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Rafe: With LNG approval, Trudeau govt shows true colours…but we shouldn’t be suprised

September 29, 2016Carbon Tax - Cap and Trade, Climate Change, Climate Science, Energy and Resources, LNG, Oil&GasfeaturedRafe Mair

Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna with BC Premier Christy Clark (right) announcing her government's approval of PNWLNG (Province of BC/Flickr) — Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna with Industry Minister Jim Carr (left) and BC Premier Christy Clark (right) announcing the federal government’s approval of PNWLNG (Province of BC/Flickr)

[quote]Developing a climate plan to meet Canada’s Paris Agreement commitments is a challenging but achievable task for the federal government. Doing so while meeting Alberta’s and BC’s oil and gas production growth aspirations, however, will be virtually impossible.

The oil and gas industry is certainly not going away any time soon, but if Canada is serious about meeting its climate commitments it is time for the prime minister and premiers to do the math and stop telling us we can have it all. – David Hughes, geoscientist, shale gas expert and 32-year retired veteran the Geological Survey of Canada.[/quote]

British Columbians have every reason to be fighting mad at Trudeau’s decision to approve the Pacific Northwest LNG project. Yes, every reason to be fighting mad but absolutely no reason to be surprised.

Philosopher George Santayana famously said, “Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it” and we just had that jammed up…er, shoved in our face.

Already early this year, people like Dr. David Suzuki, Norman Farrell of In-Sights and myself and colleagues at this publication were raising the issue that Trudeau’s emerging Liberal environmental policy was inconsistent with the commitments he had made at Paris.

Well, you will never find a clearer example of the dissembling and hypocrisy of this two-faced Trudeau bunch than in my constituency of West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country.

Woodfibre LNG approval was first clue

Liberal MP Pamela Goldsmith-Jones (Flickr/CreativeMornings Vancouver/Matthew Smith)

It’s no exaggeration to say that the only substantive issue in the 2015 election was the proposed Woodfibre LNG plant at Squamish (WLNG). People were enraged at the Harper government and MP John Weston on this issue, wanted to see the end of them, looked for a considerable period as if they would vote Green, panicked at the thought of a split vote and the Tories returned to ruin Howe Sound with WLNG, and so switched to the Liberal candidate – former West Vancouver mayor Pamela Goldsmith-Jones – who’d pledged she would support the wishes of her constituents.

In an election where the only substantive issue was WLNG, it was not surprising that Goldsmith-Jones won by a landslide. Having been assured that there would be consultation with them, voters felt confident that at worst they would have a fair opportunity to be heard.

Ha! Silly buggers trusted this new, attractive and sweet-talking Prime Minister and had forgotten Santayana entirely. Completely out of the blue, on March 18 last, environment minister Catherine McKenna quietly announced the Trudeau government approval of WLNG.

Environmental assessments still broken

Apart from all else, the so-called environmental assessment process was flawed unto fraudulent, such that Trudeau promises a review and fixes during the election. We’re not talking technicalities here but very substantial concerns about deadly, poisonous discharges – both into the atmosphere and directly into Howe Sound, putting all sea life at serious risk, including recently restored salmon and herring runs. There was no consideration given to the width of Howe Sound, considered grossly unsafe for LNG tanker traffic both by international rules and the industry’s own standards.

Not only were the people of the area not consulted, they were deliberately misled. Sandbagged is the better word. The esteemed, former mayor of West Vancouver, now Trudeau’s MP and parliamentary secretary to the foreign minister, was not even advised that this decision was pending, much less given notice that it had been made.

After it was released in such a shocking, high-handed manner, she clearly lacked the guts to speak out and hasn’t done so to this day.

In fact, the deception and hypocrisy didn’t end there by any means. On the orders of her government, Goldsmith-Jones held two sets of public hearings, after the decision, neither of which dealt with the wisdom of the decision. Indeed, the second group was classic Liberal cynicism that should have been as familiar to us as Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

These meetings were held so that the government (the same one that had just approved WLNG) could explain it to the rabble, all aspects of climate change and how we could prevent it. There was just one niggling detail – we weren’t permitted to raise the issue of pollution from LNG, the most significant contributor to climate change! Nothing, of course, to do with the fact that the same Trudeau government had just approved the LNG plant in Squamish which would contribute dramatically to climate change!

Fox put in charge of the hen house

By now you must be begging for mercy, but there’s one more dollop of pure Liberal party policy, so typical that you can evaluate the rest of the process by it.

Now the damage has been done, Trudeau, to the accompanying of sucking from our MP, has set up an environmental review process.

Guess who the chair of this process will be?

Doug Horswill - LNG lobbyist and Trudeau-appointee to review environmental assessments — Doug Horswill – LNG lobbyist and Trudeau-appointee to review environmental assessments

Doug Horswill, Founding Chair of Resource Works, an industry advocacy group founded for the sole purpose of doing everything possible to get government approval for Woodfibre LNG!

