By Jeddore John
What a guy! You gotta hand it to him. He really knows how to get things done. When we all thought he was just an over-reaching rich guy intent on gathering all power to himself, he was actually putting an amazing plan in action.
His plan goes like this:
First, he gets the worst of the worst in the pulp and paper world to come back to the province so he can lure them into wanting a pulp mill in Liverpool. Maybe he even gives them a couple of hundred million to grease the skids. He knows that the proposed mill will have twice the production capacity of the screw-up mill in Pictou and therefore will require cutting twice as much forest to keep it running over its 50-year lifespan.
Next, he heads off the drive to green the provincial power grid by coming up with a supposed “green” hydrogen scheme. He redirects the windmills in the province to send the electricity they produce to convert fresh water into hydrogen. The hydrogen created is then turned into ammonia to sell to the Germans, who apparently don't want it. And the tanker to ship the stuff to Germany will burn somewhere between 50,000 and 84,000 gallons of diesel fuel per day for 15 to 24 days, depending on weather. Suddenly your green hydrogen is an oily brown colour.
In his spare time, he gets a few giggles reading over the Lahey Report on ecologically sound forestry, which he enjoyed ignoring, and the Coastal Protection Act, which he torpedoed.
Step 4 is to ramp up efforts to bring mining and fracking back to the province. Even better if these activities are practiced on private land, and with no regard to the landowner’s rights, lasting environmental effects, or aboriginal treaty rights.
And there you have it—at least half the population will look around at a bare rocky treeless province with the open sores and tailings dumps from open pit mining, crumbling shorelines being inundated by rising sea levels, radioactive waste dumps, polluted streams and rivers, and flickering lights from a dowdy electrical system. And they will say “Frack this” and move somewhere where the government is more responsible to and caring for their constituents.
All of a sudden, there will be lots of housing for all those left here. And if all the doctors and nurses don't split, the healthcare system will be easily able to handle the reduced load. Jobs will outnumber workers, and retired uranium miners will make excellent school crossing guards. They won't even need those orange flashlight thingies.
I tell you, the man is a genius. I will be one of the first out of here.
