Category Archives: Energy and Resources

Rafe Mair's State of the Union on Canadian politics, environment

Rafe Mair’s ‘State of the Union’ on Canadian environmental politics

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Rafe Mair's State of the Union on Canadian politics, environment

Before I get onto the federal election, let me say I have never been more depressed about governance in this country.

A recent note from a reader pointed out the atrocious record of the Christy Clark government in erasing emails, losing emails, redacting emails (that’s bureaucratese for blacking out anything that might possibly embarrass the government), throwing sand in the gears for anyone who wants public information and on it goes. What struck me is that this egregiously evil behaviour is buried in scandals in the Health Ministry and the Ministry of Children and Families, the skyrocketing provincial debt since Christy Clark took over, not to mention her look of teenage adoration when dealing with out and out crooks in her LNG giveaways; all while utterly neglecting her duty to protect our homes, coastlines and waters from the inevitable consequences of her LNG pipe dreams.

The extent of her reckless negligence is that it’s hard to concentrate on individual outrages like censorship of public information. Moreover, she is never mildly challenged by the “poodle press” which bury her shenanigans in the recesses of their rags, if they mention them at all, while giving “Position ‘A'” to the Fraser Institute and the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation.

Too bad May couldn’t be PM…

The Federal election is a bankruptcy of real choices. The outstanding candidate by far, and I apologize for damning her with faint praise, is Elizabeth May. It’s a shame that she won’t be prime minister. Far from being just an environmentalist, she has a firm understanding of the history of this country, the geographical distortions and demographic differences, and the sad state of our parliamentary system. She also has a deep love and understanding of our province.

Ms. May has profited from her experience in Parliament and knows that it doesn’t work because of the deliberate maneuverings of Stephen Harper. She recognizes that MPs must have their power and dignity restored and will, win or lose, do her best to do something about it. Any who have heard Elizabeth May speak (indeed just watched the debates where, despite Harper’s constant interruptions, she impressed all) know that she’s an outstanding person who’ll serve us well in whatever role she’s called upon to play.

The Canadian Gestapo

Rafe: Critics of Burnaby Mountain citizens are out of touch with public will for change
Pipeline protesters are criminalized under the Harper regime (Burnaby Mountain Updates/facebook)

Little need be said about Harper since so much already has been. Surely, the hearing to find out whether or not CSIS and the RCMP illegally tapped the telephones of and spied on environmentalists tells all about Harper and the C-51 mentality of present-day Tories. That this could happen in Canada is horrible enough; that the prime minister approves of this behaviour assures all Canadians that it’s unsafe in Canada to dissent from the establishment opinion without being spied upon by the Canadian Gestapo, and tells us all we need know about Harper. Another four years of his progress towards absolute power is too frightening to contemplate.

Lest you think I exaggerate, remember this – no Conservative MP has any power whatsoever to do anything or say anything on his or her own. The PMO tells them what to say, when to say it, what questions to ask, what speeches to make, what press releases to issue and, of course, how to vote. Any independence is subject to political capital punishment.

Harper: LNG too dangerous for East coast, OK for BC

Tory MPs no longer represent their constituencies and only care about those within them that “vote right”. My MP, John Weston, refuses to deal with uncomfortable questions such as:

[quote]Why does the Harper government forbid all LNG traffic on the Atlantic coast and enthusiastically support it on our coast?[/quote]

This though he was asked by mail and publicly. Just one of many examples.

On our most significant issue, the proposed LNG plant in Squamish, Weston, on orders from Harper, pressured the West Vancouver Council to rescind its opposition, rather than listen to them and take their concerns back to government. They told him to get stuffed.

Harper doesn’t give a damn about Howe Sound, so neither, then, does Weston – even though all municipal councils in this huge riding have opposed it!

Politicizing the Supreme Court

We are badly handicapped by the absence of a Free Press, including true investigating journalists and dedicated critics as we once had. Let me give you a case in point.

Stephen Harper is stacking The Supreme Court of Canada with right-wingers so that the conservative agenda, which includes violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms whenever necessary, will prevail. This has been largely ignored but independence of the judiciary from political bias goes to the very root of our system.

In 1937, Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the US Supreme Court and all hell broke loose. The issue is still raised when US Supreme Court judges are appointed.

Why was there such a big fuss?

For the same reason there should be one here.

The Court has been set up to be “independent” of the executive and legislative branches – and for a good reason. If most members of the Court are just toadies of the Prime Minister who appointed them, then he can violate the Constitution to his heart’s content, comfortable that his Court won’t interfere.

The entire process of appointing Supreme Court of Canada judges is badly flawed and it’s a cinch for an unscrupulous PM to manoeuvre to enhance his own political agenda. Harper certainly has no desire to change this and, instead, given another four years to appoint more right wingers, he’ll unblushingly do so.

The question is, where are Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Mulcair on this issue? It is a deadly serious one, even though you would never know that reading the Postmedia press or, indeed, the Toronto Globe and Mail.

House of ill repute

What about the disgraceful state of the House of Commons? Does any leader truly intend to give power and dignity back to the MP and thus weaken their own influence? If so, they haven’t shown much inclination thus far.

Justin Trudeau talks a good game and speaks of easing party discipline but that’s partly because he’s running scared of Mr. Mulcair. His record is less than the glittering. For example, he suspended two MPs for alleged misconduct with two female NDP MPs.  Given no opportunity to publicly defend themselves, they stand convicted in the public mind and their political careers destroyed without recourse. Does that sound like open government to you?

In Mulcair’s time as leader, not one NDP MP has taken an independent line, such is his ironclad discipline. Does that sound like a man who favours freedom for his MPs?

Grits, NDP weak on pipelines

Could-Tom-Mulcair-actually-become-Prime-Minister
Mulcair could be clearer – and tougher – on pipelines

I am, frankly, more concerned about the leaders in terms of their policies towards British Columbia.

I need hardly say, then, one of the critical issues to British Columbia is the environment and, in particular, pipelines, LNG plants and the fossil fuel issue in general.

A swath of key seats in the Greater Vancouver region is wrapped up in the Kinder Morgan expansion controversy. I oppose this expansion, as do a great many citizens in those constituencies.

Here is what Mr. Trudeau has to say – and one is reminded of Mackenzie King, when during World War II, he famously said “conscription if necessary but not necessarily conscription”.

Trudeau, for his part, has stated his support for pipelines done the “right way that is sustainable, that has community support and buy-in, and that fits into a long-term strategy of not just a sustainable environment but a sustainable economy.”

Now don’t you feel better?

Mulcair isn’t a hell of a lot better. He doesn’t condemn the Kinder Morgan expansion but has denounced the National Energy Board review process, saying an NDP government would “start a new Kinder Morgan assessment based on tougher environmental legislation and a more open public consultation process”. That’s political double talk for “we’ll get rid of the present, obviously fixed process and bring in more subtle, fixed process of our own before approving the pipeline”.

Time to take a stand against LNG in Howe Sound

Photo: Future of Howe Sound Society
Citizens fight to protect Howe Sound (Future of Howe Sound Society)

On LNG, I say without hesitation that Howe Sound belongs to all British Columbia, not just those of us who live on it. I spent much of my boyhood there. I learned about the outdoors there. I have never lost my love for this beautiful fjord – the southernmost in our province – and, like so many of my neighbours from North Vancouver to Sechelt and beyond, know how fragile it is.

We’ve seen it restored over the last few decades after industry and a mine closed. I look out and see Orcas back and migratory fish have returned to their old spawning routes. Thanks to a lot of hard work by not just locals but British Columbians all over the province, Howe Sound is Howe Sound again, yet both governments are bent on destroying it for a few pieces of silver.

Everyone knows about the proposed LNG plant for Squamish – everybody, evidently, except Messrs Trudeau and Mulcair. If they do know about it, they’re keeping it to themselves. Harper doesn’t know about it either, but then he he’s always in favour of anything a fossil fuel company does anywhere, no matter how they do it. John Weston, our Tory MP, is as useless as tits on a bull – a glowing example of a Harper Tory who does precisely what he’s told and whose mantra is “the environment is the economy”. God help us!

This issue should to bother the hell out of all of us. Woodfibe LNG is owned by a big time tax-evader and an environmental rapist. Moreover, as readers of this column will know, Howe Sound is demonstrably too narrow for LNG tankers. And both governments support the crook.

Harper has BC on short leash

Christy Clark and Stephen Harper meet with firefighters in Kelowna (BC Govt/Flickr)
Christy Clark and Stephen Harper meet with firefighters (BC Govt/Flickr)

I have a theory that I will try out on you.

Remember the HST debacle? As I recall, at the end of that exercise, British Columbia owed Ottawa some billion and a half dollars, more or less.

My suspicion simply is this: Harper and Clark have an understanding that if Christy cooperates with him like a good little girl on fossil fuel issues, especially pipelines and LNG, no one will push for the HST money. That’s why there’s no opposition from her and she hasn’t complained about the phoney National Energy Board. In my theory, these two are hand-in-hand political lovers and will be as long as Christy behaves herself. (Granted, there was some mention back in 2012 of a 5-year plan to repay the HST monies without interest, but we’ve heard nothing of it since, so it does beg the question of what happened on that file).

If I am wrong, and Christy has repaid or is repaying this money, The Common Sense Canadian will say so promptly and prominently and I will withdraw my suspicion.

Whether this theory is correct or not, we British Columbians will have to fight this Woodfibre LNG outrage on our own, for we’ll clearly get no help from any prime minister to come unless by a blessed miracle it’s Elizabeth May.

Thus it would seem that the only thing British Columbians can hope for is a nicer person at Sussex Drive.

Pretty slim pickings.

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Another 35 intervenors abandon ship on NEB’s Kinder Morgan review

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Artist's rendering of proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline and tanker expansion
Artist’s rendering of proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline and tanker expansion

Republished from The ECOreport.

There have been complaints about the flawed National Energy Board (NEB) Hearings, on the proposed Trans Mountain Expansion Project (TMEP), from the beginning. Former BC Hydro CEO Marc Eliesen withdrew last fall, calling the proceedings “a farce and this Board truly a industry captured regulator.” When former ICBC President and CEO Robyn Allan left, last May, she said the panel is “not an impartial referee…the game is rigged.” This morning, another 35 participants left the NEB hearings.

Abandoning ship

Two are representatives of environmental organizations, the other 33 are private individuals.

Peter Wood, from the BC Chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS BC), said he wouldn’t be surprised if more intervenors and commenters leave.