My comment at the time was that this was the worst example of cynicism since Caligula made his horse a Consul. DeSmog Blog was bang on when they declared “the overarching message of Resource Works is that continued extraction of natural resources is essential to B.C.’s prosperity and anything that stands in the way of extraction — local opposition, regulations, taxes — is a threat to that prosperity. It’s a message they repeat over and over and over.”

What’s good for the Liberal Party

So now we have it. The tinpot dictator with the boyish smile arbitrarily approving a legally-contentious project, not approved by the First Nations involved, clearly a substantial threat to fish, a traditional part of First Nations existence, and without any concern whatever for the environmental and social consequences.

Will we ever learn the one fundamental principle that has always guided the Liberal party? “What’s Good For The Liberal Party Is Good For The Nation.”

I leave you with one question: Aren’t you glad we got rid of that soulless dictator Stephen Harper and his pals, the oil industry, so bent on destroying our natural resources, atmosphere, and principles of fair play?

Rafe: Why Judges should be judged too

September 23, 2016UncategorizedfeaturedRafe Mair

I’m a lawyer by trade and recently helped celebrate the 60th anniversary of the UBC Law Class of 1956. Like all of my classmates, I am very proud of our Class, one of those of those extraordinary comings together of individuals who somehow become an identifiable entity.

Out of the 56 who graduated, 14 became judges. They were all a great credit to our Class, the Bar and the Bench. It is therefore with considerable trepidation that I criticize the Bench in anyway.

This, perhaps, is the genesis of the problem. Judges are seldom criticized and, when they are, it seems that every lawyer in the country springs to their defense, stating that they don’t have the ability to defend themselves because of their lofty position.

But they must be held to account when they go off base.

This is especially so because they are in that protected position and can only be fired under the most exhausting of procedures.

“Shock Jock”

I want to quickly recount a personal story which only troubles me because it indicates an exceptional protection for judges no one else has.

A few years ago, as a litigant/defendant, I won a very important libel case in the Supreme Court of Canada with the entire bench sitting and the vote being 9-0 in my favour. I had nothing to do with this other than state the words complained of – I was just a spectator.

I’m proud of my broadcasting career – I admit that I was sometimes outspoken but my professionalism was recognized by my receiving the Bruce Hutchison Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jack Webster Foundation, the Michener Award, the highest award in Canadian broadcasting, and election to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ Hall of Fame. I was, therefore, indeed pissed off when one of the judges referred to me as a “shock jock”, the equivalent of me referring to him as a former shyster.

I wrote to the judge and politely but firmly demanded an apology and, as you might imagine, got a bunch of mumbo-jumbo back from a secretary.

Not content, I wrote to Chief Justice McLachlin and demanded from her that I receive an apology and I asked whether or not judges were shielded from the normal strictures of good manners and appropriate behaviour towards people who appear before them. Again, I received mumbo-jumbo.

I was taught as a young man by my lawyer idol, M.M. McFarlane, to stand up for my rights as a barrister and since he became Treasurer of the Law Society, a judge of both the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal, it was authoritative advice and my candid discussions with the Supreme Court of Canada are not the only ones I had with the Bench.

Unjust treatment

For most of my years in practice, ending in 1975, women were treated very badly by all branches of the Bench. They were put down at every opportunity, their cases were trivialized, and if they won the case, they felt a great deal more humiliation than pleasure.

Recently, we have seen three judges hailed before the Special Committed for outrageously insensitive remarks to young women who have been sexually attacked. It is hard to believe that any man today would utter these words, much less a learned judge, but they did.

When I moved to Kamloops to practice in 1969, it did not take me long to learn that First Nations were treated like rubbish by the courts and the prosecutors, usually RCMP officers.

On one occasion I was in court in Prince George waiting to set a trial date and I watched the trial of a young First Nations lad accused of driving while his license was suspended. It had been suspended by the superintendent, not a judge, and the distinction is an important one because in the latter case it is contempt of court and usually brings a jail sentence and in the former it’s like getting a serious traffic ticket and you are fined.

At the close of the case, the judge looked around the courtroom and asked if there were any members of the press. There were not, so the judge, even though there were no previous offences, sentenced him to six months in jail. I wish that I’d had the courage to jump up and raise hell but I didn’t. I wrote the Attorney General but, sadly, nothing came of it.

On another occasion I represented two young First Nations lads who had been fairly seriously hurt in a traffic accident and the Supreme Court judge who tried the case treated them as if they were barely above imbecility, made it pretty clear that people of this stature really didn’t deserve damages anyway and dismissed the case. I’m happy to say I took the matter, pro bono, to the Court of Appeal, which sorted things out appropriately.

Six months in jail for just smoking pot

The reason that tipped the balance in favour of this article today was learning that both Terry Jacks and his former wife Susan Jacks are quite ill in hospital. I remain a huge fan, especially of the Poppy Family of the the 60s.

When I wrote Terry and Susan wishing them well, I could not stop humming, from the Poppy Family, “Oh, dear, what can the matter be?” The key line in the song is “six months in jail for just smoking pot”.

