westcanforum

I suspect that much of the money that will payout the Natives to support the pipeline comes from foreign sources as well.  There are many American and Chinese interests in the pipeline are there not?

I don't see a problem with the environmental lobby being capable of playing on an equal footing to the oil sands lobby and attempting to buy the pawns who can be bought.  As you know, it is guaranteed that the developers will do this.

My stated hope had nothing to do with these.  I hope that some of the interested parties will stand on principle and make a decision based on the merits of the project, independent of what they are offered as payout.  I don't know if it will happen or not, but I hope it does.

XJ, what you fail to see is the benefit of maintaining the area pipeline and tanker free.  There is no economic gain in this, but there is a gain.  Compare it to the international trade of antiquities.  There is huge money in private trade in that market, but very little in placing artifacts in a museum for public display.  But museums provide protection of and education on the artifacts.  They have a socio-cultural worth that exceeds their financial worth.  You would have a hard time arguing that private ownership is better, even though it generates more revenue growth in a "fossil" market.

Maintaining the area in its current state is similar.  Once you have built the pipeline, you can never go back to what it was before.  There is a powerful interest in preserving it in the state it is currently in.  The oil can be sold later, but you can never buy back wilderness or habitat that has been developed or worse, destroyed.  Thus, the area may have an environmental worth that exceeds its financial worth.  You reject the concept of environmental worth and reason only in financial worth, but environmental worth exists and we will see what value it has to our society in this context.

Canada is one of the few remaining vestiges of wilderness, relatively untouched by man.  Many Canadians have a spiritual relationship with that natural state which would be difficult to explain to those who don't have it.  It has a value to Canadians.  It should come as no shock that those who do not possess this resource in their own country would nevertheless like to see it preserved in others.