He wanted to stress the positive side of today’s events, “We believe there is more room for an independent evaluation. A made in B.C. process where we have some sense of transparency, where we actually see what is going and the intervenors get a chance to ask the proponents questions. Right now, we are not able to do (this). We also want a process that considers the full scope of the project.”

“Lets talk about Climate Change. Lets talk about the impact the Tar Sands have on Alberta. We consider all of these things part of the whole project.”

Climate change ignored

These were similar to the issues the city of Vancouver raised with the NEB, in February 2014. Around 95% of its economy is “non-resource based.” Vancouver is “a leader in sustainable development,” the city noted.

[quote]The local economy depends on Vancouver’s reputation for sustainability to attract businesses, professionals and other workers…Vancouver has a responsibility for planning and mitigating impacts of severe weather events and rising sea levels…[/quote]

The City of Burnaby had also expressed concerns about the proposed pipeline’s failure to describe “…design elements that incorporate the broader effects of climate change…”

Eoin Madden, from the Wilderness Committee, added that “financial benefits of development of oil sands and oil transportation are front and centre of the TMEP hearings, and that other socioeconomic and environmental impacts are expressly excluded…”

“The fact they have been ignoring Climate impacts is to all of our detriment. Why would we want to lock ourselves into an outdated, dangerous infrastructure when clean and healthy alternatives exist,” said Larissa Stendie, who is not an intervener, but whose organization (Sierra Club BC) has been watching the NEB process closely.

Pipelines through provincial parks

Pipelines in parks - Welcome to Super, Fracktural BC!
Lorne Craig cartoon

Another concern is that the proposed pipeline route goes through five provincial parks.

“This violates all the values these parks were created for. Why are we even considering that?” asks Wood.

Kinder Morgan was conducting research in some of those parks before the provincial government introduced Bill 4 last March.

Wood said, “The permits Kinder Morgan was operating under were issued before the legislation that authorized the province to do so. So the question is, were new permits issued? We can’t find out that information.”

(This is one of several questions the ECOreport has asked the Ministry of Environment.)

The boundary adjustment process is already at a “very advanced at stage” at Bridal Veil Falls, near Chilliwack, and in the Lac Du Bois Grasslands Protected Area, northwest of Kamloops.

Prioritizing industry over public interest

Madden’s name topped the list of those who left the process today and in a press release he explained, “It’s a sad day for us. The federal government has altered the pipeline approval process so that Canadians no longer have a proper say on these major industrial projects. What we’re left with is a broken system that prioritizes industry over the public interest.”

The 35 departing intervenors and commenters sent the NEB a joint letter of resignation, in which they said:

[quote]“The review has discounted and devalued expert evidence, most specifically the knowledge of the lands and territories the pipeline will pass through, and the likely impact it will have on our waters and salmon. It has under-resourced Nations and Bands, thereby ensuring an unbalanced and ill-informed hearing,” they said in a prepared statement.

“By ignoring the impact the Project could have on our climate, any findings of the review will be fundamentally incomplete. If constructed, the Project will have massive climate change ramifications. The exclusion of any discussion on the climate impacts of the Project from the hearings is a gross failure of public responsibility.”

“The vast majority of concerned citizens, groups and Nations have been shut out of the review. Those lucky enough to secure participation in the review have been deprived of the right to cross-examine Trans Mountain. Participants have repeatedly requested Trans Mountain address a range of issues which Trans Mountain has successfully avoided answering. The review has lost all semblance of a due process.”[/quote]

BC should conduct its own review

They sent the Government of BC a copy of that notice and Wood said he hopes it will initiate a conversation. The province has previously expressed concerns and “has every reason to have a fair say in the process and conduct their own review.” They would shoulder a great deal of risk from the proposed pipeline, “and derive very little benefit.”

As regards the parks, the Minister does not have to allow that project to proceed to the public consultation pored. “If the Minister decides the values for which that park was proposed are inconsistent with those for which the park was created, she has the power to dismiss it outright.”

Allan: govt not protecting public

So far, the province has shown little inclination to have its own environmental assessment.

“One of the major reasons I applied as an intervenor is the serious concern I had that our provincial government was not protecting the public interest,” former ICBC CEO Robyn Allan told the National Observer last month. “If an intervenor does not ask questions, then the intervenor is saying they accept the evidence as provided by the proponent as non-contested.”

At that point, Vancouver had sent in 171 queries, Burnaby 132, and the province 23.

Another of the ECOreport’s as yet unanswered questions to the Ministry is whether BC is willing to withdraw from the NEB process and have its own environmental assessment.

Demonstration planned

Sierra Club BC will soon be sending out an invitation to a creative demonstration at Vancouver’s English Bay Beach: 10:30 AM, Sunday, August 16.

“It will be a theatrical opportunity to discuss and dramatize some of the potential health risks posed by tankers plying those waters, ” said Stendie.

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Rafe: Media let Liberals get away with murder on IPPs, now LNG

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Construction of a private power project on the Ashlu River (Photo: Range Life)
Construction of a private power project on the Ashlu River (Photo: Range Life)

A flash of anger came over me when Ian Jessup of CFAX 1070, Victoria, asked me to come on his show and talk about so-called independent power producers (IPPs), euphemistically referred known as “run of river”.

No, I sure as hell wasn’t mad at Ian – he’s is one of the few bright lights left in radio who is not afraid to do the tough subjects and to call it like it is. I congratulate CFAX for having the balls to do the show.

What angered me was that no one in the mainstream media has touched this subject from the beginning.

IPPs: a shockingly bad policy for ratepayers, environment

When Gordon Campbell, in 2002, changed the energy policy of the Province, he made it unlawful for BC Hydro to create any more power, except through Site “C” – which had already long been on the books – and decreed that all new power would come from private producers. This led to the most extraordinary results that one gasps when one thinks that the Liberals got away with this without a scratch.

The finance minister of the day, Colin Hansen, published a piece on the Internet outlining all of the benefits of “run of river”, every one of which was an outright falsehood, which I stated and demonstrated publicly, many times. The private companies have ruined the rivers, destroyed fish runs, wiped out much habitat, thus depriving wildlife of their food source, and depleted the water levels dangerously.

If environmental matters don’t concern you, how about this?

BC Hydro has been compelled to buy all the power produced by IPP’s, whether they need it or not, at over 3 times what it would cost them to buy it on the open market and many times more their own cost to produce it. This ruinous policy, uncriticized by the media, is bankrupting the power company you own that used to supply hundreds of millions of dollars yearly to the Treasury.

Can you imagine what the Vancouver Sun and Province, in particular Vaughn Palmer, would have said if this had been the NDP?

The sad part of that question is that timely, tough questions might have stopped the policy in its tracks or at least stopped it from increasing once the damage became obvious.

Getting away with murder

This is not by any means the only failing of the mainstream media. In a broad sense, this Liberal Campbell/Clark  government has got away with blue murder.

Not only have they gotten away with murder, the Postmedia papers, the Vancouver Sun and Province, have done virtually nothing to criticize them from the beginning. There is some criticism in the columns but it is usually muted and confined to one narrow aspect of the issue. This free ride has been even more egregious under Christy Clark.

When was the last time you said, “Hey, Honey, you should see this Sun (or Province) article! They really give Christy (or the Liberals) shit! Palmer/Smyth is brilliant!”?

And how often did you say that when the NDP were in power?

Goverment in bed with shady folks for LNG

Malaysian prime minister promises $36 Billion for BC LNG plant
Embattled Malaysian PM Razak and PM Harper (AP/Lai Seng Sin)

A good example of this is LNG. Because he had no alternative there, Palmer spent a good deal of time and did a reasonable job talking about the inadequacies of Clark’s deal with Petronas. There was, however, no talk about who runs this partnership, namely the Malaysian government, and that it is corrupt from top to bottom with a president now charged with stealing $700,000,000 – a minor peccadillo that’s not taken terribly seriously in Malaysia!

It’s the same with the proposed Woodfibre LNG plant. The owner, Sukanto Tanoto, is, not to put too fine a point on it, a crook plus an environmental catastrophe – facts that somehow have escaped the local media’s attention.

One would have thought that apart from everything else, the management of WFLNG, being the excrement of Enron, would have itself been the matter of considerable journalistic investigation.

One can understand how Clark and her inarticulate henchman Coleman wouldn’t care, considering they’re as dumb as a sack full of hammers, but whatever Postmedia is, it’s not stupid. Are they saying to us that the fact that the owners of our proposed partners are criminals doesn’t matter?

LNG tankers too dangerous for Howe Sound, Fraser

We have demonstrated in this paper that Howe Sound and the Fraser River are far too narrow, by accepted  international standards – indeed, by rules now the law in the US – for LNG tanker traffic. Now, in days of yore, had this been an NDP government, you could be sure that Palmer and Smith would’ve been all over this and the minister involved would’ve had his political life in serious jeopardy. Today, from the mainstream media, zilch!

The federal government has blocked LNG  tankers from plying the East Coast of Canada but can’t wait to have them flooding out of Vancouver and other ports by the hundreds.

Is not this flagrant favouritism of no interest to Vancouver papers, especially the one that bills itself as “Seriously Westcoast …”?

Media’s double standard for Liberals, NDP

The Ministry of Children and Families has fallen not only into disarray but into such a state that our children are actually being seriously damaged. Has the minister, roundly criticized by the courts for her management, or more accurately lack of it, been put under the slightest pressure by the mainstream media to resign?

Of course, no one has to resign under the Liberals, not even a premier who gets jailed for drunken-driving, but you would surely think that Postmedia, especially given their longevity, would be front and centre reminding the government of parliamentary tradition. They sure were good at that in the NDP years!

Let me pause here for a moment to make this point: The NDP years were pathetic. By and large it was probably the worst government, if not BC history, certainly in living memory. The criticism levelled at them in those days by the media was more than justified. My point is that the Campbell/Clark Liberals are not really a hell of a lot better

Credit where credit is due, Vaughn Palmer and Mike Smyth have covered the health scandal reasonably well, though it’s hard to conceive that they could have avoided this issue, what with admitted illegal firings and a suicide. Still, they have covered it and pulled few punches.

I think readers will know that I could go on and on. I would rather ask this question: Why is this so? Why is the mainstream media silent on these major issues, indeed scandals? Where has tough radio gone?

Media and industry partner up

Most of us can remember the NDP days and the preceding ones of Bill Vander Zalm and the day-after-day hell given them by the media, as if it were yesterday.

