Original site, which for some reason neglects to post the letter that prompted the reply. Funny, that.
To answer the question, yes, I’m shocked! Shocked that the Gov’t recognizes these wing-nuts aren’t in it for Canada, our economy, or the jobs that support the teat they are suckled to. Shocked that the Gov’t recognizes the disastrous policy of relying on the United States as the single consumer of our oil and for the vast majority of our product.
I respectfully ask that you go right on shocking me, Mr. Prime Minister.
From BCF with a h/t to @kshaidle.
The EnviroMentalists have taken over the comments to the letter. Like weasel sh*t they lie in the shadows and stink…
Maybe I need to re-think my career choices, go back to school and take a bunch of humanities courses.
I must be missing something; I cannot fathom the rabidly anti-industrial mindset of the left. How can we enjoy our wealthy lifestyle if we do not develop resources and make things?
It must be me. A thousand newspapers and socialist bloggers can’t be wrong.
I’m shocked at the candor of the letter.
Here’s a position that the federal government knows full well will anger a fair percentage of Canadians, and yet they are unabashedly up-front about it.
I’m far more accustomed to governments equivocating like mad in the face of controversy.
This letter in controversial?? The point of the Luddites is to extend the approval process to delay or stop industrial projects. Why wouldný any government write exactly the same letter.
Thank god we have Harper at this critical time in our history,\.
The environmental assessment process should be a highly TECHNICAL and SCIENTIFIC evaluation of the environmental impacts of the project.
Why are we allowing a bunch of illiterates with degrees in finger painting and basket weaving to testify before the panel?
It is just completely ridiculous. If you are not a scientist or an engineer you have no business in an environmental assessment.
This is great but I’ll celebrate when the government starts to actually make these changes.
What is also interesting is the courage, and I mean the word, of Harper and his government. He acknowledges that Canada and its population exist within an industrial economy – that means the it must invest its resources into industrial production.
This doesn’t mean decimating the environment – Harper’s govt has been at the forefront in establishing natural parks, and cleaning up the rivers and Great Lakes from previous pollution. But, it does mean focusing on the realities of an industrial economy.
This is in sharp contrast to Obama and his gang, who use the environmental emotionalism and ignorance to solicit blocs of votes from the urban and sophist intellectual left. So, Obama with his rejection of drilling for oil, both in the Gulf and in Alaska, his rejection of the Keystone Pipeline, his massive regulations that prevent new energy resources from being developed – is the opposite of Harper.
BUT – it’s important to consider that Obama is not protecting the environment; he is protecting his power; he is focusing only on buying votes from the environmentalists and anti-industrial academics.
Any question which side PM Harper is on is resolved by this letter, which was issued not by any minister, but by an ASSISTANT. Gives a hint that all discussions at the ministerial level are undertaken with the understanding that this government shall brook no foolishness in its goal to improve the livelihoods of Canadians. Harper is a leader, and that is why he is head and shoulders above the wannabes that permeate federal politics.
This story, along with the one below it regarding Royal Dutch Shell PLC suing the envirofascist organizations are simply excellent news. It is time to push these watermelon Luddites back under their slimy rock. They have been given a free ride for far, FAR too long.
We’ll see if he posts my comment. It was a beauty. 🙂
I would suggest – anyone here, who posts a comment on Richard Hughes’ site, to also post it on this sda thread.
(A check on those ‘university diversity of opinion’ types, heh.)
Commented at richardhughes.ca at 3:34 EST 04/03/2012
——————————-
Opposition to the pipe seems to stem mainly from;
1) the risk of oil spills
2) the “dirty oil” label, presumably the CO2 emissions.
Why is it that oil spills of even just a few liters are a calamity to some and every drop must be recovered while an oil spill the size of Belgium should be left where it is?
Our atmosphere needs the extra CO2. Plants grow better at our present day 400 ppm than the previous 300 ppm. And at concentrations of 1000 ppm and higer plants and the earth’s eco systems thrived – a la giant ferns and dinosaurs. At 200 ppm and lower plants stop growing – including hugged trees 🙂
Increases after 300 ppm or so, CO2’s contribution as a GHG gas diminishes rapidly and becomes negligible.
