An average of 58 percent of Canadians think it’s a crisis that a country some 5,000 km wide can’t seem to build pipelines. A study from Angus Reid Institute asked the question. Reid surveyed 4,024 Canadian adults between Dec. 21 and Jan. 3, to gauge national feeling. But responses varied widely though across the provinces, with a high of 87 per cent of Albertans polled calling it a crisis while, at the low end, only 40 per cent of Quebecers had a similar sentiment. Results from the rest of the country were more evenly divided, with 61 per cent calling the issue a crisis in Ontario, Manitoba and the Atlantic provinces, while Saskatchewan polled at 74 per cent, and B.C. was close to deadlocked with a slight edge toward “crisis” with 53 per cent. The simmering issues of indigenous “ownership” of land and the import of oil from Saudi Arabia to fill the need in the Maritimes are pipeline related. Many call it a scandal.
