The Editor,
The Parliament in Ottawa has become a circus for democracy with very little democracy happening there.
Omnibus "Budget" Bill C-38 guts environmental protection in order to facilitate pipeline construction and tanker traffic along the west coast of B.C. including the estuaries of major rivers like the Fraser that flows between Delta and Richmond.
This bill, if passed, can impact the pending environmental assessment "harmonized" decision on whether or not to allow jet fuel tankers carrying toxic and flammable jet fuel to come up the Fraser River to the Vancouver Airport Fuel Facility Corporation's (VAFFC) proposed marine terminal and 80 million-litre tank farm on the south arm of the hazardous Fraser River.
The tankers will unload hazardous jet fuel within 400 metres of condominiums and a large entertainment and sports complex.
This bill, if passed, will also make it more difficult to convince VAFFC to use a safer and more reliable alternative of providing a land based jet fuel pipeline to existing refineries in Burnaby or Cherry Point, WA.
This would minimize the worst case consequences that could happen, e.g., fire, explosion, smoke, oil or fuel spills, contamination of waterways and lands, fish, wildlife and biota kill, etc.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your perspective, many of the legislative changes buried in Bill C-38 were never mentioned in the budget, making it impossible for parliamentarians to do their job as watchdogs of the democratic process.
Thus, I'm extremely impressed with the extensive rationale and clear logic Elizabeth May provides in the House of Commons, asking the speaker to rule on a point of order that the omnibus Bill C-38 is "imperfect" and, thus, should be ruled out of order.
It will be interesting to see what the speaker does with this hot potato.
Jim Ronback Delta