I flashed back to a case I took for a 16 year old boy in the 60s who’d been charged with smoking pot. His father, a friend of mine, was horrified to learn that there was nothing I could do to prevent his son from going to adult jail for six months. The BC Court of Appeal had mandated that to be the minimum sentence, no matter what the circumstances were.

These old men, who had no compunction about drinking a belly full of good scotch whiskey when they felt like it, were sending kids to jail for smoking a joint.

You may think lawyers are insensitive but that just isn’t so. I can still see that young man, tears rolling down his face, and his father and mother hanging onto him as he was taken away to the slammer for smoking something illegal.

A test for judges

All of this is simply to make this point: Judges do an admirable job day in and day out – it is not an easy job and it is one which I was once offered and couldn’t turn down fast enough.

When they do take the position, however, there must be some sort of testing of their attitudes, to determine their suitability to judge people based upon the year they’re living in, not the one in which they went to school.

If you had asked me a few months ago whether or not any judges in Canada would tell a woman who had been raped that she should have clamped her knees together, I would not have believed it. Surely to God those days are long behind us.

Well, we know that three Supreme Court judges would have proved me wrong and one has to wonder if they are the only ones or, more likely, symptoms of a much larger problem.

Leaving aside the horrible injustice committed by the judges I have referred to, think of the terrible impact they have upon the people who were forced to trust them to give them her Majesty’s justice.

It is now the duty of our minister of justice, The Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould, herself First Nations, to put in place procedures to determine if judges under her jurisdiction have been properly examined as to their suitability to judge people on the law and the moral standards of today – not something they think the law should be or standards they learned 70 years ago in much different times.

Why Donald Trump will probably beat Hillary Clinton

September 15, 2016International, PoliticsfeaturedRafe Mair

Why Donald Trump will likely beat Hillary Clinton — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (Gage Skidmore / Flickr CC Licence)

Of course Donald Trump could beat Hillary in November. I think he will, but before going further, let me say that this would be any enormous worldwide tragedy and we must pray that there is a God and He will save us.

Back to the election.

Trump is in a lot better shape than the pundits give him credit for and he couldn’t have done it without a hell of a lot of help from Hillary.

She has been in the race too long and it’s showing. She’s displaying her temper and a lack of judgment – not to mention her recent health issues – things that everyone has but no-no’s when you’re running for president.

But let’s get to the underlying reason Trump is doing so well.

Whole new ballgame

The media and pollsters have been caught out making outdated assumptions and asking irrelevant questions. They’re looking at this contest through the prism of elections past and are still declaring their choice of issues and missing the main one. It’s easier that way – research and thinking take up booze time.

It’s an entirely new ballgame and I refer back to articles I’ve done here and elsewhere saying that society as we have come to know it is mortally wounded and it’s impossible to predict just what it’s going to look like a decade from now.

The first major clue for me anyway, was on the environmental front. Environmentalism was always a leftwing issue and often the loony left at that.

With the arrival of global warming, it suddenly occurred to the masses that there were troubles in River City and that maybe those grubby long-hairs marching with the placards had something after all. When science, almost to a person, backed up the demonstrators of yore and the evidence grew almost daily, suddenly the middle class caught on and development no longer trumped all other considerations.

The secret, always suspected, was out of the bag and we learned that the Establishment had been lying for a very long time and that the public had naively come to uncritically accept what they were told by their “betters”. Once it became obvious with the climate issue that all these good corporate citizens, our politicians and community leaders had not been telling the truth, it was a very short step to assuming that anything they said was suspect. This manifested itself in movements like Occupy Wall Street by young people and outrage increasing through social media.

The Mainstream Media had no choice but get into the Establishment life-boat. The world over, the rich increased the gap between themselves and the poor and as that gap widened, carrying more and more power with it, the resentment of the poor became stronger and stronger.

Brexit offers clues to Trump’s success

The latest and best example of this was Brexit in Britain, England especially. I wrote an article on the subject that that the main issue was being obscured by the media and that the underlying cause of discontent simply wasn’t being recognized.

Now there are lots of reasons that Brexit went as it did and no doubt all made a contribution. In my view, however, there was one principal cause and one sub-cause that really did the EU in.

The same “pissed off mood” existed in Britain as elsewhere and those who were that way and voted “Leave” probably wouldn’t recognize that. “Real Reasons” are hard to determine, especially if you don’t try.

I offer as an hypothesis that the “Leave” vote was that deep down feeling of resentment of being fooled, aggravated by more recent “insults”, as many people felt that they had been cheated and subjected to a “bait and switch” by those set in authority over them.

If you look back at the process you will see that the first referendum in 1975 simply wanted to know if Britain, having finally been accepted by de Gaulle wished to stay in the common market. The operative word throughout was “market”. This was not portrayed as approval of any kind of a political union and had it been, it clearly would have failed. To Britain, an economic deal looked like a pretty good idea and they voted for it by a substantial margin.

It was under the presidency of Jacques Delors, an unelected bureaucrat, from 1986 till 1994. that the Common Market inexorably moved to a political union. Delors was detested by many in Britain.

