What
a week. At the beginning, David Alward couldn't offer a single new word
on how he would deal with the protests on highway 126. By week's end,
he had it down: he was planning to begin a consultation with the
natives.
Between these two non-events other players, that
would have been better advised to stay out of the debate, weighed in
with such nonsense that they lost a big chunk of the people that were
trying to believe in them.
Today, the growing coalition of people opposed to shale gas exposed the
futility of the political output for the week. Natives and non-natives
decided this afternoon to stop the trucks, again!
Civil
disobedience has become rather mundane in the province of New Brunswick.
It is evident that quite a few are willing to defy whatever laws oppose
putting their bodies in the way of thumper trucks in the hope we can
prevent fracking from destroying our province as has happened elsewhere.
It was a routine affair at first. The protestors were well
behaved, the cops so polite one wannabe arrestee (female, non-native)
was gently ushered to the far side of the road to await freedom, while
the rest were hauled into the paddy wagon.
The party atmosphere
ended abruptly when the trucks began moving and three natives, two men
and one woman, threw themselves into the path of the thumpers. It seems
the police training wore off as they punched the woman, giving her a
bloody lip, and threw her and both men on the ground.
David
Alward should get out more. Visit David! People do not want shale gas
here, there or anywhere. The time for useful discussion (consultation)
about exploiting shale gas in New Brunswick was two years ago. Any
possibility for you starting a positive dialogue with the native people
of this province may have ended today, and I recommend offering gifts.
June 15, 2013
Pyrrhus
of Epirus was one of the greatest generals of the ancient world. As a Greek, he
won many victories against the Romans, but finally concluded that "If we
are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly
ruined".
So
must Premier Alward be thinking today, after yesterday again scoring a
signal victory over peaceful protestors, freeing the thumper trucks to
continue their vile work. RCMP: 20, Protestors: 0. But today, the
thumper trucks were pulled of the road for a 4 day cooling off period,
and who can guess when day 5 will arrive?
Trouble is, Alward's
shale gas policy has been a disastrous waste of money and integrity, the
strategy to evade any meaningful debate on the topic and insinuate
shale gas fracking on an unsuspecting population a dismal failure at all
points. But Alward, as failing tyrants do, has pushed a stupid strategy
way beyond limits of human endurance, and suddenly the entire world is
looking at this wholesale abrogation of democratic standards of decency.
Sorry David, you are just not as good at this game as your role model
Harper.
Your government has no policy, no plan whatsoever to
elevate New Brunswick from its dismal economic situation, the result of
years of official refusal to face reality and effect any sort of
positive change. No, the Irving lure is too much for our mediocre
politicians, pre-eminent only in the race for the bottom among Canada’s
most uninspired leaders.
Whither now David? You can perhaps
follow Sean Graham into slow oblivion, or do New Brunswick a favour ,
resign, and salvage what remains of your dignity.
