LETTER: CN strike underlines the importance of pipelines

There are three indisputable facts about the difference between pipelines and railways for delivering a product from one end of this wonderful country to another. They are:

• Pipelines don't go on strike;
• Pipeline spills are harmful to the environment but they don't have the potential to cause as much destruction, and as many deaths, as a railway derailment;
• Pipelines take truck traffic off our highways when the haul is a long one.

With that in mind it seems to me that pipelines should be the chosen method of transporting natural gas and oil to refineries rather than railways or trucks.

For years now we have been told that the citizens of Quebec “don't want a pipeline”. Presumably, that doesn't include the residents of Lac Megantic, where 43 people died as a result of a railway derailment.

Due to a looming shortage of natural gas as the CN rail strike continues, Quebec is apparently seeking more trucks to transport natural gas from the refineries in Sarnia, Ontario.

That, of course, means that the increased transport truck traffic is clogging our highways in Ontario. The most natural route is from Sarnia, south-east to the 401 at London, around the GTA, and then east to the Ontario/Quebec border.

These highways are dangerous and have their risks at the best of times.

We all understand that the goal is to reduce emissions from fossil fuels, but that will take decades.

Why not use the fossil fuel in the ground, support the Western and Canadian economy, build pipelines and get the product to market more safely, while at the same time transitioning away from fossil fuels and utilizing pipeline corridors for other forms of energy?

Perhaps we should all re-think our positions.