Police say a threatening letter was circulated the day before a northern B.C. gas pipeline was bombed recently, suggesting opposition to the project may be behind the explosion.
‘‘We will no longer negotiate with terrorists which you are as you keep endangering our families with crazy expansion of deadly gas wells in our home lands,’’ said the anonymous letter, parts of which were published by the Dawson Creek Daily News.
Many critics of sour gas development fear the gas – which contains hydrogen sulphide and can be fatal if inhaled – poses a danger to people nearby. And observers say residents often grow frustrated if they feel the regulatory systems in place aren’t looking out for their interests.
‘‘The general perception in Alberta and B.C. is that they’re poorly regulated,’’ says Andrew Nikiforuk, a Calgary-based author who wrote a book about Ludwig (the farmer who's been charged with vandalizing oil and gas wells in Alberta - http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/1999/04/19/ludwig990419.html )
‘‘It (vandalism and violence) is generally an indication that people in charge of regulating sour gas activity have failed.’’
http://www.dailyheraldtribune.com:80/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1250525
The recent election of the Federal NDP's Linda Duncan, running on an evironmental platform
http://www.electlindaduncan.ca/enevents.html
and the increase in the popular vote for the Green Party in Alberta
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=97d67385-2254-4404-8244-0eb36f9391fb
is indicative of an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the way both the federal government and the provincial government are concerned more with immediate profits, than either of them are with any form of sustainability. In fact, it may be said that Canada has been turned into a single-engine economy (as one-industry town, as it were), subject to all the vagaries that plague towns in this predicament.
This in turn spills over into the gas fields around Prince George, where the provincial government in this province depends heavily on the revenues of BC's northeast for it's so-called "successful" management of the provincial economy.
Stumble It!