Here’s the best of my understanding:
TransCanada Pipeline, or whatever they’re calling themselves this week, got bought by Ottawa.
(Editor’s note: TransCanada Corp. is changing its name to TC Energy in the spring. It did not get bought by the federal government, and still owns the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline project. The federal government bought the TransMountain oil pipeline that runs through Burnaby, which was owned by Kinder Morgan.)
That’s the Crown. Technically, the project belongs to the Queen, but in reality it doesn’t. There is a shadowy relationship between the “Crown,” and the “Government of Canada,” managed more or less by the Privy Council. They’re appointed senior bureaucrats who work for the Prime Minister. So, Privy Council = PMO = the Liberal Party. They’re the guys who will stickhandle their piece of it — somehow, probably through management fees or kickbacks from advertising campaigns bestowed on Liberal friendly media outlets — into the party coffers.
Nice for northern B.C. though; the value of this project will get injected right into their economy. The Indians, well they get the fumes and poisoned wells.
So here’s my message for all you get rich quick characterss up there — and elsewhere — trying desperately to cash in on this multi-billion-dollar boondoggle: Take your infernal pipeline, the Privy Council, the PMO, and that ragtag collection of thoroughly discredited, sexist, racist, and fascist jackbooted knuckleheads known euphemistically as the RCMP, and shove them up your collective nether regions.
And for all you know-nothing rednecks in Smithers telling me to mind my own business, there’s this: The RCMP is my business. They’re a federal law enforcement agency, supported by tax dollars, which I pay. They work for me — and you — and everybody in Canada. They’re not your private army.
Kevin Barker
Burnaby, B.C.