This was justified. Not in every case and to the extent it took place but, in the event, more than justified by the revelations of utter incompetence in those governments. Those of us who remember that are bound to ask the question, why is the Liberal government exempt from the same treatment?

Until I uncovered the fact that the Province – thus the Sun and the National Post by extension of law as well – are partners with Resource Works, an out-and-out tireless shill for Woodfibre LNG, while learning that Postmedia virtually supports the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) uncritically, I would not have dared ask this question.

Has Postmedia got some arrangement whereby favourite advertisers are guaranteed good treatment in their newspapers? It has been suggested – and not denied – that the Province has a “backscratching” arrangement with Resource Works, otherwise why would a newspaper take formal sides in a public dispute? I don’t ever recall that happening before.

I acknowledge that were it not for the Resource Works issue and the Postmedia-CAPP matter, this could be regarded as a most irresponsible question. But given the fact that these matters have not been explained, surely it’s a reasonable question to ask.

LNG issues ignored

Let’s just take the LNG issue, bearing in mind the Province’s partnership with Resource Works. When was the last time you saw a serious investigation of LNG, especially the “fracking” that would supply the industry, their contribution to global warming, the dangers involved, and the tanker traffic issue, raised here and, I might add, The Globe & Mail?

When have you seen in our media any discussion, much less a serious one,  about the integrity of the ownership of the LNG companies we’re going to be partners with?

When was the last time you saw any discussion, much less a serious one, about the permitted width of channels and rivers for LNG tankers?

When was the last time you saw any discussion in the mainstream media about the plethora of tankers which will come from proposed pipeline expansions and LNG plants?

Have you seen any discussion about the obvious bias of government environmental commissions, including the National Energy Board, in either of the Postmedia papers? Bear in mind that tougher and fairly-enforced rules are not in the interest of fossil fuel companies. An energy expert who has headed up three public power companies and another who was President of ICBC resign from the NEB hearings into Kinder Morgan, yet where the hell are the once-vaunted media critics?

I have already mentioned the indefensible indifference of the media press to the IPP scandal, with its consequent environmental catastrophe and bankrupting of BC Hydro.

I cannot and do not say that there is some sort of arrangement, either formal or nudge-nudge-wink-wink, between the mainstream media and their advertisers – however, I can say this: All of the above and much more sure as hell raise questions that the media must answer.                                         

Many long years ago, there was a lawsuit in England where a barrel of flour rolled out of a second-story window and flattened a passerby. The flour company claimed that the victim could not prove its negligence.

The learned judges, however, stated that there are some circumstances where there is no other obvious explanation but negligence and that they onus is on people with barrels of flour to explain why one rolled out a window. This is called Res Ipsa Loquitur “the thing speaks for itself”.

Under the circumstances, are the media in British Columbia not subject to Res Ipsa Loquitur and obliged to defend themselves?            

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BCIT demands LNG lobby drop falsely used name from “partner” list

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BCIT campus (Dago Agacino / Flickr CC licence)
BCIT campus (Dago Agacino / Flickr CC licence)

I find myself spending more time than I would like on Resource Works, the invention of The BC Business Council, that blindly supports approval of Woodfibre LNG in Squamish.

To follow on last week’s column, where we learned that Resource Works’ website contained the names of two “partners” which stoutly deny they’d ever been such.

Well, I have another for you, this week.

BCIT’s name used without knowledge

BCIT's logo on Resource Works' "Partnerships" page as of last week. BCIT has since been removed and the name of the page changed to "Partnerships and Sponsorships"
BCIT’s logo on Resource Works’ “Partnerships” page as of last week. BCIT has since been removed and the name of the page changed to “Partnerships & Sponsorships”

I was alarmed to read that the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) was also listed as a partner. What, I asked myself, was this much-admired academic institution doing in the middle of this dispute in our communities?

Well, it turned out to be a hell of a good question because they advised me that they were not a partner, never have been, and had demanded that this entry be eradicated. I note that this has since happened and that their president, Kathy Kinloch, is no longer on RW’s Board of Directors (though, as of this writing, she is still listed as such on RW’s website).

I wondered, with more of these revelations to come, what RW would do now?

Well, get this for shysterism non pareil!

In the past week they have changed “Partners” to “Partners & Sponsorships”, noting, We’re proud to work with a diverse range of partners, and to help sponsor exciting initiatives”. Now, anyone RW declares that they support is automatically thrown in this new category and there is no way anyone reading the “About” section of their website can tell which is which – the obvious hope being that the company is taken to be a partner!

All RW need do if it wants to have a big name appear to support them is write a letter to said group telling them how much RW supports whatever it is they do!

My God, the BC Business Council, former attorneys-general Bud Smith and Geoff Plant and ex-Premier Dan Miller (each advisors or board members) have stooped to this sleazy slight-of-hand!

Come on Mr. Stewart Muir (Executive Director), I  know that the complete truth is a difficult concept for a newspaperman, especially an editor, but give it a try and split that list in two so that the public can tell who is a partner and who is not. It will only hurt for a little bit!

A dishonest broker

My involvement with Resource Works started a couple of months ago when I read their Mission Statement. I could not believe that educated, rational, and honourable members of the business and a labour union communities could write tripe like this:    

[quote]Resource Works is a non-profit society, open to participation by all British Columbians, to help bring fact-based information to the public discourse about the natural resource sector and its role in BC’s future.

We bring people together for a respectful, fact-based dialogue on responsible resource development in British Columbia.[/quote]

Noble sentiments if they were remotely true. In fact, RW, far from being some sort of honest broker, by any objective standard, uncritically supports Woodfibre LNG.

This is a free country, of course, and while I profoundly disagree with their position, I accept their right to present it – as long as it’s done honestly and candidly, words with which RW seems to have a great deal of difficulty.

First of all, in their presentation A Citizen’s Guide To LNG: Sea To Sky Country Edition, a booklet of 58 pages, they uncritically present the case for Woodfibre LNG using the company’s own propaganda as fact! Don’t take my word for it – read it for yourself.

RW’s discussion of “fracking” is confined to two short  paragraphs and doesn’t deal with any of the many concerns scientists have raised whatsoever.

Faked interview takes the cake

Courtesy of Eoin Finn
Courtesy of Eoin Finn

Then we get into the faked interview with acknowledged LNG tanker safety expert Dr. Michael Hightower, making out that Dr. Hightower supported tanker traffic in Howe Sound whereas he’d never addressed Howe Sound. Moreover, the measurements he and Sandia Laboratories recommended made it clear that Howe Sound is utterly unsuitable for tanker traffic. (Alongside you’ll see these measurements, which are the law in the United States, applied to a chart of Howe Sound – giving you the true picture.)

Let’s move to the legal case brought by the Wilderness  Committee and The Sierra Club against Encana as described by RW in this document thusly:                    

“When a ruling came down in late 2014 it showed that the regulatory processes in place, and industry compliance with them, are sound and well managed.

“In an overwhelming endorsement of current practices in water protection, justice Fitzpatrick concluded that when it comes to the regulation of industries water usage, British Columbia is in good shape with a ‘justifiable transparent and intelligible framework for the regulation of short term water use.'”

When I, a lawyer by trade, read this, I was suspicious. I couldn’t believe that Madam Justice Fitzpatrick would offer this effusive praise so I obtained a copy of the judgment, which you can easily do, and found that the judge not only said nothing of the sort but made it plain that she was only deciding whether or not section 8 of the Water Act was constitutional.

58 pages of barnyard droppings by an organization professing to be even-handed!

Woodfibre’s shady owner

As you may have noticed, in all the thousands of words published by RW, there’s not been one peep about the ownership of Woodfibre LNG. Wouldn’t you have expected voluminous praise of his acumen, experience, honourable reputation and, of course, commitment to the environment?

Little wonder this has not been forthcoming!

The owner, Sukanto Tanoto, is a crook* who has been found guilty of substantial tax evasion, paid over $200 million fine and is well-known around the world as having destroyed tropical jungles and having no regard for environmental concerns if there’s a buck to be made. I recommend you do some research on him.

The company itself is loaded with former Enron employees and its structure is such that it would be duck soup for a first-year law student to siphon off all taxes and royalties and send them off to Singapore where there’s no tax on LNG. I don’t say that will happen, just that it would be easy to do and Tanoto has done it before.

The obvious question: Why has Resource Works never addressed the question of the ownership of Woodfibre LNG? Do they endorse the sort of behaviour its owner has displayed? Are they not concerned that this company has never built an LNG plant before? Before advising the public that we should support this outfit, has RW done any “due diligence” whatsoever? If so, tell us about it.

Unanswered questions

In fact, one of the biggest unanswered questions by Resource Works and Premier Clark is why on earth would they invite lawbreakers into our communities when we have enough of our own?

A second major question is why Resource Works has never dealt with the issue of the width of Howe Sound, other than by childish misrepresentations?

The mantra of RW and executives of Woodfibre LNG is that LNG tanker traffic has a 50 year safety record, therefore we have nothing to worry about.

This is the sort of delicious half-truth that somehow numbs the mind when it should inspire skepticism. The fact is that this LNG Tanker record is for the high seas and not narrow passages like Howe Sound or the Fraser River!

In fact, narrow passages have inspired a good deal of  study.

Hazard zone

Let’s return to Dr. Hightower and the internationally respected Sandia Laboratories, which have set the standards that are law in the United States. Bear in mind that the US is a capitalistic society that doesn’t much like restrictive rules and regulations.

Sandia National Laboratories defines for the US Department of Energy three Hazard Zones (also called “Zones of Concern”) surrounding LNG carriers. The largest Zone is 2.2 miles/3,500 meters around the vessel, indicating that LNG ports and tankers must be located at least that distance from civilians. Some world-recognized LNG hazard experts, such as Dr. Jerry Havens (University of Arkansas; former Coast Guard LNG vapor hazard researcher), indicate that three miles or more is a more realistic Hazard Zone distance.

When Dr. Eoin Finn superimposed the measurements on a chart, it was clear that most of Howe Sound is within the Hazard Zone and above is a copy of that chart.

In short, by internationally accepted standards, there’s no way any LNG tankers would be permitted to proceed from Squamish to the ocean.

The question then becomes, why are Resource Works and their client Woodfibre LNG unwilling to address this question?

The only assumption a reasonable person can come to is  because they can’t.

A question of credibility

My final question concerns credibility.