It is a long history and I don’t wish to oversimplify it but just point out that by the time of the Brexit vote on June 23, 2016, the same massive irritation with the establishment that we saw in North America was also present in Britain and a substantial part of that irritation came from Jacques Delors and a political union they neither voted for but in fact opposed.

For many, the Brexit vote was a chance to rectify what they saw as a “bait and switch” scam by the elite that started off as a marketplace and ended up in a huge, meddlesome bureaucracy in Brussels.

Public ready for a brawl

Enter the US election with the same festering distrust of the establishment. The pundits and the pollsters, stuck in a time warp, are overlooking reality and the “garbage in, garbage out” rule comes into play.

Much of the public, both on the right and on the left, is thoroughly pissed at where their social, economic, and political masters have taken them and they aren’t much interested in debates under the Marquess of Queensbury rules, seen as the Elite’s rules, preferring a brawl if necessary.

This has given Trump a big advantage. As long as he hammers at Clinton, the dissident voters are happy and don’t much care about the truth or fairness of the attack.

In fact, the more outrageous he is, the more popular he becomes. Many wonder how Trump can get away with it and it’s because a large part of the American public is quite willing to let him get away with it if it gets the job done and turfs out what they see as the enemy.

Trump fights by own rules

In the meantime, Hillary Clinton is playing right into Trumps hands. The more she calls his supporters names the more they support him. It stands to reason that when she calls Trump bad names, they support him if only because Clinton represents all of the things they’re mad at and the more bumps on the nose of the privileged, the better.

It is not all Hillary’s fault of course. I doubt there are many politicians of consequence prepared to fight a man like Trump because he doesn’t fight by the old rules and they don’t know how to fight by the new ones.

Paradoxically, Trump could probably buy out the Clintons 100 times or maybe 1000, yet the Clintons are seen as the ones who have taken advantage of the system and enriched themselves at the expense of the least well off. That is a base canard but the reality is that this is how it appears to disaffected voters, and appearances are as good as facts in politics.

I will now assure the victory of Hillary Clinton by making a famous Mair political prediction – which will, as always, be wrong – and say that Donald Trump will succeed President Obama next January…and may God have mercy on all of us if for once I’m right.

Justice for Peace Caravan tells Trudeau: Keep your promises to First Nations

September 11, 2016First Nations, Hydropower, WATERfeaturedDamien Gillis

Members of the Treat 8 "Justice for the Peace" Caravan (Photo: Gary McNutt) — Members of the Treat 8 “Justice for the Peace” Caravan (Photo: Gary McNutt)

Submitted by Andrea Palframan

On September 12, the Federal Court of Appeal in Montreal will hear the latest legal challenge to the massive Site C hydroelectric dam already under construction on Treaty 8 territory in northeast British Columbia. First Nations community members from Treaty 8 are travelling on a caravan across Canada to focus attention of the importance of this case to the rights of all treaty nations and to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s promised new relationship with First Nations.

The Justice for the Peace caravan has been supported by LeadNow and is endorsed by the Assembly of First Nations British Columbia, the First Nations Leadership Summit, and the Union of BC Indian Chiefs.

Prophet River and West Moberly First Nations have been fighting the Site C hydroelectric dam project for close to five decades. Site C is a disastrous plan to build a giant dam in the Peace River Valley of northeastern BC. It’s an $8.8 billion project that will flood 83 km of farmland, drown wildlife habitat, and trample indigenous rights — all to supply electricity for dirty tar sands extraction and fracking.

Site C Dam is a litmus test of the commitments made by Canada to have a renewed, nation-to-nation relationship with First Nations. Treaty 8 Justice for the Peace Caravan are joining thousands of supporters in calling for a respectful relationship that honours Treaties and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, head of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, called the federal government’s permitting of the Site-C Dam “an absolute betrayal of all of the commitments and promises Prime Minister Trudeau made during the last election.” He called on young people to be a part of history by stepping up and taking action to protect the Peace River: and they are.

Youth delegate Helen Knott, who is blogging about the caravan at reclaimthewarrior.wordpress.com, says that although dam construction is underway, “Only a small fraction of land has been cleared and the earth is so resilient that it has already begun to heal itself. It is not too late to stop this dam. It can and will be stopped.”

Says Caleb Behn, Treaty 8 member and Executive Director of Keepers of the Water:

[quote]We are the heart and soul of the oil and gas economy in this country. We have given coal. We have given oil. We have given trees. My dad went to residential school. We gave souls…And this is how you’re going to treat us in the 21st century? This is the kind of hypocrisy that makes me question the wisdom of my ancestors choosing to sign on to treaties.[/quote]

With their Justice for the Peace Caravan, Treay 8 members and their allies are make it loud and clear that if the Trudeau government is serious about a renewed relationship with First Nations, it is unacceptable to issue construction permits while there’s an outstanding First Nations legal challenge about the Site C dam.

The West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations are appealing a federal Judge’s decision to approve the construction of Site-C despite the project’s violation of their constitutionally-protected rights to hunt, fish, and trap. After months of waiting for a trial date, they’re appearing in court on September 12. When the House of Commons resumes sitting a few days later, they’ll head to Ottawa to deliver 20,000+ petition signatures and meet with key Ministers on the file.

