An environmental group had gathered about a hundred supporters, armed them with Molotov cocktails, and taken them to a construction site for a natural gas pipeline. Several pieces of equipment were destroyed. Although nobody was injured, the crew abandoned the site. One of them was quoted as saying, “These guys are crazy. I’m not risking my life for a few bucks’ wages.”
A week after the company resumed work, the digger carving the trench for the pipeline triggered a bomb buried along the route, killing the operator. The news story carried a comment from a spokesperson for an environmental group. “We do not support this level of violence, but we understand the frustration and anger that would lead people to take such drastic action.”
In the meantime, Baxter’s efficiency rating stood at nine point two. Nobody had ever exceeded nine. He figured this would get him a measure of appreciation, but one morning when he tried to log on, he got the message, “Access denied.” He consulted the manual, but when he couldn’t find anything in it, he forced himself to enter Whatford’s office.
“Let me guess,” the man said. “You can’t log on.”
“You know the problem?”
“I locked you out of your account.”
“Why would you do that?”
“This.” Whatford tossed a sheet of paper on the desk.
It was his efficiency rating. He had miscalculated. It was nine point three. “I don’t understand. Isn’t this what you want?”
“Listen, hotshot, this is maintenance. You wanna behave like some prima donna, go join the morons in development. You trying to make us all look bad?”
“Mr. Whatford, I don’t understand. What did I do wrong?”
Whatford tossed another sheet of paper on the desk, a memo from Adam Forrester. “Bob, the increase in last month’s average efficiency rating has come to my attention. It seems the previous target was understated, so we have increased it from seven point two to seven point five. As before, any deficiencies in this target will result in fiscal penalties. You have seven days to dispute this decision.”
“Now I gotta go to the management committee and argue this bump in the rating was a one-off, and it won’t happen again. It won’t, will it?”
“No, it won’t.”
“And I’m gonna make sure of that. From now on, you’re restricted to seven hours a day of login time. Let’s see how you do with that.” Baxter turned to leave the office when Whatford said, “But I still expect you at your desk for the entire day. You can log on at ten. In the meantime, jerk off for all I care.”
“THIS IS THE evening news with Elaine Draper.”
“Good evening. We start with breaking news. A demonstration to protest the shutdown of rail corridors and pipelines has blocked downtown streets snarling the evening rush hour traffic. George Knudson is at the site. George, can you tell us what’s going on right now.”
“Elaine, this demonstration is unauthorized, but police have estimated there are over ten thousand people who seem to have gathered in response to a plea on social media. I spoke with one of the organizers of the demonstration. He agreed to speak under the condition that we don’t reveal his name or show his face.”
Cut to a man in a hoodie, his face blurred out. The interviewer asked, “What’s the purpose of this demonstration. What do you hope to accomplish?”
“We’re tired of the enviro-freaks and the natives who are stopping every development in this country. We can’t ship our products, mines are closing, and we figure forest companies will be next.”
“Forest companies? What do you mean?”
“One of the so-called First Nations has threatened to block truck and rail transport of lumber. They claim logging violates the spirit of the land. The damned spirit.”
“This is what you’re demonstrating against?”
“Yes. It’s time for politicians to stand up and show some backbone. We need to protect the railways, to patrol the highways, and to build the pipelines we need. Right now, nothing is moving. We can’t ship coal or oil, and you can bet lumber will be next. Activists are threatening to shut down a copper-zinc mine and a gold mine. This has to stop.”
“But the Supreme Court ruling gives natives the right to close their traditional territories to the transport of goods they don’t approve of.”
“Yeah, but the Supreme Court also said the government could declare a project to be in the national interest. Isn’t all of this in the national interest? What the hell is Parliament for? People are losing their jobs. Companies are shutting down. The economy is in a tailspin, and things are getting worse every day. It’s time to end this.”
The reporter turned to the camera. “Elaine, we’ve spoken to several other demonstrators. None of them were willing to appear on camera, but they all said the same thing. They’re getting tired of obstructions to development, and they’re objecting to the loss of jobs.”
“George, this demonstration appeared to be peaceful. Did you get the impression it could have been worse?”
“Yes, I think it could have. There were some rumors that anti-development protestors were planning a demonstration of their own. That never happened, but it could have inflamed the situation.”
“Thank you, George. We have a report from Herb Charon who’s been monitoring news on our affiliate stations. Herb?”
“Elaine, we’re starting to get reports from across the entire country. Demonstrations have broken out in a number of cities. They’ve remained peaceful, but there does seem to be a lot of anger at the actions of native and environmental groups that are blocking various forms of industrial development such as pipelines or mines.”
“Herb, are there any counter-demonstrations by environmental organizations or native activists? Have any of these threatened to turn violent?”
“No, there hasn’t been any violence, but there is a lot of anger. I wouldn’t bet against these protests getting worse.”
A DOZEN HIKERS moved along a rough trail through the forest, reaching a cut as wide as a highway. It sliced through the bush to a nearby river and up the side of a hill, disappearing over a ridge. The hikers followed the cut to the river, unpacked shovels, and started digging.
Two hours later, they had unearthed the pipeline, a length of pipe three feet across. One end of the pipe pushed into a channel beneath the river.
They dug a trench from the pipeline toward the flowing water. They taped brick-sized pieces in a circle surrounding the pipe, implanted a detonator, and stepped back to the fringe of the bush.
They opened cans of beer, toasted one another, and took shelter behind trees. One of them grinned and pushed a button.
“WE HAVE BREAKING news. A pipeline in Ontario has ruptured, spilling tons of oil into the Arjen River polluting the water supply of several downstream communities including the city of Deptville. Our Janice Frost is in Deptville. Janice?”
“Bob, the Arjen River is behind me. The banks of the river are covered in thick black oil and you can see oil coating the supports of the bridge. The pipeline company has been able to shut down the flow, but they’ve estimated at least five thousand barrels have poured into the river. There’s no word yet on what caused this spill. The company is investigating.”
“Janice, we understand this affects the water supply for Deptville.”
“Not just Deptville, but several other smaller communities downstream. About twenty thousand people will have their water supply polluted. Here’s what the mayor of Deptville had to say.”
“This is a disaster for the entire region. We have no other source of water. We’re working with the provincial and federal governments to try to figure something out, but for now, all we can do is truck in water.”
“Mr. Mayor, has the pipeline operator been in contact with you?”
“Oh, they’ve made some noises about how unfortunate this is. Unfortunate? This is their attempt to cover up their incompetence. I’ve been concerned for years about that pipeline. And I’m not alone. Having it cross an important river is the height of corporate greed. It should never have been allowed, and believe me, it will never re-open. And we’ll make sure the company pays.”
“Mr. Mayor, we’ve heard comments that this looks like sabotage. Have you heard anything about that?”
“Excuses. Probably made up by the pipeline operator. But even if it was sabotage, that’s not our fault. If the damn thing hadn’t been built, there’d have been nothing to sabotage.”
“Bob, that was the mayor of Deptville, who pinned the blame on the operators of the pipeline. We’ve tried to reach them for comment, but nobody would appear on camera. They did issue this statement. ‘We regret the incident with respect to our pipeline. We are diligent in following the highest standards of pipeline operations and safety and we will be investigating to determine the cause of this unfortunate event.’ That’s it, Bob. No admission of responsibility and no indication of help for the residents downstream.”