Letter to Mark Carney Regarding ‘Memorandum of Understanding’
David Ellis, Vancouver BC
Volume 40 Issue 10, 11, & 12 | Posted: January 21, 2026
The Right Honourable Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada
May I suggest that there is no “real” money in pipelines, thru BC, in the long term. The mountains are too many and too steep, the cost of pipeline construction, is just too high. And the oil spills will cost Canadian society, just too much.
The new Trans Mountain has not really made a dime, until it has paid off its 33 billion $ debt, and put another, 33 billion $ aside for ecological restoration, after the spills, and long term social and nutritional support for First Nations, and the BC economy, post-salmon, and post-herring, in the case of irretrievable loss of habitat.
There is no “spill contingency” for bitumen, which sinks long before you can collect much of it, especially in high movement, deep ocean waters. The Kalamazoo River cleanup took nearly two years and was the most expensive on-shore oil spill in U.S. history. But it will be impossible to “clean up” bitumen that sinks to the bottom of the Fraser River, or Burrard Inlet, or the deep channels on the way out to the open Pacific.
So the spills will in many cases cause irreversible economic/social/ecological damage to the BC economy and to First Nations health, due to the highly toxic nature of the substances in the pipe, particularly to the spawning gravels and habitat of the lower Fraser, where all young and old, Fraser salmon, pass. There will be billions of dollars lost to all, in court cases, as in Alaska. [I followed and often walked, the old Trans Mountain, from the Fraser valley to Jasper, on my travels in my Book Van, to sell to First Nations. And I documented many permanent pipeline problems, like cliffs!]
Huge tankers pass my home in Point Grey in Vancouver now, and even bigger ones are planned, after the 2nd Narrows dredging. The rocky reefs are many, on the way to open waters, many more than in the Alaskan tanker route.
The real, actual money for Canadians here in BC, is in the ecological industrial economy. First Nations fishing, sport fishing, commercial fishing, on rebuilt stocks. Most now, will take a lot of work, to rebuild. And the even larger, future eco-related tourist industries. Like herring spawning watching and salmon spawning watching [and bear, bird whale watching, etc.].
But there are only a few places where stocks are still strong enough to do this right now. “Nation Building” $ are needed now, for this “rewilding” task. Bird watching is an international industry with huge potential in BC but the herring spawns now are only in March, the January to May spawns have to be rebuilt. Many areas have little or no herring spawning.
This involves a lot of ecological rebuilding now. We can do this, in a remarkably short time. With major Federal $ help.
I look forward to your consideration of British Columbia re-wilding, as a better alternative to“Nation Building” project, than pipelines.
David Ellis, Vancouver BC