“We’ve raised nearly $300,000 for Treaty 8 First Nations’ legal challenges,” says Susan Smitten, executive director of RAVEN Trust.

[quote]The caravan is a powerful demonstration of unity and hope, and what it means to bring people together to support communities who are on the frontline of disastrous projects like the Site C dam. Legal challenges are expensive, and a major financial burden on First Nations. But Treaty rights of First Nations offer some of the strongest environmental protections in the world. They stand a good chance of victory in the courts.[/quote]

The cross-country Justice for the Peace Caravan will stop in communities all across Canada, sharing stories, connecting struggles, and building support for the just resolution of the Treaty 8 First Nations’ case against the Site-C dam. 4,432km is a long way to go.

To follow the caravan, go to nosite-c.com

BC Greens sullied by friendship with Liberals

September 11, 2016PoliticsfeaturedRafe Mair

BC Premier Christy Clark (Province of BC/Flickr) and Greens Leader Dr. Andrew Weaver

It’s always difficult to lose a friend even, perhaps especially when it is mostly a friend of convenience. Friendship covers a lot of ground, all the way from that which leads consenting adults into the sack through the Arab expression “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Political friendship is cynical, temporary, and, far from loving, practical.

I leave it to you to decide how close the Liberal party of BC and the Green party were as friends but you’ll remember earlier this year the Liberals fell all over themselves allowing the Green leader, Andrew Weaver, to bring in a bill protecting women on the campus from sexual assaults. To say this was a cooked up deal scarcely needs any verification, if you know anything at all about politics. Things like this don’t happen by accident.

The Liberals know that every vote cast for the Greens would otherwise be NDP, and this coziness did more for the Liberals than the Greens as Premier Clark was able to vouchsafe unto all of us the terrible story of how she was once followed by a man and she was so brave she didn’t tell a soul.

But Dr. Weaver has become unpopular on the Mainland as an absentee leader who has cast aside constituencies like West Vancouver-Sea-to-Sky, where I live, which is virtually a single-issue constituency as are a great many, with that issue an environmental one. Even though what’s left of the tattered media will always conjure up issues such as taxes, health, education, transit and so on, almost all ridings have a central issue and these days it’s often environmental. Ours is the proposed LNG facility in Squamish.

Greens have real chance in West Van

In the last Federal campaign, the Green candidate, Ken Melamed, was very popular and in mid-campaign I’d have wagered my Green pullover that he would win as the only candidate to stand foursquare against Woodfibre LNG (eventually joined by lesser known NDP candidate Larry Koopman). Then the “strategic voting” wave went across the country as the fear that Harper and his lickspittles might win hit voters. He was sandbagged by fear and could do nothing.

The former mayor of West Vancouver, Pamela Goldsmith -Jones, assured the voters that unlike the incumbent Tory, John Weston, she would heed the wishes of her constituents. There being but one big issue, this was taken to mean she would oppose WLNG.

She won by a landslide. Then, as so often happens in politics, she immediately let the side down and supported Trudeau when he hastily approved WLNG.

The Greens are still here and they had great hopes that with a good candidate, perhaps Mr. Melamed, they could best the Liberal MLA, Jordan Sturdy, who loyally supports Premier Photo Op and WLNG. While a great many voters want him out, there must be an alternative. Until Dr. Weaver became damaged goods, it was assumed that the Green party would run a good candidate and, although no riding is a slam dunk for the Greens, this came as close as it gets.

But, what about money? That’s well nigh impossible to raise without a viable leader and the Liberals have, in a strange irony, the most viable of the lot. Moreover, WLNG can be expected to duplicate their past generosity – in 2015 they cut a generous cheque and paid for a huge fundraising bun toss at, no less, the Capilano Golf Club & Country Club.

What’s happened to the good Dr. Weaver?

Weaver supports private river power

It’s a sad cautionary tale, summed up years ago when Harry Belafonte said “Don’t turn your back on the masses, mon!”

Dr. Weaver’s most egregious sin was supporting Gordon Campbell’s private “run of river” legislation which, in the event you have been vacationing on the moon for the last few years, has given private companies a beautiful sweetheart deal whereby they can destroy hundreds of rivers, then sell the electricity to BC Hydro at 2 to 3 times its value, on a take-or-pay basis. As predicted by many in these pages numerous times, this was bound to ruin the rivers and eventually bankrupt BC Hydro. In fact, the results are far worse than anyone predicted.

What did Weaver have to do with this?

Well, in 2008, before he was an MLA, he supported this Liberal party energy “policy” and declared that the power created by “run of river” was “clean, green energy” (listen here to his robo-call on behalf of the Campbell energy policy).

It was anything but and that’s not the end of the story for Dr. Weaver who, in order not to lose face, still supports this environmental and fiscal disaster in spite of the evidence. Now he’s the leader of an environmental party!

