Neil Young calls pipeline issues 'scabs on people's lives'

Music icon Neil Young says Canadians need to stand upfor clean air, land and water by taking on big oil companies inparticular.

He calls issues involving pipelines "scabs on our lives," andsays Canadians must band together to ensure their constitutionincludes the right to live in a healthy environment.

Young is in Vancouver as part of the lineup of entertainers andartists including Barenaked Ladies, Feist and Robert Bateman for thelast stop of the national Blue Dot Tour fronted by scientist andenvironmental activist David Suzuki.

The singer-songwriter continues to stir debate with his commentin Washington last year that oilsands in Fort McMurray, Alta.,resemble the Japanese city of Hiroshima after it was laid waste byan atom bomb.

And he`s sticking to the comparison he made in opposing theproposed Keystone XL pipeline, saying people who were in Hiroshima and have been to Fort McMurray have told him they agree with hisstatement.

He says it's too bad if people don't like his views.

"Those people who are the Fort McMurray people, either they'reoil people or they're occupied by oil people. So of course they'regoing to be upset because I just said we don't want that. It's notgood for our families," Young said in an interview.

His duty to speak out, says Young

Dave Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of PetroleumProducers, has said that while the industry needs to makeenvironmental improvements, Young has used his rock-star status tomischaracterize oil sands development.

The 68-year-old rock legend said before taking to the stageSunday that his most important task as a musician is to speak against -- as he put it -- "things that interfere with the home."

"I see the world the way I see it. I'm going to do what I thinkshould be done because people are watching me. Then they'll say, 'Why's he doing that? Doesn't he care about selling records?' No, Idon't."

Young expresses his staunch activist views in his latest protestsong "Who's Going to Stand Up?" on a new CD, with calls to "banfossil fuel and draw the line before we build one more pipeline."

"The real issue is do we want to have a clean planet," he saidSunday. "Do people in Canada deserve to have food that's good andbreathe clean air? If people in Canada all wanted that, it might bea good idea to put it in their constitution like so many other countries around the world."

Still callsCanada home

Young, who was born in Ontario and lives in California, said hestill considers Canada his home even decades after he left the country.

"There are some people who say that I'm not a true Canadianbecause I roam the earth. To me that's the most Canadian thing to dois roam the earth."

Although governments and industry tout jobs from new and expandedpipelines, Young doesn't agree with that sentiment.

"That's not a job. It's a disaster," he said.

Suzuki, for his part, said he's been to Fort McMurray many times and "slammed" the development there because of the environmentalimpact that goes far beyond Alberta.

The federal government has granted conditional approval for theproposed Northern Gateway pipeline, which would carry bitumen, amolasses-like crude, between Alberta and B.C.'s coast.

The project by Calgary-based Enbridge faces staunch opposition, as does Kinder Morgan's expansion of the Trans Mountainproject, which would nearly triple capacity for an existing crudeoil passage from Alberta through Metro Vancouver.