Add Rachel Notley to the list of people who want to beat up on Victoria over our sewage system. The Alberta premier, still earnestly defending her province’s primary industry, took umbrage at Victoria councillors’ endorsement of a class action lawsuit against oil and gas companies. Calgary’s city council also plans to write a letter to Victoria in support of the industry.
Notley trotted out the insult beloved of so many politicians and accused Victoria of “hypocrisy.”
“While Victoria is pumping over 100 million litres of raw sewage into the ocean every day, the hardworking people of our energy sector are reducing emissions, investing in clean technology and powering our great country. We will defend our workers every day, especially against grandstanding lawsuits.”
Setting aside the argument that the sewage is screened, so it’s not technically raw, the Alberta premier is way off base.
She should know that the region (which is much bigger than the City of Victoria) is spending $750 million to fix our poop problem.
Since a large slice of that money is coming from the federal government, some of Notley’s own dollars are probably in the pot somewhere.
In other words, we are doing something to reduce our environmental footprint, while Notley is trying to build pipelines to ship her fossil fuels around the world.
Is the lawsuit against oil companies a lame idea and a waste of taxpayer money? Yes. But dumping sewage into the debate every time someone wants to knock Victoria is getting tiresome.
It will be worth $750 million (or more) to be able to tell the rest of Canada to put a cork in it.