I have learned that when Dr. Weaver made his “clean and green” pronouncement in 2008 he didn’t even bother to take a look at the easily accessed Ashlu River, near Squamish, which was one of the first, finished “run of river” projects. If he had done that, as I and a number of others did, he would have seen the truth – a beautiful salmon river destroyed.

Greens know why they are Green, and following someone who supports destruction of rivers is not on. This act of generosity to the Campbell/Clark regime no doubt has a lot to do with their kindness to wards Dr. Weaver in the Legislature.

A golden opportunity missed

Back to West Vancouver – Sea-To-Sky. As mentioned, the Greens are still here but I doubt that they will run a candidate as long as Weaver leads the party, which is excellent news for premier Clark, who ranks up there with Ujjal Dosanjh as the worst premier this province has ever seen.

It’s also good news for John Horgan, the inept leader of the NDP, who may already have blown his chances simply by not showing up. Moreover, he lacks the aura of leadership required to look like a premier in waiting.

It’s also good news for Sukanto Tanoto, the Indonesian crook and jungle destroyer who owns Woodfibre LNG.

What’s going to happen in 2017?

Unless the public is so fed up with Clark they throw her out and the NDP tumble into office by default, it will be the same inept lot again. I can only remember one accidental election as opposed to a mere upset, that in 1952 when the Coalition was so unpopular that a hardware merchant from Kelowna, William Andrew Cecil Bennett, was suddenly the premier of British Columbia and remained so for 20 years. There was a wrinkle in 1952 however – the Coalition broke up before the election and the Conservatives and Liberals ran individually.

It’s said that “if you can’t be good, be lucky”.

Well it would take a pretty devout Liberal, half in the bag to boot, to call Christy Clark good, yet the signs are she will still be premier after May 7, 2017.

Opinion: Environment & Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna gets failing report card

September 9, 2016Climate Change, Energy and Resources, LNG, Oil&Gasfeatured, freaturedCommon Sense Canadian

Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna gets failing report card — Environment & Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna (Mike Gifford/Flickr cc licence)

The following is an op-ed by Dr. Eoin Finn – B.Sc., Ph.D., MBA

In October 2015, SFU Energy and Materials Research Group Professor Mark Jaccard published a report titled “Canadian Climate Policy Report Card: 2015”. In part, it is a damning critique of the (Harper) Conservative Government’s climate action record, though it documents over three decades of inaction by Governments of all stripes. Its Executive Summary concludes that:

[quote]Over the past three decades, governments in developed countries have made many commitments to reduce a specific quantity or percentage of greenhouse gases by a specific date, but often they have failed to implement effective climate policies that would achieve their commitment. Fortunately, energy-economy analysts can determine well in advance of the target date if a government is keeping its promise. In this 2015 climate policy report card, I evaluate the Canadian government’s emission commitments and policy actions. I find that in the nine years since its promise to reduce Canadian emissions 20% by 2020 and 65% by 2050, the Canadian government has implemented virtually no polices that would materially reduce emissions. The 2020 target is now unachievable without great harm to the Canadian economy. And this may also be the case for the 2050 target, this latter requiring an almost complete transformation of the Canadian energy system in the remaining 35 years after almost a decade of inaction.[/quote]

This summary even-handedly describes a similar era of inaction under the (Chrétien /Martin) Liberal governments. After all, it was a Liberal government that signed the 1997 Kyoto agreement, and then lollygagged along to their 2006 ejection without taking a single significant action to ensure its ambitious targets could be met.

Real Change?

Trudeau and McKenna (Photo: Environment & Climate Change Canada/Flickr)

Justin Trudeau’s October 2015 electoral elevation to power came with a Liberal policy book promising “Real Change” on this file. It started well. A new National Energy Board Environmental Review process was promised. November’s COP21 in Paris saw Canada espousing lofty climate goals to the theme of “Canada is back”. February meetings in Vancouver with provincial Premiers urged setting a price on carbon. A climate change test was added to environmental assessments, and promises to eliminate fossil-fuel subsidies and promote sustainable technologies were trumpeted.

However, of late, the decisions of the Government, and this Ministry in particular, evoke a creeping sense of déjà vu and backsliding on the climate file and the instructions in Minister McKenna’s mandate letter. Cogent examples of these decisions include:

Failure to clarify what, exactly, Canada’s GHG emissions target should be if we are to play our part in meeting the COP21 goal of limiting climate change to an increase of less than 2⁰C. There is a looming gap between Environment Canada’s 2030 GHG emissions estimate of 817 megatonnes and the Copenhagen target of 524 millions. Nobody in McKenna’s remit (or Energy Minister Carr’s) seems to wants to grasp that 300 megatonne nettle, nor venture an estimate of what further reductions will be needed to meet COP21 commitments

Maintaining the Harper Government’s unambitious and inadequate GHG emission targets of 17% reduction by 2030, which, without swift action, we have no hope of meeting

Bowing to the desires of a few Premiers to kick the carbon-tax proposal down the road and (they hope) out of sight

Inaction on the review of the Oil & Gas industry emissions that successive Environment Ministers in the Harper Government had promised year after year. This industry contributes over 26% of Canada’s GHG emissions. Singling it out for inaction suggests that this Government is also a “captive regulator”