Why does Resource Works not tell the truth? Why do they consistently play word games? Why do they use little tricks as when suddenly caught out, changing “Partners” to the trick phrase “We are proud to work with a diverse range of partners and to help sponsor exciting initiatives” which, apart from all else, doesn’t distinguish between the two, so that the reader has no way of knowing which category the company falls into?

Why did they fake a TV interview and distort evidence?

Why did they take a judge’s remarks out of context? Why do they avoid discussion of fracking? Why do they not deal with the Eoin Finn chart which clearly shows that LNG tankers in Howe Sound are, from a safety point of view, completely out of the question?

Why don’t they talk about ownership and, indeed, management shortcomings? And the fact that Woodfibre LNG have never built an LNG plant before?

In sum, if they truly want, as they so piously state, to help bring fact-based information to the public discourse about the natural resource sector…why do they so carefully avoid dealing with any of the serious questions?

A fair conclusion is that they avoid these questions because the answers would destroy their ambition to visit an LNG plant on Howe Sound, which, in any civilized a jurisdiction, would be a park.                                                                   

*Merriam Webster: a person who engages in fraudulent or criminal practices

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LNG lobby fakes partnerships with prominent organizations

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Clockwise from top left: Teck's Doug Horswill, Stewart Muir, former A-G Geoff Plant, and Lyn Anglin of Geoscience BC
Key Resource Works members (clockwise from top left): Teck’s Doug Horswill, ex-Vancouver Sun editor Stewart Muir, former A-G Geoff Plant, and Lyn Anglin of Geoscience BC

Desperate people do desperate things.

Today I want to talk about Resource Works, the shills for Woodfibre LNG, proposed for Squamish at the head of Howe Sound – BC’s beautiful and southernmost fjord.

I’m part of a large group opposed to this plant. Let me, however, make this abundantly clear: Our opposition, contrary to what you may read and hear in the media, has nothing to do with NIMBYism. Our concern is LNG tanker traffic which, if allowed in Howe Sound, would be in direct contravention of minimum exclusion zone requirements and other safety operating criteria as generally recognized worldwide and by the law in the United States.

Pushing the limit

Courtesy of Eoin Finn
Courtesy of Eoin Finn

These danger zones have been superimposed on the chart of Howe Sound to the right (click on the chart to see in greater detail).

You can see from this chart why residents are extremely upset and why every municipal council in West Vancouver, Sea-To-Sky, Squamish and the Sunshine Coast have passed resolutions against the development of Woodfibre LNG.

Credibility deficit

Resource Works presents itself as independent and only desirous of establishing a fair dialogue. This rubbish demonstrates their credibility deficit which will become clear.

For, if you read their Mission Statement, you’ll see a petition next to it under the title “BC NEEDS LNG”, asking you to sign. There is no need to elaborate – this outfit has made no secret of the fact that it supports the WLNG plant fully and opposes our group.

On that last point, they allege that our organization of homeowners and residents, which raises its meagre funds through fundraisers in local community halls, is well-funded while they, in fact, have the entire business community the British Columbia behind them. We’re not complaining – those odds are perfect as far as we are concerned.

Making it up as they go

To the meat of the matter – Resource Works lies, cheats and dissembles without batting an eyelash. I don’t accuse any particular person, however obviously somebody in Resource Works is making these things up and doing these unethical and, indeed, unlawful things. My case…so far.

A few weeks ago, in an article here unchallenged by Resource Works, I demonstrated that they had faked a TV interview with an American expert on tanker traffic, Dr. Michael Hightower of Sandia Laboritories in New Mexico, and had him saying precisely the opposite of what he had in fact concluded. At least Resource Works were embarrassed enough to quickly withdraw that from their propaganda when they were caught out but the fact remains that this was done and proved to be done – something you wouldn’t think even stocks and bonds salesmen would do.

At the same time, in a report found on their website, Resource Works quoted a judge as extolling the virtues of BC laws relative to Natural Gas, whereas Justice Fitzpatrick had said nothing of the sort and had gone out of her way to say that she was not commenting upon this matter. A glance at the judgment, which is easily available, will demonstrate that.

Forging ahead

A composite of Resource Works' "Partner" page, reflecting two organizations who did not authorize their names and logos to be used as such
A composite of Resource Works’ “Partner” page, showing two groups who didn’t authorize their names and logos to be used

Now we have a new wrinkle and let me tell you how I discovered it.

Quite by accident, I went to their list of Partners on Resource Works’ website and saw that the Jack Webster Foundation was listed as one.

I could not believe my eyes! I have a strong relationship with that foundation, having received their highest honour, the Bruce Hutchison Lifetime Achievement Award. Moreover, Jack Webster arranged for me to go into radio in the first place back in 1980 and was my mentor. There is no way on God’s earth that Jack would have taken sides in a dispute like this, let alone on the side of big industry, against the “little people” he always went to bat for.

I immediately wrote to the Foundation expressing my dismay that it would get in the midst of a controversy in our community, only to find out by return mail that they knew nothing about it!

Resource Works, without any discussion, much less permission from the Webster Foundation, included them as a partner and forged* their logo on top of the statement!

The Webster Foundation, which prides itself on independence and support of journalism without political or other affiliation, was horrified at what had happened and demanded that their name be removed forthwith.

I then wrote three or four other Partners and within the hour got a reply from the head of the nationally well-known Macdonald-Laurier Institute, stating bluntly that they had never heard of their being a Partner of Resource Works! This was news, and not welcome news to them! Moreover, they avoid controversies of this sort like the plague.

Apparently, one of their experts had given Resource Works some paid advice somewhere along the line from which Resource Works concluded that made Macdonald-Laurier a Partner! Again they forged* the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s logo on their Mission Statement. (I’m waiting for three other replies, two of them very small outfits but one of the BC Institute of Technology and I would be surprised indeed if the same results were not forthcoming.)

I have to wonder if the former Attorney General Bud Smith knows anything about this? What about former AG Geoff Plant? How about former Premier Dan Miller? What about the BC Business Council and their well known President and CEO, Greg D’Avignon? They’re helping finance this bunch – does Mr D’Avignon know about these shenanigans?

What about premier Christy Clark who has, or at least at the time of its inception, had close personal relations with the management of Resource Works?

Our group fully expects that WLNG will make its case as strongly as possible and we understand the right of Resource Works to support them with all of the resources at their command.

What we don’t expect is that we will have to face constant falsehoods, dissembling, and, indeed, chicanery in building a list of partners.

How can we trust them?

Surely what this does is call into question their entire campaign! For, if Resource Works can’t be honest in their basic presentation of themselves and of what they are doing, how can we trust a word they ever say?

The truth is not in them. Resource Works real partner, Woodfibre LNG’s president, Anthony Gelotti, has had an op-ed published in the Province (another Resource Works “partner”!) alleging that tanker traffic is safe as proved by records going back many years.

This is the sort of distortion we have come to expect. In fact it is the constant mantra of Byng Giraud, WLNG Vice-President. The statistics they use relate to tanker traffic on the high seas, not in harbours, fjords and rivers! One only has to read GCaptain each day to see how many large tankers, including LNG tankers, are colliding, running aground, and hitting things in waters similar to the Fraser River and Howe Sound almost on a daily basis. The Bosphorus, not unlike Howe Sound, is a particular problem.

While we’re concerned that the tanker traffic be safe everywhere, our principal concern is with Howe Sound, the Fraser River and with many others including Vancouver Harbour, the Salish Sea, the Straits of Juan De Fuca and the BC coast in general. Statistically, there must be accidents – we don’t want them to happen in these waters, bringing inevitable tragedies.

*The Criminal Code of Canada defines Forgery as:

(2) Making a false document includes

(a) altering a genuine document in any material part;

(b) making a material addition to a genuine document or adding to it a false date, attestation, seal or other thing that is material; or

(c) making a material alteration in a genuine document by erasure, obliteration, removal or in any other way.

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British Columbians reject premiers’ “Canadian Energy Strategy” – designed to push pipelines

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Citizens on Burnaby Mountain the day Kinder Morgan's injunction was read out (Mark Klotz/Flickr)
Citizens on Burnaby Mountain the day Kinder Morgan’s injunction was read out (Mark Klotz/Flickr)

Republished from the ECOreport.

According to the Globe and Mail, Canadian Premiers are about to sign an agreement that would fast track pipeline projects. The 34-page-report describes how to deal with the opposition Energy East, Kinder Morgan, Northern Gateway and Keystone XL faced from  environmental groups and First Nations.  It suggests that red tape be cut down so decisions can be quicker. If the initial responses from community leaders are an indication, BC says NO to “Canadian Energy Strategy”.

Business as usual not good enough

“I was rather surprised to read the article and I question the urgency and rush. If there is a rush, it is that we diversify our economy instead of doubling down on an industry that is oversupplied globally,” said Green MLA Andrew Weaver.

“A document prepared for a premier’s meeting doesn’t come close to developing a national energy strategy,” says Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan.

[quote]If they want social license to move fossil fuel products, they will have to be much more inclusive and listen to the citizens of their provinces and territories. Business as usual just isn’t good enough.[/quote]

Former BC Hydro CEO Marc Eliesen says, “The draft report appears to be outdated and out of step with both current oil market realities, and the strong opposition by most Canadians to building oil pipelines and expanding oil sands extraction without a view to adding value in Canada. Canadians are also clear about their unwillingness to put up with anything short of meaningful limitations on GHG emissions.”

“If what is being reported in the Globe and Mail is accurate, it is extremely short-sighted. We need a genuine shift in our approach to climate change, not some closed-door deal that is going to help the companies and not help the public,” said Bob Peart, Executive Director of Sierra Club BC.

Governing vs. Ruling

Erin Flanagan, of the Pembina Institute, pointed out that because “a very significant number of Canadians” were opposed to both the proposed Kinder Morgan and Northern Gateway pipelines, these projects have been delayed and may never be built.

She added that when constituents raise questions about pipelines or Climate Change, they should be adequately considered.

Rafe: Critics of Burnaby Mountain citizens are out of touch with public will for change
84 year-old retried librarian Barbara Grant getting arrested at Burnaby Mountain (Burnaby Mountain Updates/facebook)

Bob Peart found the way in which the premiers are trying to cut the voice of the Canadian public out of decision making process disturbing.

“Someone said to me the other day, historically we elected governments to govern and now all they do is rule. There is a difference between ruling and governing. Governments today rule and doesn’t give much room for citizen’s concerns to be put on the table.

