Tax Dollars Go Towards Pipeline App
Taxpayer dollars are going towards a smartphone app that showcases gas pipelines which you can cap and that can blow up.
If that happens, people get sick and farm animals can die.
Provincially funded TV-Ontario (TVO) has the "Pipeline Trouble" app featured on its website and although there is a trial version, you have to pay $1.99 to get the full thing. Some proceeds go to the David Suzuki Foundation.
Each level lets you build a pipeline piece-by-piece and pits a farmer against a gas company executive.
TVO spokesperson Jill Javet says the app goes hand in hand with a documentary produced on pipelines in Northern British Columbia and she says they tell both sides of the story. She says the network tries to get facts on pipelines out there and features them in between levels of the app.
The network invested $10,000 into the app and $90,000 into the "Trouble in the Peace" documentary.
Javet stresses TVO doesn't have a relationship with the David Suzuki Foundation, the app developer owns the rights to the game and decides where the money goes.
"I recognize that there have been some concerns raised regarding elements of the online game," Education Minister Liz Sandals said in a statement where she underlines neither the province or TVO condones illegal activity. "That is why we have asked TVO to ensure that this online game adheres to their existing programming standards and does not condone such activity."
Javet underlines TVO tries to take on controversial topics and allows the public to understand the world. She says the app focuses on both the corporate side of things as well as environmental issues.