“The Lower Churchill hydro project has passed the environmental review process,” CBC news tells us, and as a result the project has cleared “… another hurdle to the Labrador power generation plant becoming a reality.
VOCM used the same word in its headline.
It means an obstacle, a hindrance or a barrier that something or someone must be overcome on the way to a goal.
Now there’s a curious word for the CBC news writer to use.
Since the final decision on the environmental assessment process for the Lower Churchill rested with the very people who are behind the project in the first place, only the most naive person in Canada would have believed the review was anything but an exercise in filling out the paperwork.
So “hurdle” is such a wrong word that it is comical.
And indeed the fuss about this little event today was entirely comical. It came complete with news releases, scrums and all manner of breathless comments about how wonderful a thing this was that the project passed the review.
Like there was some doubt ever that the provincial government wouldn’t approve the project.
Still, as odd a choice of a word as “hurdle” might be in this context, it makes perfect sense down here in the rabbit hole into which we all slipped in 2003.
- srbp -
