Wow, that takes some really big body parts of an indelicate nature to be Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, a former federal Liberal cabinet minister.
Huge. About the size of the ball valves used to open up the city鈥檚 raw sewage to flow into the St. Lawrence River last fall.
The mayor of a city which not only deliberately spilled billions of litres of raw sewage into a major river system (that I鈥檓 pretty sure other communities derive their fresh water from), but does so on a regular basis, is now lecturing the oilpatch on the safety of it pipelines. Those would be the pipelines that have fed oil and gas throughout the country for over 60 years in the safest manner possible.
On Jan. 26, he wrote in the Montreal Gazette, 鈥淔or three years now, the oil pipelines issue has mobilized the elected representatives and citizens of Greater Montreal. As president of the Montreal Metropolitan Community, I made known on several occasions our position of 鈥榸ero tolerance鈥� toward the environmental risks of transporting petroleum products by pipeline.
鈥淚 have repeatedly said that when it comes to transporting oil, we need a perfect score, and we cannot make mistakes.鈥�
I guess that doesn鈥檛 count for sewage.
So, he says, 鈥淲e are not against oil pipelines; we gave our agreement to the project inverting Enbridge鈥檚 Line 9B. But today,听we are saying 鈥榥o鈥� to Energy East.鈥�
He鈥檚 so concerned about their drinking water supply, he then said, 鈥淩ecall that the region of Montreal is a highly urbanized archipelago, comprising 4 million inhabitants. The environmental risks, in particular for the drinking water supply, are much larger than elsewhere.鈥�
Nothing like forcing others downstream to drink your own crap to show your concern for the drinking water supply.
He鈥檚 concerned about pipelines, but doesn鈥檛 say much about tankers full of foreign oil coming up the river to deliver conflict oil to area refineries.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall responded on Facebook to Coderre鈥檚 earlier comments on Jan. 21, saying, 鈥淭his is a sad day for our country when leaders from a province that benefits from being part of Canada can be this parochial about a project that would benefit all of Canada, including these Quebec municipalities.
鈥淧ipelines are a safe and environmentally-friendly way to transport oil 鈥� certainly safer and more environmentally-friendly than rail.
鈥淭he constituents of Quebec municipalities will benefit to the tune of $10 billion in equalization payments this year. For the better part of the last decade the western Canadian energy sector and western Canadian taxpayers have supported a great portion of these transfer payments as well as the Canadian economy.
鈥淚s it too much to expect that these Quebec municipal leaders would respond to this reality with generous support for a pipeline that supports the very sector that has supported them?鈥�
Flaming train wrecks, foreign oil, and equalization payments cashed on the West鈥檚 accounts are all fine for Coderre and his group of mayors, but not our oil.
We might have prevailing westerly winds in Saskatchewan, but Mayor Denis Coderre is so full of it, we can smell it from here. Or maybe that was just the smell of the St. Lawrence, after he鈥檚 done with it.
听
Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected].
