Editor, The Times:
Oil slick Harper and his merry band of oil executives are off to China to lubricate a China/Canada oil deal, which reportedly contains a clause that our crude oil will not be refined in Canada. Are there no limits to this Conservative government’s anti-Canadian policies?
The words crude and refined are recurring themes in Conservative foreign and domestic policy, with a decided emphasis on crude. This government has quietly gutted the Canadian Foreign Investment Act to allow substantial Chinese investment in both the tar sands and the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project. These are direct Chinese government investments, which should have raised security issues under the original Foreign Investment Act. Harper pledges to raise human rights issues while in China but his recent track record indicates that he is more liable to raise Canadian domestic issues while abroad. All of his tough talk on Chinese human rights has taken place at home in Canada.
Let’s face it folks, this trip is about a crude deal on crude oil and refining Harper’s devious trade strategies, which are designed to benefit his big oil friends at the expense of the Canadian people and Canadian sovereignty. In the agricultural sector the Harper Conservatives have replaced a democratically elected Canadian Wheat Board with a toothless appendage governed by government appointees. This exposes our food supply to American chemical and food giants Monsanto and Cargill, both with questionable records on food safety.
A Harper majority has started us on a course that will ultimately cause us to lose control of our resources and our sovereignty.
It has gotten to the point already that by the end of this government’s term we will have no effective decision making by any level of government in this country.
Wes Morden
Blackpool, B.C.