A decision to continue the 30% accelerated capital cost allowance for LNG facilities – a fossil-fuel subsidy granted by the Harper Government in 2014

Approval of the Woodfibre LNG plant in Howe Sound, despite its almost 1 million tonnes of annual GHG emissions. This puzzling and highly-unpopular decision also belied another Trudeau promise – that of “politicians may issue permits, but only communities can grant permission”

Cabinet’s approval of NEB’s decision to approve Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline extension, LNG Canada’s 40-year license extension for its Kitimat plant and Steelhead LNG’s 5 export licenses – each of which represents a vast expansion of Canada’s GHG emissions

Publicly supporting the Keystone XL and Energy East pipeline proposals

Silence and inaction on repealing any of the Harper Government’s egregious environmental legislation – particularly the omnibus Bill C-38, which shredded environmental protections in the Species at Risk Act, Navigable Waters Act, NEB Act and 60+ others

Promises to reform the National Energy Board and its farcical review process replaced with nominating yet another dubious set of second-guessers. This is hardly the stuff of meaningful reform to “restore public confidence” in the NEB;

Not one concrete legislative or regulatory action on Liberal energy efficiency promises – boosting renewable alternatives, setting tighter automobile emission standards, elevating building insulation standards, promoting public transit initiatives, and inaction on the PM’s lofty promise to the U.N. that “Climate change will test our intelligence, our compassion and our will. But we are equal to that challenge. I encourage other signatories to move swiftly to follow through on their commitments”. Since then – nothing, nada, zilch.

Blowing hot air

Recent interviews with Minister McKenna have deteriorated into the avoidance, obfuscation and outright nonsense many had come to regard as par for the Harper Government course. Even allowing that this Ministry deteriorated hugely in the 10 years of Harperite neglect, this about-face and foot-dragging is deeply disappointing to scientists and NGO’s, many of whom worked hard on the election that put the LPC in power. Remembering the counsel that “those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it”, this trend is highly discouraging to those who thought October’s election result would herald sunnier ways on the climate front.

Kinder Morgan, PNWLNG will tell the tale

Lelu Island and Flora Bank - site of Petronas's controversial, proposed LNG terminal near Prince Rupert (submitted) — Lelu Island and Flora Bank – site of Petronas’s proposed PNWLNG terminal near Prince Rupert (submitted)

The Minister’s (and Government’s) grade on its climate report card: a big fat “F”. As they say in the North – big sled, no dogs.

Two litmus tests for her and the Liberal Government loom large – decisions on the Kinder-Morgan/TME pipeline expansion and Pacific NorthWest LNG. Approving either would undermine policies for “Real Change”, return Canada’s international reputation to the doghouse, consign to the dumpster the promises of a better First Nations relationship and severely dent chances of re-electing Federal Liberals in BC in 2019.

On this form, if Professor Jaccard is to write a 2020 update to his report, it won’t arrive at any different conclusion.

***************

Dr. Eoin Finn is Director of Research for My Sea to Sky, an NGO concerned about proposals to re-industrialize iconic Howe Sound, BC.

Electric Vehicles are set to take off…so why is Trudeau still pushing pipelines?

August 31, 2016Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Renewables, Urban & TransportfeaturedWill Dubitsky

Tesla Model 3 at March 2016 unveiling (Steve Jurvetson/Flickr)

In my previous March 2016 article “Pipelines to Nowhere“, I made the point that the proposed Canadian pipelines are about increasing the international supply of petroleum when all the signs are that demand fossil fuels are levelling off over the longer term.

For example, recent data showed renewables represented 99% of new US electrical generation capacity added in Q1 of 2016, up from the 68% in 2015 referred to in my March story, leaving one to believe that further progress has been made since year 2015, when 90% of global new capacity added was associated with renewables.

That said, it is the incredible, emerging trends in the transportation sector – currently nearly 100% dependent on petroleum – that are on the verge of severing the world from its heavy addiction to oil. On that note, the majority of car companies have plans for bringing in a wide array of plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles by 2020 and by that time an electric vehicle would be competitively priced versus a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle.

Big car makers get serious about EVs

Notwithstanding this progress, the transportation times appear to be changing faster than indicated since my March article was published. A couple of significant examples confirm this trend, including:

1) Volkswagen recently announced it will invest $11B in a battery manufacturing facility and expects 20% to 25% of its sales – 2 to 3 million vehicles/year – to be electric vehicles by 2025

2) Tesla has $1000 deposits for 370,000 Model 3 vehicles that won’t be delivered until 2017

3) A projection coming out of the UK suggests that by 2020 there will be more charging stations in the UK than gasoline stations

4) Porsche is hiring 1400 people for the development and deployment of its new electric sports car

5) Mack, Tesla and China’s BYD have made it known they will be bringing electric trucks into the marketplace, with the BYD truck to be assembled in Lancaster, California – the same place BYD manufactures electric buses – and the two types of vehicles will share many components.