“That means you have to yell and scream and build up a public wall of noise. Sometimes they listen to that, but they usually don’t, so you end up having to go to the courts or be like Burnaby Mountain and have people marching,” he said.

Federal election will test pipeline policies

Canada appears to be approaching a crossroads. It is not certain that corporations will continue to exercise the same degree of control as they have in recent years. Peart stressed the need for people to vote in the upcoming election.

“The studies are pretty clear – if voter turn-out is low it favors the right. Generally it is the progressive people who are discouraged and don’t vote,” he added.

“Canadians want and expect to have more say, and I think we will witness that voice during the federal election in October,” said Marc Eliesen.

Premiers could pay political price for pushing pipelines

Flanagan said the “Canadian Energy Strategy” originated with Albertan concerns about access to markets. It is important for premiers negotiating an energy strategy to hear that they “must also consider Canada’s contribution to the fight against Climate Change.” They have to realize “it is not politically advantageous for a premier to sign on to an agreement like this.”

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BC LNG Bill locks in public rip-off for a generation

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Ex-Petronas CEO Shamsul Abbas shaking hands with BC Premier Christy Clark in 2014 (BC gov photo)
Ex-Petronas CEO Shamsul Abbas shaking hands with BC Premier Christy Clark in 2014 (BC gov photo)

Republished with permission from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ Policy Note.

By Marc Lee

Last week, the BC government released the text of its Project Development Agreement with Pacific Northwest LNG (led by Malaysian state enterprise, Petronas), considered the front-runner in getting BC an LNG export industry. The agreement goes to the BC legislature this week in order to convince Petronas to make a “final investment decision.” There are still other barriers to this project going forward, due to First Nations rights and the province’s environmental assessment process. The project hit a major snag when the Lax Kw’alaams first nation balked at Petronas’ proposed site for its LNG terminal. Also, the Gitga’at first nation has just launched a legal challenge for not being consulted in the development process.

Where’s the money for BC?

As far as the Project Development Agreement goes, much of the concern raised has been that the BC government is locking in the tax and regulatory regime for 25 years into the future. Changes made by subsequent governments – to the LNG tax, a special tax credit on corporate income tax, the BC carbon tax, and anything else that would affect project costs – would essentially have to pay compensation to Petronas. It is understandable why Petronas would seek such provisions, as this is a low-margin industry, and without them the company could not justify laying down tens of billions of dollars in capital investment.

However, what’s most disturbing is that this is a massive privatization of a public resource, for which the people of BC will get very little in return. Let’s look at the numbers:

Rafe- Woodfibre LNG is bad business for BC
Asian LNG prices have plummeted over the past year

Phase one of the project would produce 12 million tonnes of LNG per year for export, with a second phase that could raise that to 18 million tonnes. The actual amount of gas extracted, however, would be about 25% higher because of the huge amount of gas that would be used to extract, process, transport and liquefy the gas into exportable product.

For BC, there are two potential sources of gains: the revenues to the provincial government; and gains in employment.

Public revenues for BC depend on what price Petronas is able to get for LNG in Asia, but prices for LNG have crashed along with oil prices. It costs about $10 per mcf (thousand cubic feet) to land LNG in Asia due to the high costs of liquefaction and shipping, whereas current prices in Japan, Korea and China  are much lower ($7.45 to $7.85). So any company exporting BC LNG in the current market would be losing lots of money.

Petronas can benefit despite low prices

In spite of these horrible economics, it is possible that Petronas can justify paying a premium in order to secure supply over multiple decades, or its hope is that LNG prices will rise back to earlier highs. The initial hype for LNG was based on prices around $16, which seems completely unrealistic, especially given slowing demand for LNG worldwide, combined with lots of new (mostly Australian) LNG coming into the market.

So let’s assume landed price of $12, or about $2/mcf in profit, and 12 million tonnes (=576,000 mcf) of LNG exported per year. Based on that, over the 25 years of the agreement, the landed value of that LNG would be about $173 billion, and Petronas’ profit would be almost $29 billion.

Loopholes, slashed rates mean few export taxes for BC

BC lowered its corporate income tax rate for LNG to 8% so this would represent about $1.8 billion in corporate income tax over the 25 years. That said, this revenue may not be new money – the industry and government are now arguing that LNG exports are necessary to displace lost sales to the US.

BC also introduced a 3.5% LNG income tax, but allows companies to fully deduct capital costs before paying the full tax, a process that would take 8-10 years. This notably puts taxpayers on the hook for reduced revenues should there be cost over-runs (and this is an industry known for its cost over-runs). Over 25 years, BC would collect $600 to 700 million in LNG income tax assuming no cost over-runs.

Watershed Moment- How fracking, LNG, dams could reshape BC's future
A fracking operation in BC’s Montney Play (Damien Gillis)

Royalties are the other key revenue source. It is important to remember that royalties are not a tax, but the public’s share of the revenues for the exploitation of a public resource. In recent years, BC has been charging low royalties to keep production high, largely due to credits to companies for fracking operations. Those low royalties have averaged 7% per year, and assuming that rate over 25 years, this would amount to about $4 billion in royalties. A new royalty agreement with the proponents suggests these could be much lower, although it is hard to say how much.

Adding these together, BC would get about $6.5 billion in additional revenues over 25 years, or just over $200 million per year. Compare that to a provincial budget of $46 billion per year, and total provincial debt of $43 billion. There are also costs to the public sector associated with infrastructure, services and so forth, so we should really be looking at net revenues.

Revenues would go up if Petronas builds phase two, and its export capacity increases to 18 million tonnes per year. And prices in Asia could venture higher, thereby increasing corporate profits and BC’s share. On the other hand, I do not account for “transfer pricing,” whereby companies shift costs in order to minimize their global taxes payable.

Jobs in the hundreds not thousands

What about jobs? The Petronas environmental assessment application estimates a peak of 3,500 temporary jobs during the 3-year construction phase of the project. After that, only 200 to 300 permanent jobs. There would likely be some additional employment upstream due to increased fracking as well, but in total the job creation is very small given the size of the venture. And that’s assuming all of these full time jobs hire people who would otherwise be unemployed; if they just shift from another part of the economy the benefits are much less. In comparison, BC has 2.4 million employed people.

For all of the hype about LNG creating jobs and eliminating our provincial debt, these real-world numbers are underwhelming to say the least. Having campaigned on that hype in the provincial election two years ago, it appears our provincial government is willing to accept a bad deal over no deal.

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New Clothes- The generational rip-off of LNG

New Clothes: The generational rip-off of BC LNG

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New Clothes- The generational rip-off of LNG
A culturally modified tree tagged by LNG contractors (Graeme Pole)

By Graeme Pole

Thoreau said, among other things, “…beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.” Aboard the BC Ferry Northern Adventure, departing Prince Rupert and bound for Haida Gwaii, I trained my camera on the southern tip of Digby Island, recording images through a liquid sky. Three months earlier, while our family had picked a route through hemlock, cedar, and beach logs on that island, we had encountered a team of “archaeologists,” meticulously scribbling notebook entries as they decorated ancient spirit trees with fluorescent yellow flagging tape. New clothes.

Madii-Lii-Camp
Madii-Lii Camp, a First Nations-led blockade of LNG pipelines (Chris Zazula)

Confronted with a red cedar far too massive to encircle open-armed, and draped with yellow plastic, our youngest daughter asked me that day why the flagged trees were so special. Her question was genuinely innocent. My impromptu reply surprised me for being as inspired as it was brief: “Every tree is special.” I withheld elaborating. I could not bear to unload on our then seven-year old, half a lifetime’s cynicism derived from matters environmental.

The bearers of that flagging tape, who had helicoptered to work from Seal Cove that morning, and who would helicopter home that afternoon, needed to document every instance of culturally modified tree on south Digby Island. This, so that Aurora LNG could comply with a tedious impediment to business, known as an environmental assessment process, before intending to proceed, with the blessings of governments, to utterly destroy the place.

Legions of “biostitutes”

As the Northern Adventure chugged along, I attempted to visualize Aurora LNG’s conceptual plans (three of them) for berthing facilities among the islets off the southeastern tip of Digby Island. Those berths would accommodate ocean-going vessels 345 metres long – ships that would load and transport a dangerous cargo closer to human settlement (Dodge Cove, Metllakatla, and Prince Rupert) than the LNG industry itself deems safe. How can anyone in Prince Rupert get a good night’s sleep anymore?

Lelu Island and Flora Bank (foreground) - site of controversial proposed LNG plant (Skeena Watershed Conservation Soc.)
Lelu Island and Flora Bank (foreground) – site of controversial proposed LNG plant (Skeena Watershed Conservation Society)

Some contractor on the company’s payroll had supposedly done the fieldwork; had checked the soundings and the substrate, had given a cursory nod to wild species and natural processes, had deep-sixed concerns over risks to human life and to the circulating atmosphere of the planet, and had nonetheless drafted the plans. How much money does it take, how much take-home pay, to utterly pervert a person’s connection to place, to fresh air, wild things, and clean water; to permit a person educated in environmental science to say: “This will work. Build it here. We can mitigate. We can get to ‘yes’.”

I now agree with a sentiment that I initially had found repulsive: These people, doubtless well-intentioned at the outset, and now with diplomas and degrees now in hand, have become biostitutes. And there are legions of them, ATV-ing and helicoptering their per-diemed ways across the wilds of BC.

A bald eagle wheeled by. I watched the wind pummel the bird as it turned a wing skyward and fought to hold its track.

North of Hazelton

The Kispiox River, north of Hazelton, BC (Graeme Pole)
The Kispiox River, north of Hazelton, BC (Graeme Pole)

As Digby Island fell away to stern, a woman interrupted my silent lament, joining me at the starboard railing where I sought shelter from the rain under one of the lifeboat davits. She asked where I was from. “North of Hazelton.” Brief rain-soaked silence. “Beautiful country,” she replied. “My son has been working there for two years with an environmental company. Finding the best place for the pipeline to go.”

When we made landfall at Skidegate, Premier Clark and Petronas were the top story on the CBC Radio news. The Petronas board of directors had given Pacific Northwest LNG conditional approval. TransCanada Pipelines was already saying that it would begin, within six months, construction of the fracked gas pipeline that would supply the LNG plant proposed for Lelu Island in the Skeena estuary and, perhaps inconsequentially, wreck the place some 300 kilometres upstream that my wife and I had chosen to make home, exactly sixteen years ago.

By late evening that day, newsfeeds were reporting that the BC Oil and Gas Commission had issued the first two construction permits for that pipeline.

