And this is coming from an uber conservative guy..
Kelly McParland: Notley makes an unlikely champion for pipelines. But she's sure trying
Rachel Notley may no longer be Alberta’s favourite politician or the toast of Canada’s left-wingers, but she delivered a message in Ottawa Tuesday that demonstrated the sort of intelligence and leadership that has been sadly lacking on one of the country’s most crucial issues.
In a speech to the Economic Club of Canada, Notley decried, in blunt terms, the short-sightedness, small-mindedness and self-interest that has come to infest pipeline politics, threatening an industry that backstops Canada’s economy and hundreds of thousands of jobs.
She left no ox un-gored, from her own supposed friends in the New Democratic Party, to the conspicuous lack of backbone on show from Liberal Ottawa, to the misguided belief on the right that confrontational tactics will somehow help get pipelines built.
And, in so many words, she informed anti-pipeline activists that they are not helping anyone by pig-heatedly seeking to destroy a vital industry out of misguided zealotry.
“We — the moderate, progressive majority in Canada — risk being out-shouted,” she said. “We risk being out-shouted by determined advocates, who think their agenda must be pursued regardless of the economic consequences for ordinary working families.”
The reality, she said, is that demand for oil will continue regardless of Canada, that as many as 500,000 jobs are supported by the energy industry across the country, that pipelines are far safer than railways, and that driving customers to dirtier and corrupt suppliers in Venezuela or Russia defies logic.
Noting that “there is not a school, hospital, or road anywhere in the country that does not owe something to a strong energy industry in Alberta,” she asserted that “you don’t support working people by attacking the hardworking women and men in our energy industry, and by attacking good, mortgage-paying energy jobs.”
Kelly McParland: Notley makes an unlikely champion for pipelines. But she’s sure trying | National Post
Kelly McParland: Notley makes an unlikely champion for pipelines. But she's sure trying
Rachel Notley may no longer be Alberta’s favourite politician or the toast of Canada’s left-wingers, but she delivered a message in Ottawa Tuesday that demonstrated the sort of intelligence and leadership that has been sadly lacking on one of the country’s most crucial issues.
In a speech to the Economic Club of Canada, Notley decried, in blunt terms, the short-sightedness, small-mindedness and self-interest that has come to infest pipeline politics, threatening an industry that backstops Canada’s economy and hundreds of thousands of jobs.
She left no ox un-gored, from her own supposed friends in the New Democratic Party, to the conspicuous lack of backbone on show from Liberal Ottawa, to the misguided belief on the right that confrontational tactics will somehow help get pipelines built.
And, in so many words, she informed anti-pipeline activists that they are not helping anyone by pig-heatedly seeking to destroy a vital industry out of misguided zealotry.
“We — the moderate, progressive majority in Canada — risk being out-shouted,” she said. “We risk being out-shouted by determined advocates, who think their agenda must be pursued regardless of the economic consequences for ordinary working families.”
The reality, she said, is that demand for oil will continue regardless of Canada, that as many as 500,000 jobs are supported by the energy industry across the country, that pipelines are far safer than railways, and that driving customers to dirtier and corrupt suppliers in Venezuela or Russia defies logic.
Noting that “there is not a school, hospital, or road anywhere in the country that does not owe something to a strong energy industry in Alberta,” she asserted that “you don’t support working people by attacking the hardworking women and men in our energy industry, and by attacking good, mortgage-paying energy jobs.”
Kelly McParland: Notley makes an unlikely champion for pipelines. But she’s sure trying | National Post
