WE TOO ARE COMPLICIT

Steve Kannon of the Woolwich Observer wrote an excellent Editorial three weeks ago (June 22/12) titled "Each of us is complicit every time an oil spill sullies the environment". The reason of course why all of us are complicit is "Our oil-addicted way of life...". What I find most significant about Steve's Editorial are the statistics around oil spills in Canada as well as the ability of the industry to keep bad press as well as knowledge of them to a minimum."In Alberta alone there have been thousands of ruptures since 2005, spilling the equivalent of some 28 million litres of oil. In 2010, for instance, the province's pipelines had some kind of failure every 1.4 days, releasing about 3.4 million lires of oil.". York University history professor Sean Kheral records this on his Blog "The problem of pipeline ruptures is endemic to the industry. Now with over 399,000 kilometres of pipelines under the authority of the province's Energy Resources Conservation Board, industry specialists and regulators not only know that this system has never been free from oil spills, but that a spill-free system is an impossible goal.". Professor Kheraj also states that industry and government intentionally use terminology to minimize the extent of the problem. Again quoting Steve Kannon "Such tactics reek of people with something to hide. Clearly, the oil industry is in a negative light. That goes double for the tar sands. Perhaps they fear an informed public would be even more hostile to oil.". Again for me this indicates that our governments are clearly in bed with industry and are not acting in the best interests of an informed population who could demand greater safeguards and environmental and health protection.