Canada’s own Greenpeace founder, Patrick Moore has toured the oil sands and stated the landscape is in better ecological condition after mankind has cleaned up some of Mother Nature’s massive oil ‘spill’.
So what is the problem?
“This story, along with the one below it regarding Royal Dutch Shell PLC suing the envirofascist organizations are simply excellent news. It is time to push these watermelon Luddites back under their slimy rock. They have been given a free ride for far, FAR too long.”
Not to mention the lawsuit launched by Racknine against Pat Martin and the NDP.
If he is (Harper) willing to travel this far, maybe he can travel a little further, and denounce CAGW and defund the Big Green Industry, that solely subsists on taxpayer dollars.
Is the letter legit?
Someone at BCF is skeptical. Has anyone else taken the time to write the PMO, and then received such a frank response?
I really hope it is legit.
The letter looks like it has been tampered with. Possibly a poor photo-shop job or cut, past, photocopy and scan.
There are problems within the letter with the terminology used and the subtle nuances/innuendos it contains. The Letterhead appears authentic as does the signature, but the body of the letter is a different shade from the heading and salutation. The shading ends in line with type font with the margins being the same shade as the letterhead and salutation areas.
The use of the certain terms and words being that they are ones you’d expect to be used for dramatic impact or shock value seem out of place considering the letter is said to be directly from the PM’s office: ” kill jobs for Canadian families” and “to die in the in the approval stage” for instance.
The letter also seems to be presenting a dual message. Admitting that the “system seems to have lost sight of its balance over the past years” and “environmental and other radical groups” which subtly communicates that all environmental groups are radical and hints at a disdain by the government for the environment. Stating radical environmental groups would have been truer not to mention more diplomatic which one expects in correspondence from a PM’s office.
It would help to have the name of who the letter was addressed to and the contents of the original letter to the PM’s office that initiated the response from the PM’s office to assist in verifying the authenticity of the correspondence.
It must have been some letter to receive a response, other than a form letter, from the PM’s office.
Below is the link to a larger example of the letter from BCF’s site.
http://richardhughes.ca/politics/this-letter-should-shock-all-canadians/
did you read the comments s he allowed on his website?
Much too funny . . . but then Vancouver Island is full of Eco Nuts & Fruits.
Paranoid as I am, I do wonder if the robo-calls weren’t planned by a US enviro group, with the intention of bringing them to the surface now, say, to delegitimise the Government.
The current lefties are strange. At least the Commies recognised the need for industry.
Thanks, lance!
And as folks have said: the comments are the real story 🙂
commented at the site (I wonder if it will survive moderation?):
I graduated from Hazelton secondary in the late 80′s. My hometown school now has about 1/4 the number of students and teachers it once did. Of about 70 students in the school, 3 have parents that work and pay taxes (in non-government jobs) according to a friend I have that still lives there (one without school age kids). That’s not sustainable. The pipeline itself isn’t the issue: it’s the attitude. Note the number of folks talking about the recreation possibilities in the area. They want to keep it as a park for themselves. Those of us who wanted to work for a living had to leave. There are still some jobs in the area, but look around at the average ages in communities outside of the reserves (which are essentially welfare ghettos, but that’s a topic for a different time). Last time I was there I thought I was visiting a colder version of Florida.
There’s already enough economic uncertainty in BC because of land claims. Not allowing the construction and long term maintenance and port jobs to come about also robs the province of the export duties. How long do you think the area can force itself to be a drain on the provincial economy before it will start to lose its infrastructure spending? Or do you think that a rich area that chooses to live like back-to-nature hippies will be allowed to be a parasite forever? It used to be that when there was an economic opportunity in BC a town would spring up to support and develop it. Now a protest camp springs up to keep anyone else from developing it.
I would like to go back to northern BC someday. Maybe when I’m ready to retire, when I won’t need things like a functioning economy anymore.
C-Miner: I would be surprised if your comment made it past moderation. I posted two, a few hours ago, that did not make it.
For contexts sake, the original letter that prompted the response, needs to posted. We are only hearing one side of a conversation.
Did an environmentalist write the letter? If so, was the person up front about their views. If not, how did the environmentalists get their hands on such a letter? Judging by the response, It appears the writer of the original letter communicated a strong preference for the pipeline’s construction.
