More Gateway

This morning I waited to leave home so I could listen to an interview on CBC radio's The Current.  The two men being interviewed were from the British Columbia communities of Smithers and Dawson, both in the vicinity or direct path of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline linking Alberta oilsands with the BC coast. The mayor of Dawson is taking a wait-and-see approach to the review process because his community is already an oil and gas town. The mayor of Smithers is opposed because much of the local economy is dependent on tourism and a portion of the pipeline will follow a river which is prime fishing. He pointed out that not a single BC municipality has endorsed the pipeline to date, while many stakeholders are strongly against it.Both men were intelligent, well-spoken and had good insights, albeit from different perspectives.

For the past year I have been reminding Oshawa Presbytery of the United Church that BC Conference has been very involved in the discussion about the pipeline. And at General Council 41 this past August the United Church took a public stand opposing the pipeline for a number of reasons including solidarity with First Nations in the area and environmental.

This is not an easy discussion because Canada is a resource-rich nation and simply opposing every development makes no sense. But we seem to be in a political moment where resource extraction for short-term gain trumps all other concerns. There just isn't any long-term strategy and that is scary.

 

Have any of you been following the Northern Gateway discussions? Should we keep our noses out of this as a church? We already have people grumbling that we are too social action oriented. What does this have to do with Jesus?