No matter

No matter that the federal environmental assessment of Pacific Northwest LNG – the destination of that proposed pipeline – was still underway, with the principal concern being impacts to wild salmon. No matter that Madii ‘Lii Camp of the Gitxsan First Nation nobly shuts down a 32 km length of the proposed pipeline’s route on unceded territory. No matter that this one LNG plant would increase the province’s greenhouse gas emissions by 8.5 percent over 2012 levels, at a time when law states that the province must decrease those emissions by 20 percent from 2007 levels. No matter that the “clean” label of LNG is a lie – the lifecycle emissions of shale gas converted to LNG are 43 percent dirtier than burning coal to achieve the same BTUs.

BC approves Petronas LNG plant and 2 more gas pipelines
Ex-Petronas CEO Shamsul Abbas with BC Premier Christy Clark

No matter that two of BC’s LNG proponents have atrocious environmental and human rights records elsewhere in the world. Sukanto Tanoto, president of Woodfibre LNG (proposed for Howe Sound), has been called “Indonesia’s lead driver of rainforest destruction.” In 2012 he was found guilty of US tax evasion and agreed to pay over $200 million in fines. Petronas has been accused of participating in “environmental genocide” in Sudan. (During her Asian LNG junkets, Premier Clark posed for photo ops with Tanoto and with Shamsul Abbas, then CEO of Petronas.)

No matter that the Blueberry River First Nations, in part seeking to thwart the upturn in fracking that the LNG industry would require, have filed suit in the Supreme Court of British Columbia over the breach of Treaty 8 that the oil and gas industry has brought to bear on their traditional lands. No matter. No matter. No matter. A chaos of vain carts before a stampede of proud horses.

“Generational opportunity”

For northwestern BC, Premier Clark’s ”generational opportunity” of an LNG industry requires of locals – who have a storied history with the comings and goings of boom and bust industries – an acceptance of more new clothes. A plague of white pick-up trucks descends on the landscape while helicopters buzz overhead at the edges of human settlement, sometimes at rooftop level. People who live elsewhere deem what will be imposed on the landscape of home, and why, and that it will be good for all. Motels and truck rental companies have a brief field day. Communities grapple with the ethics of huge money being proffered them by the agents of corporations from afar, who, until the dossier was dropped on their desk, had no idea where Hazelton was, or Gingolx, or Lax Kw’alaams.

Environmental consultants pop up in empty second floor suites all over Smithers, Terrace, Kitimat, and Prince Rupert, sometimes above the vacuous, street-level presence of their corporate employers. Smalltown main street becomes a meet-and-greet, “we are listening” playground for the denim and plaid, dressed-down suits of oil and gas corporations, domestic and foreign. And everyone knows that all these people want to do is to sell enough snake oil to allow the serpent to slither westward to the coast, to deliver its venom and devour a landscape, before it moves on to its next meal.

What money?

The provincial government claims that a billion dollars of taxable commerce has already taken place in BC’s new LNG economy. That’s a lot of leased trucks, hotel rooms, and restaurant meals. The revenue to the province (perhaps 70 million tax dollars) will not even begin to compensate for the government’s absolute giveaway of the methane resource. No net export taxes will be paid by LNG proponents until the capital costs of their projects have been recouped. The rate of levy then due the government will be less than you and I pay on a bag of potato chips.

Chevron's Gorgon LNG plant in Australia (Chevron)
Chevron’s Gorgon LNG plant in Australia (Chevron)

Petronas and the government forecast the corporate investment in Pacific Northwest LNG, its pipeline, and its fracking fields at 36 Billion dollars. The government cannot estimate its own LNG expenses already incurred, but to anyone who has lent even a cursory ear to the media, to the parade of announced pay-offs to First Nations, and to the glut of government-sponsored open houses, it is evident that the sum already far exceeds 70 million dollars. It is well into the hundreds of millions of dollars, with pledges to First Nations of $1.6 billion more over the next 40 years.

If the experience of the LNG industry in Australia were to play out in BC, there could be project cost overruns that approach fifty percent. Thus it would be decades after the first LNG shovels were put in the ground before the taxpayers of BC might see a nickel of return. Yet governing politicians continue to utter lies about the economic benefits of the industry almost nightly on the news.

Fear, distrust and grief

Going broke and dealing with a poisoned land are potential long-term fallout of the proposed LNG economy. In the present, nothing of lasting value has been created by its supposed billion dollars of activity. To the contrary, much of lasting harm has come to pass. Fear, distrust and grief have been bred in the hearts and minds of those who live on the land and who love it the way that it is, along with a sense of betrayal that is profound.

Gitxsan members blockade Highway 16 last December (Photo submitted)
Gitxsan members blockade Highway 16 (Photo submitted)

How far will the people of northwestern BC bend before they break? How much crap are they willing to take from a governing party that they did not elect; from an industry that they did not ask to trespass in their home? How much longer can they live in a mythical land that is off-the-radar of those in other parts of the province, just enough of whom apparently thought that the BC Liberals were a good idea?

As I arrived in Queen Charlotte City and the radio news concluded, I could still feel the damp, the rain, and the wind of earlier that day, as Lelu Island had fallen to port. And I knew – damp or not – that the inherent condition of that intertidal realm would not be enough to prevent the ignition of northwestern BC in the coming social and environmental firestorm.

LNG as metaphor

From wellhead to waterline, and yes, even out to sea, LNG has become a metaphor for many things. Rendered to fundamentals, the proposed industry represents for BC and Canada a place of clear reckoning: Accept the industry, and nothing about how we care for the Earth will change at all, let alone for the better. Oppose the industry, and we buy time for the Earth, its people, and its wild species and natural processes while we (perhaps) collectively figure out less harmful ways and means to exist here.

Governments long ago, at the bidding of their corporate patrons, reached their sell-out decision points. Individuals from all walks are just now waking up to this. We will have to co-operate; will have to intend a different reality if a different reality is to come to pass.

Billions will drop at the slightest shaking from the money trees of industry and government. That’s nothing new. The takers, aboriginal and non-aboriginal, will take. Those opposed will fret and will hold their higher ground. The ocean will pulse twice daily on the shores of British Columbia, like a measuring heartbeat.

But beware. This will go on for but a while longer, until and if each of us takes on the new clothes that the Earth and the ticking times require.

Graeme Pole is a resident of the Kispiox Valley and the publisher of nomorepipelines.ca

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BC govt hires accounting firm to give fracking a green stamp

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A storage pond in northeast BC containing fracking fluids (Image: Two Island Films)
A storage pond in northeast BC containing fracking fluids (Image: Two Island Films)

Republished with permission from the ECOreport

There are credible experts who believe that, with proper regulation and enforcement, it is possible to have a trustworthy fracking industry. They also say this does not yet exist in North America. Personally, I think the industry is out of control and BC’s government is desperate to get in bed with it.

Last week the government released a report from Ernst & Young (EY), based upon which Minister of Natural Gas Development Rich Coleman says, “British Columbians can have confidence they are benefiting from a clean, well regulated natural gas industry.” Does Ernst & Young’s LNG report vindicate BC?

Report ignores climate impacts of fracking

This “Review of British Columbia’s Hydraulic Fracturing Regulatory Framework” failed to consider some of the most serious issues of this debate.

With LNG, BC will fail to meet greenhouse gas targets
LNG plants produce big emissions

The Review does not use the term “Climate Change” and only mentions greenhouse gas emissions as outside “the scope of their project.” The Oil and Gas Regulation “does not place limits on the fumes generated by hydraulic fracturing activities.” There is no discussion of the effect LNG development will have on the province’s emissions targets.

BC would have to build 5 LNG terminals would to achieve the scale Premier Christy Clark talks about. That could add 73 million tonnes of carbon pollution, which Sierra Club BC says is “almost 20% more than B.C.’s entire 2013 reported emissions” (i.e. more than a doubling of the province’s entire current carbon footprint).

Matt Horne, of the Pembina Institute says it might be possible to build one large terminal, or two small ones, and still keep our emissions in check – to which Jens Wieting, of the Sierra Club, responds, “Is it worth the gamble!”

The province’s emissions rose 2.4% in 2013. BC is not on track to reach its’ goal of cutting back to 33% below 2007 levels by 2020.

Yet Premier Clark joined the “Under2 MoU,” whose members agree to “reduce their greenhouse gas emissions 80% to 95% below the 1990 benchmark by 2050, or achieve a per capita annual emission target of less than 2 metric tons by 2050.”

Secret fracking chemicals not addressed

Another serious limitation of the Review is its failure to discuss the fact industry is allowed not to disclose some of the chemicals it uses by branding them a “trade secret.” This topic was dismissed as falling under Federal jurisdiction.

According to a 2014 study from the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Center, more than 100 billion gallons of waste water have been injected into the province:

[quote]Wastewater is not tracked after disposal” (and) the fate of this massive quantity of wastewater is unknown … We don’t really know what toxins were in the waste water, or how much may have leaked into ground water or surface water. … Wastewater from fracking operations can contain radioactive materials, toxic metals like lead and arsenic, carcinogens like benzene and hexavalent chromium, chemicals used in fracking and high concentrations of salts.[/quote]

Halliburton refuses to disclose fracking chemicalsAccording to a spokesperson for the ministry, companies must submit information about the chemicals they use on the FracFocus portal. This includes the “trade name, supplier, purpose, ingredients, Chemical Abstract Service Number, maximum ingredient concentration by additive (% by mass) and maximum ingredient concentration in fluid (% by mass).”

Companies face penalties if they do not use FracFocus, but can withhold information about their trade secrets.

The Review said BC’s process is “comparable or better than other jurisdictions in chemical fluid disclosure.” This is true – the trade secret loophole is used through-out North America.

Abuse of short-term water permits

The Review does not deal with alleged abuses of back to back short-term water approvals. This allows companies to obtain water without going through the level of oversight connected to a water license. According to Ecojustice lawyer Karen Campbell, more than half the water used for fracking in BC, is obtained this way. In many cases, gas companies are taking water from the same sources that communities rely upon. For example, “Encana draws millions of litres of water from the Kiskatinaw River” – a key source of water for Dawson Creek.

Eoin Madden of the Wilderness Committee says “no one is watching how much water is disappearing” and the losses are “in billions of litres.”

This could become even more of an issue as the West Coast’s drought spreads to BC, but Ernst & Young’s discussion is limited to mentioning that companies using short-term approvals must report their monthly usage.

