Keep Canada's oil at home

This is an open letter for MP Ron Cannon.

I would like to know why your boss, Stephen Harper has gone to China trying to sell our oil. According to Harper, we have so much oil in The Oil Sands that we don't know what to do with such a surplus.

I have a great idea! Keep the oil in Canada, open new oil refineries creating 100's of thousands of permanent, full-time jobs.

The recent news report that says the proposed Keystone and Enbridge pipelines will only create a few thousand temporary jobs in Canada, while creating hundreds of thousands permanent of jobs in the USA and China is unacceptable.

A news report I saw last year claimed that our Canadian oil only cost's around $40 a barrel to produce. Refine the oil in Canada, creating much needed jobs, and any surplus gasoline can be sold on the world market.

My family is very poor. We subsist mainly on peanut butter, bread, and hamburger (I am on disability pension).  In the last year, the price of a loaf of whole wheat bread has gone from $1.24, to $2.00. A 2 kg. jar of no-name peanut butter has gone from $5.49 to almost $10. 4 lbs of regular hamburger has gone from $6 to $18. I asked the manager why there have been such massive price increases on staple foods, and I was told it is because of high fuel prices.

Being so poor, the only car we can afford is a 1978 Oldsmobile that gets around 12-15 MPG. It now cost's $120 to fill up (20 gallon tank). If we keep our oil in Canada, I believe gasoline/diesel prices would fall to about .45 cents a litre.

Cheap energy will stimulate the economy more than anything else. By the way, I have never filled the Olds. I can only afford $10, just over a gallon.

David A. Linge