Dear editor,
Last week I wrote a article on the bad decisions the NDP government was making by purchasing rail tankers for shipping oil. I wrote this after hearing Rachel Notley say she was purchasing 1,000 rail oil tankers. My hearing may be failing me as after sending my piece to the paper I realized that she was saying they would be purchasing 7,000 oil tankers and enough engines to pull them. This only makes this idea seven times worse than I thought in the first place.
The average train of oil cars is 100 to 110 rail cars and pulled by a least three engines. That means that to pull these 7,000 oil tank cars it would take at the very least 200 to 210 engines. I have tried to find out what it costs to purchase these items but can’t even find out where they are built for sure. The only thing I did find out was that it takes a year to get one engine built. The cost of one tanker is $150,000 or more and I could not find a figure for the cost of a engine.
The federal government has put in place a ban on about 21,000 of the existing rail tankers after the crash in Quebec, so these cars will have to be replaced or upgraded to meet the new standards.
The money spent on this stupid idea would build the part of the Trans Mountain Pipeline that is in Alberta and why not start building that part now.
Today I see that the Government of Alberta has sent a letter to Trudeau asking for help to get the pipeline built. This is just a waste of time. The only thing that will get action would be to stop all Transfer payments and carbon taxes. If the Notley government wants to get the pipeline going why not stop shipping any refined products to the west coast and ship only bitumen? This would give MR. Horgan a taste of his own medicine.
Everything that has happened to stop the pipelines could have been straightened out by the Trudeau government and the pipeline would have been operating by now if he wanted. He is just finishing what his father started.
The only way Alberta can get the rest of Canada to realize that we mean business is stop all transfer payments and carbon taxes now. Actions speak louder than words.
James Cook, Westerose