Debate partially sponsored by @FullTimeGeek

Please visit the debate frequently!    The winner of last weeks debate is Hive account@salmanbukhari54 with a respectable vote tally of 10 and Hive account@ailenepm  has won the steem for contributing a vote to that winning post!  Congratulations. 

As a note of interest to see if our intent is working, I totaled up the amount of SBD and Steem that has been paid out to the winners over the last 7 weeks (first three I could not find data for without a lot of digging).  The Debate Forum has paid out 53.33 SBD and 10.369 Steem, NOT including all the SBD and steem that people earned with the huge upvotes that I was giving out for the participants.  One participant already shared that his first win made a huge difference for him and got him going.  I think this is making a difference, so let's debate on my friends! 

Week 11 debate topic - Pipe Lines

This week Canada's Prime Minister threw down the gauntlet by saying that the pipeline from Alberta to the BC coast will be built.   

http://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/that-pipeline-is-going-to-get-built-pm-dismisses-b-c-s-trans-mountain-move

This will in turn produce a lot of resistance from indigenous and other groups who are working hard to protect the land, water, air, plants and animals from pollution, oil spills, disruption due to construction, etc.  But this also gets into murky areas such as indigenous sovereignty, land claims, boundaries, duty to consult, etc.  

This weeks Debate Forum question: Does the Federal Government have a valid claim, did their due diligence and have the support and authority in order to push this pipeline through or will it come down to violence, force and coercion?   

The rules of this debate:                    

1. Keep comments on topic.
2. No personal attacks, name calling or yelling.  
3. Be respectful, thoughtful and articulate with your thoughts and views.
4. Participants can ask questions but lets limit the  discussion threads to three deep.  That means the individual can respond  to the question posed and then the thread must stop.  
5. The post with the highest vote count will win the debate.  Highest  value will not be used to determine the winner but will  naturally reward commenters who make excellent points.  That  way everyone's   vote counts the same when it comes to the final prize.     I will break any ties.
6. Debate deadline is 10pm MST February 10, 2018.  At which point I will then tabulate the results and send the prize to the winner.
7. Curators are encourage to vote as well, giving higher  percentage upvotes for well thought out and written responses, lower or  no vote for anybody who breaks the rules or fails to articulate  their position.
8. Winner will receive all the SBD that I receive from this post,  complements of the curators who are participating and  partially sponsored by @FullTimeGeek.  
9. Out of the winning post, the voter on the bottom of the list with  100% upvote will receive all the Steem from the debate post, to  encourage more voting!
10. I am the moderator and as such I disqualify myself from winning.  My decisions are final. I will not tolerate covert or overt violence in  this debate.  Please keep it respectful and on topic.
11. For this debate, I will disqualify those who fail to follow the spirit of the debate.

The spirit of this contest is to engage the readers with thoughtful  debate and to explore ideas that are not commonly made available to  the    average Jane and Joe.  I also want to see if this is a good way to     get low steem users participating and being rewarded with steem to  help them build influence on this platform.  Readers are reminded that  all comments are the opinions of those who are posting and as such it    is    your responsibility to do your own research and make up your own    mind  on these topics.  There is no write or wrong answer.  Let us  debate this  issue with respect, honour, dignity, heart and intelligence.     I am now on steemit.chat, user id @wwf. and discord (WWF#2870)  If you want to private chat, you can contact me there.          

Past debates

Week 10 - Trade Agreements - won by salmanbukhari54
Week 9 - Legitimacy of Government - won by @dubem-eu
Week 8 - Guaranteed Income - won by @salmanbukhari54
Week 7 - Sectarianism & Dogma - won by @shai-hulud
Week 6 - Spirit vs Letter of the law - won by @shai-hulud
Week 5 - Indigenous Reconciliation - won by @dubem-eu
Week 4 - Net Neutrality - won by @skycae
Week 3 - Geoengineering - won by @cheneats
Week 2 - Government sponsored vaccination programs - won by @cheneats
Week 1 - Fixing government vs self-governance - won by @yulem