Cumulative effects

One of the “opportunities” the Review identified is to “Consider cumulative effects by taking a broader view in planning future development.  This approach can better protect against potential cumulative impacts, including environmental outcomes that may not be visible when using a more granular, activity-based process.”

See no evil, hear no evil

Ernst & Young put a high priority on the “development of appropriate requirements related to baseline testing and ongoing monitoring of surface or groundwater quality around production zones.” This “would provide an additional data to support results-based regulatory requirements and to monitor compliance.”

A related recommendation called for “baseline testing and ongoing monitoring of domestic water well quality around production wells.”

Amanda Frank, from the Center for Effective Government, gave a much clearer explanation:

[quote]You might have seen the film Gasland, where folks will turn on their taps and light the water on fire because of methane contamination, but unless operators have actually done pretesting of this water you really can’t say fracking did it. You might be absolutely sure, but you don’t have the scientific evidence.[/quote]

Fracking water issues keep bubbling to surface
Texas landowner Steve Lipsky has sparked a battle over fracking and water contamination (image: Gasland II)

A spokesperson from the Oil and Gas Commission said he was only aware of one alleged water contamination incident, from the Hudson’s Hope area in 2012, and “the BC Oil and Gas Commission’s Compliance & Enforcement Branch which found no basis to indicate that hydraulic fracturing that had occurred in the area had any bearing on the water quality in the wells.” To which Calvin Sanborn, Legal Director the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Center, responded, “The politicians will tell you there are no confirmed cases of water contamination. That’s because they haven’t hired anyone to look.”

Shaking all over

One area where BC has done well is monitoring seismic activity.  The report “Investigation of Observed Seismicity in the Horn River Basin (2012) documents 272 “events” that “were caused by fluid injection during hydraulic fracturing in proximity to pre-existing faults” between April 2009 and December 2011. Though most were too small to feel, the biggest was 3.8 on the richter scale.  The report added that there were another 8,000 “high-volume hydraulic fracturing completions…with no associated anomalous seismicity.”

A second study, Investigation of Observed Seismicity in the Montney Trend(2014) reported 231 seismic events, ranging from 2.5 to 4.4, between August 2013 and October 2014. None of these activities resulted in injury or property damage.

Magnitudes increasing in Alberta

If this makes you nervous, consider that more than 400 oil and gas related tremors have been recorded in Alberta between 1985 and 2010, and fifteen of them had a magnitude greater than 3.5. There was a 4.4 seismic event at Fox Creek earlier this year.

Gail Atkinson, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Induced Seismicity Hazards at Ontario’s Western University, observed, “the magnitudes have been increasing every year.”

Oklahoma breaking seismic records

Damage from Oklahoma's 2011 fracking-related earthquake (Brian Sherrod, United States Geological Survey)
Damage from Oklahoma’s 2011 fracking-related earthquake (Brian Sherrod, United States Geological Survey)

Similar observations have been made in Oklahoma, where earthquakes were not common prior to 2009. A record of 222 quakes was set in 2013 and broken in the first four months of the next year. The tally was close to 500 by the time 2014 was over and now that record has been broken. There were 468 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater during the first four months of 2015. The state’s energy regulator called it a game changer when another 35 quakes of 3.0 or higher struck in the week of June 17 to 24. There were another 10 in the next three days.

The industry keeps telling us there is no cause for concern, these are are all minor events that cause no damage, but a study from the University of Oklahoma suggests otherwise. The state’s largest ever earthquake was a 5.6 “event” that struck Prague on November 6, 2011. Pavement buckled, 2 people were injured, and 14 homes were destroyed. Seismologist Katie Keranen believed it was caused by injection wells used by the oil and gas industry.

This was not a view shared by Oklahoma’s official seismologist, the Corporation Commission or the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association (a trade group that lobbies for the interests of oil and gas producers).

Ernst & Young gives BC fracking its stamp of approval

LNG & Fracking: Risky Business for BC
A fracking drill in BC’s Montney play

After reviewing British Columbia’s reports of seismic events, Ernst and Young recommended more data be collected so that the Commission could “better understand the behavior of hydraulic fracturing indifferent formations.”

“Overall, hydraulic fracturing is well regulated in BC,” Ernst and Young claim in their “Review of British Columbia’s Hydraulic Fracturing Regulatory Framework“. They 3 areas where the BC Oil & Gas Commission is “demonstrating leadership or particularly effective regulatory practice” and 23 “opportunities” for improvement.

Ernst & Young added, “None of the opportunities that we identified in the three categories constitute major failings of the regulatory framework, nor do we believe that there are any significant sources of risk that remain untouched by regulation.”

The report was published on March 3 and the provincial government waited until June 18 before releasing it to the public.

In the accompanying press release, Rich Coleman, Minister of Natural Gas Development, boasted:

[quote]This independent report confirms what we’ve been saying for years – British Columbia has a robust regulatory framework governing hydraulic fracturing. In fact, this is the second recent impartial review to find B.C. has a strong regulatory framework. British Columbians can have confidence they are benefiting from a clean, well regulated natural gas industry.[/quote]

I wonder how much the government paid Ernst & Young for this “independent” report?

 

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Postmedia partners with LNG lobby to sell Woodfibre LNG – latest lapse in journalistic integrity

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Resource Works Executive Director Stewart Muir (Credit: Resource Works - Flickr  CC licence)
Resource Works ED and ex-Vancouver Sun deputy editor Stewart Muir (Resource Works – Flickr CC licence)

I am, as readers well know, a babe in the woods when it comes to matters of journalism. Ever naive, I read the papers in awe and know that all times they have my better understanding of affairs at heart.

Well then, imagine my horror when I found that my hopes and dreams had been dashed. I’m like that little boy seeing his idol, Shoeless Joe Jackson, arrested for cheating, mumbling through tears of disappointment, “Say it ain’t so, Joe.” Here’s how it happened.

About a year ago, one Stewart Muir, for nearly 14 years the Deputy Managing Editor of the Vancouver Sun, founded an organization called Resource Works, stated to be an independent organization dedicated to bringing people together to come up with sensible answers to environmental concerns. (As the Duke of Wellington said when a man accosted him on the street with “Mr. Robinson, I believe”, “If you’ll believe that you’ll believe anything! “).

As we have well demonstrated in these pages, one of Resource Works’ main functions – amidst broad platitudes about “breaking the ice in the controversial resource debate, through research and honest, respectful dialogue” – is to promote the controversial, proposed Woodfibre LNG project near Squamish.

Now comes the part where, if you’re a believer in newspaper honour and ethics, you’d be wise to pour yourself a stiff drink.

Dangerous liaison

The first thing available to you when you “Google” Resource Works is a document called “About Resource Works. It’s bright and full of pretty videos and even prettier statements about Resource Works. When you get to the bottom, it’s black as the inside of a goat with barely legible grey printing. Scroll down – make sure you have lots of light – and there’s a heading called “Partnerships”, which tells you, “We’re proud to work with a diverse range of partners“.

And who are these partners?

Under “P” just above RBC Royal Bank – are you ready for this? – none other than the Vancouver Province!

In the name of God, the Province, Resource Works, and by logical extension, Woodfibre LNG, are partners!

In short, Postmedia, which includes the Vancouver Sun, the Province, and the flagship National Post are shills for  a highly controversial undertaking which we expect them to hold to account on our behalf!

Composite of Resource Works "Partnerships" page
Composite of Resource Works “Partnerships” page

Conflict of interest?

Is it any surprise that the Province doesn’t care about the ethics of the owner of Woodfibre LNG? Or any wonder they’re not concerned that Howe Sound and the Fraser River are too narrow for LNG tankers?

This is a good moment to look at how a newspaper ought to behave, as outlined in the Pew Reseach Centre’s nine core principles of journalism:

[quote]While news organizations answer to many constituencies, including advertisers and shareholders, the journalists in those organizations must maintain allegiance to citizens and the larger public interest above any other if they are to provide the news without fear or favour. This commitment to citizens first is the basis of a news organization’s credibility, the implied covenant that tells the audience the coverage is not slanted for friends or advertisers.[/quote]

I can’t imagine any publisher or editor arguing with the proposition that their papers cannot place themselves in a conflict of interest, real or perceived, any more than a Member of Parliament or MLA can. Remember the merry hell the media raised with then Premier Vander Zalm when he confused his role as premier with hustler of a theme park?

Industry gets easy ride from papers

Let’s look, then, at two environmental issues which have come to the fore since the Campbell government came into power in 2001 and see if we can spot a conflict of interest?

During that time, The Sun and Province each had a political columnist, Vaughn Palmer for the former and Mike Smyth for the latter.

First, a quick look back at Palmer’s columns during the NDP decade. He was thorough, critical, and accurate. He almost single-handedly brought down the Glen Clark premiership with his coverage of the fast ferry fiasco. I can’t think of any issue where the NDP of that decade got an easy ride from Palmer – nor, for that matter, should they have

Starting in 2001, Palmer changed from being a government critic to being only a critic of things that were not going to get his newspaper into trouble with the government or advertisers.

Example: Early in his regime, Campbell brought in a new energy policy which, with the exception of Site “C”, forbade BC Hydro from creating any new sources of power and gave that right exclusively to the private sector. This “Run Of River” policy is, far from being a benign as advertised, hugely destructive in several respects. Prominent economists added the concern that BC Hydro was losing buckets of money by being forced to buy private power at several times the cost of either importing or making the power themselves.

Private power play

This was a big election issue in 2009, every bit as egregious a sin, hell, far more egregious than the Fast Ferries debacle. There was the documented damage to rivers not just by dams (the private power people preferred “weirs”) but roads and power lines to the critical insect population, the resident trout that were seriously imperilled, as were spawning salmon, and thus gulls and eagles – a plethora of issues.

Palmer rarely covered this policy and when he did, it was usually in defence of it. For 14 years, Palmer and Sun editorials have spared the Liberals from a moment’s discomfort on this subject!

Palmer ignores troubling LNG facts

Fast forward to more recent days, the Christy Clark government and LNG. Clark, apart from making a horse’s ass of herself with promises of a hundred billion dollar Prosperity Fund, has displayed child-like indifference to the many serious issues involved.

Woodfibre LNG proponent has history of fraud, tax evasion
Sukanto Tanoto (right)

For starters, wouldn’t you think that Palmer, would have  thoroughly investigated the background of Sukanto Tanoto, the man behind Woodfibre LNG?

