The World Today Editorial

How the heck can the NDP expect to win the next election if they don’t have the guts to actually take a position?  How can the NDP expect to continue its high standing in the polls if its leaders bob and weave, dodge and duck, trying not to upset anyone - and then have the gall to say they are a party of principle?  They can’t of course, and the David Black refinery proposal has exposed them as being just a bunch of hypocrites.   Left wing hypocrites mind you, instead of those right wing Liberal hypocrites or those really right wing Conservative hypocrites, but hypocrites nonetheless.

As you know, on Friday Black the newspaper guy put forth a proposal to build a 13-billion dollar oil refinery in Kitimat.   His idea is to take the Alberta bitumen shipped in the Enbridge pipeline and turn it into gasoline and jet fuel and diesel fuel, and ship that by tanker to Asia.

The NDP is dumping all over the idea.  John Horgan, the provincial NDP energy critic, was on with Michael Smyth on the Simi Sara Show on CKNW on Friday and it was funny listening to him working hard to crap all over the idea.  No oil companies involved.  No Enbridge involved.  No native bands involved therefore no support therefore it’s a bad idea.      North Coast NDP MLA Gary Coons mocked Black’s proposal, calling it “a pie-in-the sky announcement.”  Skeena-Bulkley Valley NDP Member of Parliament Nathan Cullen heaped more scorn, calling it “ridiculous.”

But the minute Smitty started asking Horgan some real questions about the NDP position, all we heard was bafflegab and bull.   “So, if there is a business case for a refinery somewhere else in British Columbia, you would support a pipeline?”  No answer from Horgan, just b-s.  “Since you may very well be the Provincial Government next May, what will you support?”  No answer from Horgan, just b-s.    Smitty said it best Friday – “it’s like trying to nail jello to the wall.”  Just like his boss, Adrian Dix on the teachers strike.   “If you become Premier, will you give the teachers a pay raise and if so, how much?”  No answer from Dix, just b-s.

I think Horgan and Coons and Cullen and Dix have a big, big problem.  Federal NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has said publically that the Alberta bitumen should be processed in Canada.   We should get the benefits, the high-paying union jobs and the money to all those companies who build stuff to make refineries should stay in Canada.  It’s our oil, so we should get the benefit.    But David Black proposes to do just that, and all we hear from Mulcair’s minions is no, no, no.

I think our friends on the left forget a simple reality of business.   It’s not up to Government to line up the investors and the customers – that’s David Black’s job.   If he has investors willing to put up 13-billion dollars to build a refinery then obviously his investors think there are customers.    That’s how business works.  If Black’s idea is a crazy at the lefties are all saying, then there isn’t an investor on this continent or any other continent who will put up billions.

Is the NDP in favor of developing the Alberta oil sands here in Canada with good union jobs at state-of-the-art refineries?  Or, is the NDP really, really just not in favor of ever developing the oil sands?   What we are seeing with David Black’s proposal is the real NDP – no oil development, no pipelines, and certainly no refineries.   We know that’s what the environmental groups want.  Gregor Robertson’s green city is what they want with electric cars no one is buying and bike lanes no one is using.

Nathan Cullen has said the same thing Thomas Mulcair has said – refine the oil in Canada.  But he scoffs at a refinery to do just that in his Kitimat.   Do you honestly think NDP loving Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan will ever support another refinery in his city?   Or is the NDP really saying we should build another refinery in Edmonton where hell will freeze over before they ever elect a NDP Member of Parliament?

Does the David Black refinery proposal expose the NDP as hypocrites?  Federal NDP leader Thomas Mulcair says refine the Alberta bitumen in Canada….but as soon as someone proposes a refinery in Canada, the NDP says no, no, no.  And you think these guys should run British Columbia?