Conservatives and Other Radicals are Ruining my Country

As the debate over the proposed Northern Gateway  pipeline heats up, Stephen Harper and members of his Conservative government are claiming that ‘radical groups’, such as environmentalists, are trying to extend the public consultation. We must see this aggressive rhetoric for what it is - nothing more than an unashamed attempt to fire up the conservative core against ‘evil’ environmentalists.

In an open letter earlier today Canada’s natural resources minister Joe Oliver referred to environmental groups as ‘radical groups’, when referring to the public consultation phase of the Enbridge pipeline approval process. Seriously, all environmental groups are radicals? What is this guy on? Going even further, Harper himself claimed that foreign money was behind the plot to hold up construction of a new pipeline. When did he become so concerned over foreign interests in oil, considering most of the money from the tar sands flows right out of the country? Then I started thinking about it. It makes complete sense for a Harperite to refer to environmental groups as radical.

One might assume, from the rhetoric coming from the Harper camp, that these ‘radicals’ are threatening to disrupt a potential pipeline, or those who are building it. At the very least, one must assume that they are protesters disrupting the consultation process. No, not at all. The ‘radicals’ are those who have signed up to speak at the public consultation on the project. That’s it. Although there may be a few who want to push a specific agenda unrelated to this specific pipeline, the vast majority are local people with local concerns. Concerns such as the devastation that would be caused by a pipeline leak or oil tanker spill in one of the most pristine natural environments left in the world.

Is it really radical to be concerned with issues like climate change (especially after the train wreck that was the DuranClimate Change deal)? Is it really radical to be concerned about oil spills in your own backyard, oil spills that can affect the quality of life’s essentials, such as cleanwater, as the speakers at the public consultation are? That is not radical. Radical is to think that changing the climate is okay, so long as we don’t have to change the way we live. Radical is thinking that corporate profits are more important than local interests. Radical is thinking that we need oil more than we need water. Humanity survived, even thrived, for tens of thousands of years without oil, but wouldn’t last a week without fresh water. 

The environmentalist groups aren’t the radicals. Stephen Harper and his group of cronies are the ones who believe it is okay to put profits before people, put oil before water and trade short-term gain (but not for you or I) for long-term pain.

But let’s not kid ourselves. This isn’t about the environment or the tar sands or even about jobs and the economy. It’s about getting re-elected and it’s about ideology. Harper knows that most of the people speaking out against the pipeline won’t support him anyway, so he will fight them and insult them to fire up his core supporters, the minority of the Canadian population who buy into Harper’s crooked Conservative ideology and really believe that this public consultation (remember, this is over a public consultation!) is some kind of battle between capitalism and socialism. That minority is able to give him the support and money (mostly the money) to get re-elected. So all Harper is really only concerned about is making sure environmentalists are seen as some kind of threat (even better when it is a foreign threat) to ‘our way of life’.

So I put the questions to you, who are the radicals: the environmental groups and concerned local citizens or the Conservatives?