Something just doesn’t smell right. Anyone with a computer can take a copy of a letter leaving the letterhead and salutation in tact and then block out the original contents and make up their own – very easy to do.
The response lacks sophistication. It seems as though it was purposefully written to be controversial. I highly doubt the PM’s office would respond in such a manner to a matter of such importance.
I doubt its authenticity.
Lucky, then the website is going to be in a pile of trouble, isn’t he?
Delicious.
Lori – in negotiation with the site owner. He wanted to have full names of posters, (presumably to keep people polite and/or honest). I tried to use a partial name (as 5 others had done). If he insists on full disclosure of some but not all, then I’ll reconsider what to post because I still have family working in the area.
If the letter is original and accurate, then kudos to the Prime Minister for being so forthright.
The letter would also be a warning shot across the Shirley Legup roadshow. She either cleans up the review or is soon to dissappear under a bus.
But if the letter is a fraud, then one wonders what is gained. Other than to put the government on the defensive and make dealing with the environmental review panel more difficult.
Hmm. At this point, my comment hasn’t made it through either.
My comments are waiting for moderator approval.. I suspect the will not make the cut.. lol
I tried to post on the left wing site and they didn’t accept it. What I wanted to say is that as someone from BC who has a duaghter living in Kitimat I know how important this is. It’s rediculous that foreign enviro-terrorists are hijacking our prosperity. Bravo Mr. Harper, push this through so as to bring prosperity to our country.
A few good comments have been posted there.
I’m still skeptical.
Hope someone keeps a screenshot…and checks with the PMO.
c-minor – thanks for letting me know that. I thought your response was very good, yet I can see why you may want to change it, having family in the area and work. I didn’t use my full name either, but the email address I used to comment has my full name in it.
Lance: Exactly, I wouldn’t put it past them – these groups have done much worse; besides,any way you look at it some form of deception/trickery was used either to obtain the letter, or in the writing of the letter to receive such a one sided response, a personal one at that, which is frank to the point of being incriminating and appears to indicate the writer came across to the PM as being in favour of the pipeline and not in favour of the Enbridge’s review Process. .
I’m doing some sleuthing to find out more, but it will have to wait until after I make me some supper.
It would be ironic if this turned out to be a “Gleick Tragedy” for the eco-ludites and sophist intellectual supporters of CAGW (watermelons).
Like the devout fella living by the flooding Mississippi sometimes it is diffcult to recognize a blessing…..(punchline—“He sent ya a truck, a boat….even a helicopter…..”)
Posted:
It is interesting that it is always the lefties that love to censor. I can understand deleting comments because of outrageous insults. With no indication of even deleting ie. poof gone, you reveal much about yourself and quite honestly your cause.
If you were in the right, would you have a need to censor your opponents? Would you have a need to lie? Would you really need to cheat?
Your case, your cause is not good enough to stand on its own merits. Proud? Really? Shame Sharon, shame on you. I know this one too will be deleted. This becomes a personal message to you.
I pointed out that if the oil did not come from Alberta it would to come in by tanker. I also pointed out that ethonal already comes in by tanker and unlike oil it is a poison and it kills everthing.
Funny they scrubbed my post. I guess I should have called them hosers.
Typical lefties. If you diaagree with their position they censor you.
They sit around drinking each others bathwater discussing how to pick up a “turd” by the clean end.
I should have added that I wrote a letter to PM Harper some time ago encouraging him to keep up the good fight and I received “the exact same reply letter” that they posted.So they are not very sepcial.
I suspect that most of them are teachers. Oddly enough,they complain about the profits big companies like Enbridge make yet their investments and pension funds would all have companies in it like/and including Enbridge. They are hypocrites of the worst kind.
The natives don’t want the work? Shocked! Shocked I say!
I love a busy economy where ambitious people from other parts of my country,who want better for their families come to seek their fortune.
I love it.
But I REALLY LOVE industry. Especially the OIL industry. Money just runs in the street!
All my competitors work there, and me,well I pick up what they don’t want.
