It is important to consider: is this where we want our economic growth to come from? At the price of devastating even more of the true beacon of our country’s value; our environment and its services, it would be wise to heed opposition to this project as a warning. Economists do not generally have long-term prosperity and sustainability in mind, often only short term economic benefit. Those who truly have Canada’s best interests at heart realize that we cannot sell-off our resources to the highest bidder at cost of leaving the landscape devastated. We should be aiming for century long economic viability through a continued ability to harvest natural resources.
We should also realize it would be wise to hold off on projects like the Northern Gateway Pipeline until smarter choices are proposed. There is not only one route to growth in this country and the alternative would be redistribute subsidies given for infrastructure on these projects to investments in new green technology, rather than de-funding science and environment projects like the current conservative government is doing.
Canada’s economy does depend on major exports like timber and crude oil, but this doesn’t mean we should blindly accept all proposed projects in these industries based simply on the economic benefits.
Kahlia Beaudette
