The Spy Watchdog and the Northern Gateway Pipeline

Well it seems that Stephen Harper is pulling out all the stops to try to crush all opposition to his Northern Gateway pipeline.

By not only getting the National Energy Board to rubber-stamp his insane project.

But also by getting Canada's top spy watchdog to lobby for the pipeline maniacs from Enbridge. 

Chuck Strahl, Chairman of the federal body which oversees Canada’s spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), has registered to lobby on behalf of Enbridge’s ‘Northern Gateway Pipelines Limited Partnership’.

Even though the move seems to contradict what CSIS officials have claimed in the past.

Strahl’s move to represent Enbridge confounds prior assertions which downplayed the circumstantial relationships between CSIS, its oversight committee and the private sector. Former CSIS Assistant Director Ray Boisvert said at one point to the Vancouver Observer that “there is no collaboration between intelligence organizations and private industry. That is against the law”.

And the very idea of Canada's spy watchdog acting as a lobbyist for anyone is absolutely outrageous.

Strahl’s registration for lobbying activities on behalf of Enbridge raise questions about conflicts-of-interest and ethics, lobbying legislation and also the collusion of private interests within Canada’s security apparatus. 

“What Stephen Harper has essentially done is to take the spy agencies of the federal government of Canada and put them at the service of private companies like Enbridge,” said Green Party Leader Elizabeth May in November.

Who do these thuggish Cons think they are? A petro state is bad enough. A police state is intolerable.

And the good news? Like all of Harper's other moves to build that pipeline, this one won't work either.

It will only make people in British Columbia and other places even more determined to resist the pipeline and the Con regime.

Chuck Strahl should be fired as Canada's spy watchdog.

And the pipeline STILL won't pass...



Please vote here to recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers.