Re: “B.C. premier defends his fight to retain, restrict energy imports,” May 24.
While I am sure it will not change the minds of pipeline supporters or opponents, I feel readers would benefit from understanding how risk-management professionals assess risk.
One can find numerous risk-management assessment tools or matrixes on the internet. In the end, they all point to the same conclusion: If the risk is likely or if the consequences are disastrous, the risk manager must mitigate the risk.
Thus, the government spends billions of dollars upgrading schools, hospitals and emergency-services structures even though such existing structures have never been significantly damaged in the last century and a half. Upgrading and or replacing these buildings at enormous cost is deemed reasonable and prudent.
Yet when we apply the same assessment rationale to the possibility of a supertanker foundering in our waters, spilling an unknown quantity of a 150-million litre cargo, many consider that government reacting to this possibility to be contrary to the national and public interest.
Our government is only being consistent in its approach to risk management, as we expect our governments to do.
Mark Brown
Saanich
