant risk but if your wrong you cant undo the damage that will be caused. If I am wrong, hedge fund managers and oil companies will still find ways to make money elsewhere but our North coast will remain relatively unspoiled.

Perhaps if you had spent the time I have, exploring by canoe for up to a month at a time places that very few people have or ever will see. When you leave the inside passage and paddle west towards the open Pacific where no power boats or shipping of any kind exists, you'll quickly see that the archipelagos chiseled out of the coastline by waves, tides and winds are absolutely teaming with an astounding variety and volume of life.

The whales and dolphins and sea lions and eagles and bear and salmon and giant tidal pools of literal living colour dont really give a shit about the money Alberta and Harper want to make from resource exports to China, and on their behalf, neither do I. They are to me important enough not only to defend but to defend ruthlessly.


Now To answer your other question about how far I'd go to stop pipelines that are approved, well it depends on the product and from where on the coast but just in case, let me quote another canoe paddler... just watch me!