Editor, The Times:
Re: “Northwest refinery investor seeking exit from costly project,” June 24 issue of the Financial Post.
Well, on the surface the article about the cost overruns at the Sturgeon Refinery project near Edmonton looks like another overspent public-private project by the Alberta NDP government.
But wait a minute. The article quotes one Ted Morton, a former Alberta finance minister. Isn’t he one of those who, despite $100-and-over for a barrel of oil, managed to run Alberta $6 billion into the red?
Oh, the sources that a desperate rightwing media will come to. That view of free speech is well and alive – all for it as long as you tell me what I want to hear.
Even if it’s from that dreadful Ted Morton.
Let’s face it, refineries make much more sense than those other boondoggles – the twinning of the Transmountain pipeline and the Keystone XL pipeline (any project liked by Donald Trump and his gang has to be viewed with total suspicion!).
Energy East is a different proposition. It has certain advantages such as refined fuel for Canada. Boy, what a unique proposition that is!
There’s been a not-so-subtle campaign against refining anything here in Canada. With organizations like the MacDonald-Laurier Institute with its managing director Brian Lee Crowley blathering off about too strict environmental rules, too high wages etc. No, best to ship it all off raw to China or some other place.
Note here, the Chinese “make out like bandits” with this one. They get the bitumen (asphalt) for their highways and as fuel to power their navy – off to harass the Filipinos, Vietnamese and who else in the South China Sea.
Now contrast this super-sized complaint about the Sturgeon Refinery with the great whoop-to-do over the Alberta tar sands coming back to Canadian hands.
Yeah, as my waggish friend just put in, “Now that the tar sands are worth sweet nothing we get them back.”
And, wasn’t it during that time of former Alberta premier Ralph Klein and the likes of Ted Morton that the tar sands slipped out of Canadian control? How Canadian! There, I said it again!
Dennis Peacock
Clearwater, B.C.