ENERGY EAST AND OTHER OIL PIPELINE PROJECTS; TRANSCANADA PIPELINES INC.  AND THEIR DISMISSAL OF ENGINEER EVAN VOKES -  FOR DOING HIS JOB RIGHT.

 

May 26th, 2015

 

Thurs. June 4th 2015: minor updates/corrections and link to MS Excel file as noted below.

 

Hi everyone

 

I sent some info about the situation concerning Energy East etc. to laurette.jones@rcmp-grc.gc.ca whom I had met outside the Prime Minister's office in Ottawa, at the SAA Mayday demo on Fri. May 1st.,

along with Lynda Kitchikeesic.

 

I also sent the info to Lynda Kitchikeesic - who is a First Nations organiser concerned about the missing and murdered aboriginal women (over 1000 of them, to date), among other things.

She also spoke at the demonstration about some of the objections to large oil pipeline projects such as Energy East.

 

In my view it is quite clear that we have a real problem here with certain assumptions about pipeline safety in the RCMP's own "CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENT” and in

particular "Criminal Threats to the Canadian Petroleum Industry", dated January 24th 2014.

 

The said assumptions are being undermined by TransCanada Pipelines Inc.'s conduct in respect of quality of construction work (for instance, pipeline welds) and onsite inspections during

construction not being properly done, notably on Keystone Phase 1. The same company is also responsible for the Keystone XL and Energy East oil pipeline projects. They also dismissed

metallurgical engineer Evan Vokes without cause for doing the job that he was legally obliged to do, in which he had major responsibilities for pipeline safety. I have everything documented.

 

Energy East should not be allowed to proceed until this situation is resolved, even if there are satisfactory answers to all the other objections to the project raised by the various groups.

 

I also raised the question with Laurette Jones (RCMP) about how we might wake up the mainstream media to this. It seems to me that TransCanada Pipelines Inc. are hoping that this will escape

everybody's notice because of the total absence of reporting in the mainstream media, except for two reports by the CBC (who, as we all know, are having extremely serious problems).

 

TransCanada Pipelines Inc.'s whole approach to this has been un-professional, obfuscatory and based on corporate bullying of certain people - in the name of cost-cutting and protecting the

reputations of certain of their managers who have been playing stupid office politics all along,in the hope of covering themselves up. The Harper Government is also directly involved in the

obfuscation referred to, concerning pipeline safety.

 

I  have an MS Excel  file detailing about 70 reports concerning the Evan Vokes affair and Transcanada Pipelines Inc. . Click HERE

 

This also contains a few items about “whistleblowers” in general who report corporate wrongdoing in Canada, and the related problems of mis-informed or dis-informed social prejudices

which cause their lives and careers to be ruined for doing their jobs right.

 

In that respect, I have to say that Canada is a “bloody disgrace” that must clean up its act - and stop covering things up by means of office politics, feeding “unlimited” money to stupid bureaucrats

and poor-quality lawyers for the purpose, manipulating the mainstream media to arbitrarily suppress information about what is going on, and instigating (or threatening to instigate) SLAPP type

lawsuits alleging “libel” as part of this stupid scheme for covering up incompetence and corruption in business.

 

The Council of Canadians, among other groups, has applied to intervene in the currently-ongoing National Energy Board review of the Energy East project. The Council of Canadians has also hired Evan Vokes to assist them with

reviewing “...the engineering design and integrity of the project....”.  When I visited their Ottawa offices on Monday June 1st, they were still awaiting approval as intervenors in this National Energy Board review of Energy East, and were

unable to say when this might happen.

 

At this point, whether the National Energy Board listens and acts accordingly remains to be seen.

 

See my new website at www.exposethismuck.com/dispoints.htm

 

Also, please see:-

 

http://tinyurl.com/q2d8l2m

 

Notice how Jon Pitcher, TransCanada's community relations lead for Ontario, completely "glosses over" the issue of TransCanada's record of shoddy construction on Keystone Phase 1 and

Keystone XL and TransCanada's treatment of Evan Vokes. It's as if these un-resolved issues don't even exist. I have suggested to PEO/OSPE that PEO/OSPE might want to take an official position

on the Energy East project, and doing this by lending official support to the Council of Canadians who have hired Evan Vokes to assist the former in their INTERVENTION in the currently-ongoing

N.E.B. review of the project.

 

As far as I'm concerned, TransCanada Pipelines Inc.'s (TCPL) attitude in all this is that everybody but themselves is a MORON, so that TCPL think they are free to behave like MORONS based on

the assumption that the rest of us - including Ontario's professional engineers - are ALL MORONS who "...have no idea what is going on and don't know what (they) are talking about..." .

 

Also, please see:- https://www.canadianclubottawa.ca/event/francois-poirier/

 

I posted a comment in response to this shortly after that Canadian Club event on February 2nd, suggesting that Francois Poirier would be doing himself and everyone else a favour by asking

TCPL 's C.E.O., Russ Girling, what he has to say about Evan Vokes and the issues around bad workmanship and improperly managed onsite inspections during construction.

 

I saved that Canadian Club web page page as a .pdf file, for reference. Some idiot will doubtless attempt to make it appear that I'm lying. Business in Canada STINKS "TO HIGH HEAVEN",

as far as I'm concerned, for reasons which by now ARE PERFECTLY CLEAR AND BEYOND DISPUTE.

 

Thus far I see no sign of Francois Poirier or the Canadian Club doing anything about my suggestion. So did he or the Canadian Club say anything to Russ Girling or not?

 

WHAT IS GOING ON?

 

For obvious reasons, TCPL and everybody connected with them else are just asking for trouble - if these behaviours involving obfuscation, cover-ups and presuming everybody but themselves to be

morons, are allowed to continue.

 

The behaviours involved constitute two of the many forms of corruption in business, and two of the ways in which Canada encourages corrupt companies. They also constitute direct threats to the

safety of the public.

 

I spoke to Laurette Jones at the RCMP today about getting some mainstream media exposure for this. She suggested contacting the CBC and/or CTV - but admitted that even this can be difficult, for reasons that we all know.

But I think we still have to try; in terms of the media, I’ve been told that federal M.P.’s still rely exclusively on the mainstream media and pay no attention to social media or the “alternative” media.

 

Federal M.P.’s, as far as I know, still rely on the daily newspaper clipping service at the House of Commons, called “Quorum”, for their information. And if the information they get is controlled in the wrong way, for the wrong reasons, and by the wrong sort of people controlling all the mainstream news outlets, then we’ve got a problem. A BIG problem.

 

 

Robert T. Chisholm - Associate Member, OSPE.