by Bruce Mason
What history will refer to as “Kinder Morgan,” it will also record and judge as one of the most significant stories during Canada’s 150 years. The highly volatile issue will help define us and our role in the contemporary world, specifically highlighting if we are part of the problem or the solution.
But to fully understand it, one must experience Bob Bossin’s explosively effective 10-minute viral video, curiously entitled, Only one bear in a hundred bites, but they don’t come in order. (www.youtube.com)
The 100,000 or so folks and groups who have experienced it and shared it on Facebook – 12,000 on YouTube – keenly advised others to do the same, including the Green Party, Council of Canadians, former BC cabinet minister Rafe Mair, the Dogwood Initiative and myriad like-minded others.
Bob’s compilation of seemingly endless, terrifying tank farm explosions and accompanying text gives voice to the widespread fear and horror on the west coast about the explosion possibilities. Green leader Elizabeth May has characterized it as “totally stupid.” It being the construction of a 1,150-kilometre pipeline from Edmonton to BC’s Lower Mainland (western Canada’s most densely populated area) to carry toxic diluted bitumen (300,000 to 890,000 barrels per day) through more than 100 First Nations mostly pristine territories. It will increase the traffic of massive tankers, seven-fold, smack dab in the Port of Vancouver (second busiest in the nation) and into the international treasure of the Salish Sea, for the sake of generating 50 permanent jobs, despite plummeting oil prices, and the fact that a spill can’t be cleaned. All of which seriously jeopardizes the global initiative to reduce the carbon emissions that are killing life on the planet (See commonground.ca/christy-justin-kinder-morgan-take-hike/)
May played a role in Only one bear in a hundred bites, but they don’t come in order. Bossin was asked to write a song for an Earth Day celebration in April. Instead, the “Old Folksinger,”created the video. It received a standing ovation from an audience, including May, who wanted to see it again and again. And so it was posted.
Bossin strives to show Canadians who support the foolhardy and reckless pipe dream why people in BC vow to fight to the death to stop it. But there’s not much reaction from Alberta to Ottawa where selfie-PM Justin Trudeau defies science by petulantly insisting that “Kinder Morgan” is “safe”, rejecting common sense and economics by claiming it’s in “Canada’s best interests.”
The late great dean of folksingers, Pete Seeger, once observed, “Not many people can write songs that are funny, informative and inspiring at the same time. Bossin does.” Pity Pete never lived to see the video. He was a big fan of Bossin’s Show Us the Length and he performed the hilarious, pro-feminist composition. He was also well aware of Bob’s anthemic Sulphur Passage, which helped save the Clayoquot wilderness and brought down the BC NDP government of Mike Harcourt. Bossin, co-founder of the legendary Stringband, pioneered crowd-funding and independent artist-controlled recordings with Canadian themes.
It’s entirely appropriate and just that he be part of the Vancouver Folk Music Festival’s 40th anniversary (July 13-16). He’s played there dozens of times in his 50 years of writing and performing. Folks who attend “The greatest show on Earth” (Rolling Stone) will enjoy some 60+ musical acts from 20 countries on seven beachfront stages. And we all have that video to share.
EVENT
See Bob Bossin at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, July 13-16.