This allows me to:
-play with real silver
-put a Harley in my garage
-Fusion Sport under my wifes buttocks
-Hemi 2500 4×4 under mine
-couple Mesa Boogies (look em up)in my basement
-Cruz , Patron,Lagavulin and Innes & Gunn in my bar
-prawns and chardonnay till I’m sick of em.
And after the East Anglia scandal sent Gore into hiding, and blew the fraud wide open, whenever I see a suzuki-ite/greenie, looking over his bifocals, sputtering into a microphone…I just laugh!
Four years or more of university just to be a starving clown. I just have to laugh.
The Postal Code has been removed from the letter.
Well, I’m glad I took a break before continuing on with sleuthing. I returned to the website after a good meal and lo and behold I was pleased to discover that Matthew Skala had posted this comment:
“The postal code indicates that it’s an even-numbered address in the 900 block of Lawndale Avenue. That narrows it down to about a dozen houses at most. If you want to withhold the recipient’s identity, it would be a good idea to conceal the postal code (and delete this comment if you’re doing so).”
They either forgot to delete his comment or left it up for some reason.
Richard or Sharon did indeed scrub the postal code off the letter – it’s no longer there, but I copied the image from BCF’s site that still had the postal code which is V8S 4C9. I took screen shots too.
I think I might have a lead on who the former Assistant Deputy Minister of Environment and former Fish and Wildlife Branch Director was who apparently wrote the original letter that received the alleged response Sharon Jackson or Richard Hughes posted on their website.
If other sites have posted the letter on their websites, like they asked them to, it will be impossible for them to backtrack and scrub the postal code from all the letters anyway.
The image here is a link to a d/loaded copy as well, Lucky Lori.
First of all,
The “profanity is discouraged” line is a transparent platitude. Is this a discussion blog or a leftie-bashing site? It seems to be the latter, and it says something very clear about the state of political discussion in our country.
That being said, maybe we can have a polite conversation. Those concerned with environmental degradation do not wish to see industry stagnated or the economy decline. That implies that economic growth inevitably destroys the environment, a position that leads to temporary wealth now, but in the end depletes the resources and ecologies we rely on to continue growing the economy.
As well, this angers people because Harper outright and unabashedly marginalizes a great many legitimately concerned citizens as “radicals.” In short, whoever opposes this plan is a radical. A truly sensible and sustainable way to “diversify energy markets” would be to invest in renewable energy. While I understand the logic of finding a trading partner beyond the US, locking ourselves into further reliance on oil reduces incentive to invest in more economically and environmentally efficient technologies which actually works against the stated goal of economic growth and job creation.
The point is that this is not how democracies should be run. He succumbs to pressure from foreign agencies such as enbridge and chinese oil companies while ignoring the pleas of his citizens.
I left this simple comment at the original site.
“The letter looks very sensible to me. I agree that you should distribute it as widely as possible. A letter full of common sense from any Government should be widely read and treasured.”
Just because the enviros do a lot of arm waving and spluttering, doesn’t mean that other people have to.
A letter to the PMO’s office has been sent; requesting confirmation of the legitimacy of the reply letter sent to the recipient by Salfie Stepanian.
If legitimate, we can defend and support the contents of the letter with complete confidence.
Hopefully, the letter is authentic as it shows our PM is taking a stand against radical environmentalists. The letter is absolutely correct in stating that the review process needs to be streamlined.
I don’t see how issue’s be resolved when there are foreign entities interfering;subsequently, effectively stalling a decision that must be made only by Canadians period.
Not having read the original letter one can make assumptions about what it said. I’m not so sure.
I wrote a letter to the PM, my MP and the relevant Minister suggesting Keystone was a GOOD idea but only if it brought crude to southern Alberta or Sask and we built the refinery (ies) and then shipped out gas. I questioned the all too typical situation where we sell OUR resources to the highest bidder, they process it and sell it back to us at 10 times or more the price of the original material? I questioned the NIP – the National Idiots Policy of send huge globs of our crude to TEXAS and then buying gas back from them at world gas prices. What do I know but it seems smarter to refine it here … no?
I got a nice letter back from the Minister’s assistant assuring me that Keystone would be built with all the ecological safties in place and they would produce the minimum in CO2 and they were proud to save many many white furry bears and blah blah blah … short form was PISS-OFF you stupid voter and quit writing to us and wasting our time.