At last - our coastline is safe!!

On Monday, the Canadian Government announced a eight step program that will produce a "world class tanker safety system.". Wonderful!! What great news!! Now we no longer have to worry about oil spills on the west coast.

Please forgive my sarcasm but it is hard not to express some sort of anger or outrage at a government who blithely announce that they have found the solutions to everyone's concern about shipping hundreds of thousands of gallons along the inner channel.  A cynic might suggest that some of the suggestions are designed to pacify the B.C. Government and that fairly shortly that government will get on side and become supportive of the plan. Such a cynic would perhaps also wonder what deal has been offered to that government.

Some of the steps are of course reasonable. For example it makes some sense that foreign tankers should be inspected; that there should be a system of escorts that would ensure that the tankers don't go off course and that there be improved navigational aids. However it begs the question as to why those steps are not now in place? Should we not have always had them? More of a concern is the question of how long will the funding last for these new initiatives.

This government has now a reasonably long ( and sad) record of not maintain environmental protections. They have in the past year negated or destroyed some of Canada's long stand environmental laws. They have even suggested that Canadians who want to be active in protecting the environment could be considered terrorists. So to say they will increase  environmental protections by increasing the amount of monitoring does not inspire me to get down on my knees and offer thanks. I would need to trust them first.

However, what I find truly offensive is the government's assumption that I, along with millions of my fellow Canadians, would be so gullible as to believe them. How could they even imagine that we would not see through this newest announcement? When have we ever been so dumb?

Oh yea...... we kind of elected them.