As everyone knows, Mr. Tanoto is a convicted, big league tax avoider and destroyer of tropical jungles. The evidence is thorough and easily available but Postmedia and Palmer seem quite uninterested in whether or not WLNG would pay its taxes and respect our environment.

There is now overwhelming evidence from leading scientists that both Howe Sound and the Fraser River are far too narrow to sustain LNG tanker traffic. This, apparently, is of no concern to Palmer and Postmedia either

Why not?, I wonder.

There are, of course, many other concerns about LNG, including fracking, transferring natural gas to the plant, converting it into LNG, and the hazards of producing it and loading it for transport. Again, one would’ve expected Mr. Palmer to examine this issue pretty carefully. To the best of my knowledge, he has not written a word on these problems.

Neither has Mike Smyth for the Province written much critical on these two enormous issues.

Why would these men avoid these two major topics. They are both skilled writers and it’s hard to explain their silence. Could they be under outside pressure? That suspicion certainly crosses the mind.

Postmedia sells journalistic credibility to oil lobby

Last year, the Vancouver Observer reported on a Postmedia presentation that outlined a content strategy including several Financial Post “Special Report” sections, with topics to be arranged by Postmedia and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP).

The partnership also includes 12 single-page “joint venture” features in newspapers across the country. Those are different from “special reports” in that CAPP fully directs the topics and Postmedia writers just pen them.

This note from Douglas Kelly, the publisher of Postmedia’s National Post, may help explain these, ahem, corporate blow-jobs:

[quote]From its inception, the National Post has been one of the country’s leading voices on the importance of energy to Canada’s business competitiveness internationally and our economic well being in general. We will work with CAPP to amplify our energy mandate and to be part of the solution to keep Canada competitive in the global marketplace. The National Post will undertake to leverage all means editorially, technically and creatively to further this critical conversation.[/quote]

Now there’s “arms length” journalism for you! This helps explain the Sun and Province’s support for the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion, opposed by many municipalities and citizens affected by the project.

A lucrative partnership

Resource Works and the Province have had a very profitable time as partners.

RW teamed up with the paper to produce a weekly feature on how important trade, industry and resource development are to the B.C. economy. Combining company propaganda and being partners, one can assume that the financial deal was very favourable to the Province.

Postmedia alum Muir gets lots of op-ed ink from his old employer
Postmedia alum Muir gets lots of op-ed ink from his old employer

The Province gave Muir a podium to argue that we can’t have health care without LNG development. It continues to give him a regular soapbox, as you will have noticed in what appear to be op-ed pieces at will. You might also have noticed that when I, for example, answer one of his screeds, it’s heavily censored and published several days later, if at all…after which Muir is given free reign to rebut my rebuttal.

The Province also gave a similar podium to Resource Works adviser Dan Miller, who was briefly premier as the New Democrats imploded in 2000. Miller is a long-time resource industry evangelist and a consultant with PR powerhouse National Public Relations, which has Enbridge as a client. Partners, you see, are nothing if not loyal.

Clearly, Postmedia takes its obligation as RW’s partner very seriously indeed!

Did Resource Works doctor interview?

But could it be that despite all this, Resource Works is still telling us the true state of affairs?

Screen capture of alleged interview by Meena Mann (left) with Dr. Mike Hightower (right), which appears to have been doctored
Screen capture of alleged interview by Meena Mann (left) with Dr. Mike Hightower (right), which appears to have been doctored

To answer that, I’m going to poach on my own column, here, of March 15, 2015. I’m satisfied that it succinctly and fairly sums up the situation.

The Province and Sun haven’t uttered a peep of concern about the adequacy of Howe Sound to handle LNG tankers. Perhaps this has something to do with their partnership with their old colleague Muir and his Resource Works – d’ya think?

When they unveiled their Citizens Guide to LNG: Sea to Sky Country Edition in March, we were told to watch a video interview of Dr. Michael Hightower, an expert on tanker traffic.

Here is what I wrote, in part:

Let’s look at transportation of LNG by tanker through Howe Sound. I do that not just because it’s of enormous concern to everybody who lives along the proposed route, but because Resource Works dwells upon the issue. They concede that if tankers go too close to the shore, there could be a problem. However, they assure us there is no problem because they spoke to Dr. Mike Hightower, of Sandia Laboratories in New Mexico, a world acknowledged expert on the subject, who’s developed a protocol accepted by US authorities for the distances ships must maintain between themselves and the shore.

Resource Works has produced a number of videos which they make available to the public in order to sell the benefits of LNG. In all of them the interviewer is an attractive young lady named Meena Mann. It is in one of them, featured on the Vancouver Province (surprise, surprise!) website, where Dr. Hightower appears to talk to Ms. Mann about LNG and tankers and you would likely conclude that there is very little danger, if any, posed by LNG tankers in Howe Sound.

Here is what Sandia has reported, based upon Dr Hightower’s work:

“Sandia National Laboratories defines for the US Department of Energy three Hazard Zones (also called “Zones of Concern”) surrounding LNG carriers. The largest Zone is 2.2 miles/3,500 meters around the vessel, indicating that LNG ports and tankers must be located at least that distance from civilians. Some world-recognized LNG hazard experts, such as Dr. Jerry Havens (University of Arkansas; former Coast Guard LNG vapor hazard researcher), indicate that three miles or more is a more realistic Hazard Zone distance.”

What the video does not tell you is that Dr. Hightower had not addressed his attention to Howe Sound, and when local resident Dr. Eoin Finn did so, Dr. Hightower concurred that Bowen Island and parts of West Vancouver are very much at risk – within the 1-mile radius – as are parts of the Sea-to-Sky Highway and Lions Bay/Bowyer Island. In other words, if one accepts Dr. Hightower’s formula, as Resource Works clearly does, there is no way any LNG tankers would be permitted to proceed from Squamish to the ocean.

Dr. Finn, a  former KPMG partner and chemistry PhD, took the time to phone Dr. Hightower because the interview didn’t look quite right. Well, it wasn’t right because it wasn’t conducted by Meena Mann at all but by a male!

Was the question changed when Ms. Mann did her fake interview? Was Dr. Hightower’s answer altered? I don’t know but this sort of shabby deception is bound to raise doubts like this. What we do know is that far from supporting Resource Works’ assertion that LNG tanker traffic is safe in Howe Sound, given the facts, Dr. Hightower comes to exactly the opposite conclusion …

Resource Works is guilty of a hugely deceptive practice. Even if Miss Mann asked precisely the same questions the real interviewer did, there are different inflections in the voice no doubt and her body language during the interview was, to say the least, descriptive of her feelings. If this is an example of the integrity of Resource Works, they are not entitled to any credibility whatsoever.

Resource Works’ distortions continue.

A case was brought in 2013 against Encana and the province by the Wilderness Committee and Sierra Club. The issue was whether or not section 8 of the Water Act, which allows back-to-back short-term permits, was valid. That was the sole issue; the judge made it clear that she wasn’t deciding on the government’s overall water policy, or the “fracking” question, but whether back-to-back short term water leases under The Water Act were valid – bear that in mind.

Resource Works, in reporting this – and I quote, from page 47 of A Citizen’s Guide To LNG: Sea To Sky Country Edition – states: “When a ruling came down in late 2014 it showed that the regulatory processes in place, and industry compliance with them, are sound and well managed.

“In an overwhelming endorsement of current practices in water protection, Justice Fitzpatrick concluded that when it comes to the regulation of industries water usage, British Columbia is in good shape with a “justifiable transparent and intelligible framework for the regulation of short term water use.”

In fact, she did no such thing as a reading of the judgment makes abundantly clear. She confined her decision to the interpretation of Section 8 only. The issue was whether or not section 8 of the Water Act, which allows gas companies to get an endless number of water approvals back-to-back, was lawful.

Only a practitioner of the black arts of Public Relations could read into Madam Justice Fitzpatrick’s judgment that she said “that the regulatory processes in place, and industry compliance with them, are sound and well managed”, or “when it comes to the regulation of industries water usage, British Columbia is in good shape.’”

She simply did not say this!

Over the decades, I’ve seen unscrupulous people misquote judges but never have I seen a situation like this where the judge’s words were completely made up to suit!

Credibility gap

Surely, one’s entitled to conclude that this sort of dissembling, distortion, and outright misrepresentation colours all of the presentations of this outfit not to mention their partners, Postmedia.

What we have then is an organization, Resource Works, set up to deceive people and they’ve diligently done just that. They pretended initially that they were “independents” only trying to get a dialogue going between people but, as anybody who takes a glance at this issue would quickly confirm, this was barnyard droppings. RW is clearly a shill for Woodfibre LNG, plain and simple.

Part of this process of deceiving the public comes in what Resource Works does not say. It’s interesting, for example, that A Citizen’s Guide To LNG: Sea To Sky Country Edition doesn’t touch the issue of “fracking” until page 46 and then only in two brief paragraphs. It mentions that there is a US documentary on the subject but says that they, Resource Works, don’t think there’s any evidence of problems with “fracking” in BC. If that doesn’t convince you, I ask you, what will?

To make matters much worse – and the purpose of this column – is that one of the largest media corporations in Canada is involved up to their ears in this sham – I nearly said scam – and no longer can make any pretence at providing independent information for its readers. It’s like a clock that strikes 13 – you can never trust it again.

Is that overstating the matter?

I think not.

Circling the drain

By their own clear admission, Postmedia is in deep financial trouble, laying off and buying out huge numbers of employees. Their stated reason is lack of advertising revenue. Does this affect their reporting of what advertisers, current and potential, are up to? Does it impact on how they report on governments supported by those advertisers? Has it made it attractive enough for them to ignore time-honoured journalistic ethics and make unholy alliances? These thoughts are bound to occur to one.

When you read nothing from either the local paper’s political commentators on the downside of the Woodfibre LNG proposal, given that Postmedia’s a partner, does it not immediately occur to you that something’s strange here? Here’s an issue which may bring down the Clark government and both Vaughn Palmer and Mike Smyth, political commentators, are apparently not interested!

Can we trust anything concerning LNG when it appears in Postmedia? Can they be trusted to fairly present opposition to Woodfibre LNG? What are they not reporting?

My father used to say, “Rafe, don’t believe everything that you read in the newspapers.” I change that advice to my children and grandchildren by saying, “apart from the comic strips and possibly the Obituary Page, don’t believe a damn thing you read in the newspapers!”

Unless, of course, you believe in the Easter Bunny, think slot machines are fair and are interested in buying a bridge I have for sale.

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