The Vancouver Sun is reporting that Gordon Wilson, a new advocate for liquefied natural gas, claims British Columbia has a “moral obligation” to develop the industry to save the lives of Chinese residents dying of air pollution.
I have two comments to make. First, he's right. We all opposed turning Surrey into an international hub for exporting coal to China for a reason. Transporting the coal locally is bad for people with breathing concerns and coal is not clean burning. China is having massive problems with its pollution from burning coal. As a result people are getting sick and dying. Natural gas is clean burning. They would be much better off burning natural gas than coal.
I lived in Ireland for two year back in 1988/89. At that time they all heated their homes with coal. In the South they had open fireplaces that burned coal while in the North they had enclosed fireplaces that burned coal which heated water that was pumped through the house to heat it. I remember writing my father while I was in Cork telling him how much I enjoyed it there and observed that even though it was a relatively small city, they had a great deal of smog from all the coal fires. He wrote back and said that's what it was like when your mother and I were first married living in West Vancouver. We heated our homes with coal and the pollution from it was pretty bad. Are you kidding me I thought?
One generation ago they heated their homes with coal in Vancouver? When I as a kid we lived in a wood framed house that had a natural gas furnace that pumped hot air through ducts. You turned up the thermostat and the small blue flame would get bigger and heat the house. It was simple and clean. As a result, the pollution from all the coal fires disappeared.
The second point I'd like to make is in reference to the article's reference to Gordon Wilson as the controversial former leader of the B.C. Liberal Party. Let's just get the facts straight. Gordon Wilson put the BC Liberals on the map. Before him they did not exist. It was primarily the Social Credit party and the NDP. There was a televised debate between the three parties and Gordon Wilson shone far brighter than the others. Rita Johnson and Mike Harcourt were arguing left and right back and forth on and on bickering like school children. Gordon Wilson then jumped in and said there you have it British Columbia, you now see why nothing gets accomplished in Victoria.
Rita Johnson went on to insult Mike Harcourt's manhood while Harcourt just stood there smiling holding a BC Health Care card in one hand and an American express card in the other saying which do you want people? Canadian Health Care or American. Obviously the people chose Canadian because the American health care sucks. Don't get me started on that.
The Tyee reported that "Overnight, the near-moribund BC Liberal party he led went from also-ran to contender, as the party won 17 seats in the 1991 provincial election, leapfrogging over Social Credit to become official Opposition. Wilson and the Liberals seemed poised to make a run for government in the next election, but the party soon became embroiled in a tawdry drama of domestic betrayal and political shenanigans."
Gordon Campbell exploited the opportunity to take over the party and send it right down the toilet from which it has never recovered. Gordon Wilson is referred to as controversial because he had an affair with a fellow MLA named Judy Tabchy. He loved her, he married her, end of story. I certainly don't support adultery. However, Gordon Wilson and the likes of Rich Coleman are the virtual antichrist in comparison. We got shafted when Gordon Wilson was cast out. Perhaps he is the golden child that can fix the BC Hydro fraud that they created when they shafted him.
Update: The fact that Gordon Wilson is getting paid $12,500 a month to advocate for natural gas is yet another example of how the Christy Clark / Gordon Campbell Liberals consistently screw things up and have absoulutely no fiscal responsibility whatsoever.
Business is good. Obscene wastefulness is bad. Now we hear that Judy Tabch wrote Christy Clark's new biography behind the smile. Now it all makes sense. Judy does a political favor for Christy and Judy's husband gets a sweetheart job paying $12,500 a month. Big surprise. I'll tell you what's behind that cheshire cat smile - Christie's fiscal irresponsibility and her fudge it budget which perpetuated Gordon Campbell's BC Hydro fraud. That's behind the smile. She said she was going to balance the buget by extracting a dividend from BC Hydro knowing full well that was a lie since they made that impossible by privatizing the power brokers that sell power to the public company at above market rates. They had to borrow money to pay the dividend they didn't have.
Natural gas is clean burning. Coal is not. No one has to get paid 12,500 tax dollars a month just to say that as a kickback for supporting a dirty politician. When will the BC Hydro fraud ever end?
