UPDATE 10/17/08 A gas pipeline in northern British Columbia was bombed for a second time in a week, the police said Thursday. Neither the explosion last Saturday nor the second bombing, which occurred late Wednesday or early Thursday, significantly damaged the pipeline, which carries sour gas, natural gas that contains toxic hydrogen sulfide.
An antiterrorism unit of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is investigating the bombings. EnCana, the energy company that owns the pipeline, said the second blast created a small leak and forced a shutdown of the pipeline. Last week, news organizations in the region received anonymous letters demanding that oil and gas projects in the area be shut down.
Original Post
Former CSIS strategist David Harris says a weekend explosion near the town of Dawson Creek in northeastern B.C. fits the description of terrorism, despite police statements to the contrary.
Sometime overnight Saturday, someone detonated a large explosion next to the sour gas pipeline about 50 kilometres from the B.C.-Alberta border.
The blast did not rupture the pipeline but blew a 1.8-metre crater in the ground, which was discovered by a hunter on Sunday.
“How on earth anyone could declare this was not terrorism at this early stage is beyond me. Terrorism is associated with an attempt by threat or actual violence … to change policy,” said Harris, former chief of strategic planning for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and now a private security expert.
The previous week, suspicious handwritten letters arrived at newspapers and a TV station in Dawson Creek calling EnCana Corp. and other energy companies “terrorists” for expanding “deadly” gas wells and giving the firms a deadline to shut down operations, including the gas plant served by the pipeline.
“You have until Oct. 11, 2008 (Saturday, 12 noon) to close down your operations … and leave the area until further notice,” the letters said.
“We will not negotiate with terrorists, which you are, as you keep on endangering our families with crazy expansion of deadly gas wells in our homelands,” the letters said.
RCMP spokesman Sgt. Tim Shields called the blast a serious criminal matter but stopped short of calling the explosion terrorism.
“It was set there … with the intent to blow up that pipeline. That’s a threat to the infrastructure of this province,” said Shields. “We’re not categorizing this as terrorism.”
“We just don’t want to start using the word terrorism at this point. It gives credence and maybe satisfaction to the people who are involved in setting this explosive off,” he said.
Living in Northern BC Canada.
When does this become an Issue for Homeland Security and the United states? When the agreement was signed with CANADA COM and the US NORTHCOM does that give the right for US to defy Canadian Sovereignty and enter our Country of Canada?