Dear Editor:
These pipeline companies, Kinder Morgan and Enbridge, are certainly determined to expand their way to the Pacific Coast.
These pipeline companies feel they have the right to blast their way through all properties regardless of zone bylaws and other community regulations and laws that protect such lands.
I have not heard of any country or company demanding Alberta's tar sand crude oil. Even the Burnaby Chevron oil refinery is operating nowhere near capacity. I don't hear of oil shipping companies requesting more facilities. It is only the pipeline owners.
I am advised that the pipeline companies charge nearly $10 a barrel and the railway companies charge around $30 a barrel.
Then there are the brokers who make deals with the ship to guarantee a berth to load.
The ships no longer belong to oil companies like Exxon or Standard Oil of California. The ships are usually registered to some numbered shell company registered in the Marshall Islands, Panama, Liberia, etc.
So if a ship has some mishap and causes pollution and other damages, who can we sue?
Try to find the owner or owners among 20,000 other ships just in the Marshall Islands.
We haven't even started to examine or understand the subsidies, taxes and other fees costing us, such as demurrage.
I urge the readers to read the book When Corporations Rule the World, by David Korten.
Tony Fabian, Burnaby
