By Mike Archer. The sum total of the published material by our federal MPs on the most controversial environmental issue in decades for residents of the Fraser Valley south of the river can be quantified in a limp and embarrassing piece of horse wind by Chilliwack MP Mark Strahl –
Marc Strahl Toes The Party Line … Again.
Strahl has been less than stellar in his representation of his constituents in a riding he inherited from his father, Mark Strahl. Though he has a passable reputation as a constituency man, his local office is known more for arguing with constituents who disagree with the party line than for forcefully representing local concerns in Ottawa.
Langley’s Mark Warawa and Abbotsford’s Ed Fast, both of whom have reputations as staunch party loyalists will nonetheless, from time to time, stand up for their own constituents in the face of a government which tends to take takes its conservative ridings for granted.
Neither of them have said a word about Kinder Morgan’s plans to rip up the floor of their ridings and pump more than twice as much oil through them.
The proposal, which their boss seems to support unreservedly, helping, as it does his own constituency of Alberta oil companies, will present a tremendous threat to the residents of the Fraser Valley and the farmers all three MPs rely on for votes and money.
And yet their silence on this threat is deafening.
Now no one has ever accused either Fast or Warawa of being environmentalists but the farmland which will be destroyed for centuries to come in the event of a pipeline rupture ought to give them pause in their blind adherence to instructions from the Prim Ministers Office (PMO).
Some of their biggest supporters are from the agricultural and food processing mega-industries of the Fraser Valley, all of which would be devastated by a pipeline rupture.
We understand that their boss represents the oil industry in Alberta but isn’t it their job to represent our interests? For those who voted Conservative and provided serious financial support to their re-election campaigns did so in order that they will look after our interests.
Staying silent on the plans to rip up the floor of the Fraser Valley and risk our farmland for the sake of Alberta/Texas oil tycoons is not a wise position for Conservative incumbents to take in the year leading up to an election.
We haven’t received much for our slavish support of the conservative cause in Ottawa. An oil spill in the middle of the Sumas Prairie would make even the most staunch right wing supporters of the Conservative Party wonder what we’re paying for if it isn’t some form of protection from American, Albertan and Ontarian interests.