Outpacing the aforementioned examples, Norway has increased its sales of plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles from 25% of the total new vehicles sold in 2015 to 28% in the first half of 2016.

Germany, Netherlands could ban gas cars

Against this backdrop, the Netherlands and Germany are now mulling over banning gasoline cars from new vehicle offerings, beginning in 2025. Then there is the news from Australia that it is placing fast-charging stations around the country to sell electricity at the same price as that from one’s home plug outlet.

And as I indicated in “Pipelines to Nowhere“, China and California have myriad policies to make zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) the shape of the future, with China having a target to manufacture 2 million eco-vehicles/year by 2020 and California targeting 1.5 million ZEVs on its roads by 2025.

Resistance is futile

So why are electric vehicles only 1% of total vehicle sales now and how can so much happen by the end of the decade to drive such transformative change?

First, there are the dealers. According to a survey conducted on behalf of the US Sierra Club, dealerships are doing everything imaginable to discourage potential clients from purchasing electric vehicles by not keeping them in-stock, keeping them not charged for a test drive and salespeople ill-informed on what one needs to know about electric vehicles. The salespeople much prefer to push the high-volume, high-profit margin SUVs. Funny coincidence, I experienced a similar scenario when I tried to purchase a hybrid in the 2008 model year.

Then there is the matter or the US Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards cloned in Canada, which set sales-weighted average fuel consumption targets for each vehicle size category, as well as sales-weighted targets for the overall vehicle sales of each manufacturer. The perverse side of this concept is such that if a manufacturer has sales heavily weighted in favour of large, high-energy-consuming vehicles, its overall sales fuel economy target becomes more lenient, otherwise known as “compliance flexibility.” The manufacturers are now exploiting this loophole to the limit, even to a point of making some models bigger to be subject to less stringent fuel economy standards.

In theory, the automakers have to make up for failing to meet overall sales-weighted fuel consumption targets in later years, leading up to 2025. But the automakers are already gearing up for sob stories to request more leniency on the part of the US government, with the excuse that they have to accommodate unanticipated client demand for the vehicles with the high profit margins, the SUVs.

Here in Canada, the Government of Quebec has introduced Bill 104 to duplicate the stipulations of California and 9 other states, on the percentage of zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) and hybrids manufacturers must sell from 2018 to 2025 – that percentage incrementally increasing each model year from 3% in 2018 to 15.5% in 2025. The Quebec dealers and the manufacturers are putting up a fight that essentially says that: a) the policy won’t work because the public must be free to choose and the demand is not there for ZEVs and hybrids; and b) what is good enough for California and 9 other US states is not good enough for Quebec.

Meanwhile survey after survey has shown that electric vehicles are favoured by the public, and 2020 is the tipping point when ZEVs become competitive.

The City of Montreal has acknowledged this public receptivity in that it will shortly adopt legislation requiring car sharing services to incrementally offer greater percentages of electric vehicles, beginning in 2018 and reaching 100% electric by 2020!

Trudeau Govt failing Canada on climate change

Meanwhile, the federal Liberal Budget for 2016-17 only allots $56 million over two years for cleaner transportation, with a large portion of these funds to be invested in developing standards and regulations – I thought the latter expenses were part of government operating costs! And the Trudeau government has already reneged on its promise to invest in charging stations and have a government vehicle procurement plan favouring ZEVs.

The current government has its mind set on pipelines for which there will not be a corresponding increase in consumption to justify increasing the supply. Plus, Canada can’t meet the Conservative GHG reduction targets should these pipelines be built.

Justin Trudeau speaks at the Paris climate talks - flanked by Canadian premiers (Province of BC/Flickr) — Justin Trudeau speaks at the Paris climate talks – flanked by Canadian premiers (Province of BC/Flickr)

But wait, you say. The Liberals have said they are going to overhaul the environmental review process. The context is a reaction to a Federal Court decision to annul the National Energy Board’s recommendation for approval of the Northern Gateway pipeline and a desperate attempt to avoid a repeat overturning of the NEB approval of the Kinder Morgan TransMountain Pipeline to triple its capacity from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels/day. Trudeau’s support for the latter pipeline dates back to the 2015 election campaign.

Taking a closer look at this Trudeau concern about the implications of the aforementioned Federal Court decision for the Kinder Morgan project, Trudeau appointed a three-person panel to advise the government on the NEB approval of the TransMountain project. One of the three panelists is former Tsawwassen First Nation Chief Kim Baird, who participated in an executive exchange program with Kinder Morgan. Ms. Baird is now a registered lobbyist for liquefied natural gas projects in BC. Hardly the profile of a credible panelist to advise the Trudeau government. The President of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, Stewart Philip, has referred to this panel appointment as a conflict of interest.

More conflicts of interest

Now, Trudeau has an even bigger NEB conflict of interest on his plate. Within the last few days after the August 29, 2016 stillborn start to the Montreal segment of the NEB hearings on Energy East, the hearings were suspended indefinitely in response to two formal requests that two of the three NEB commissioners on Energy East be removed because of a conflict of interest. These two commissioners, Jacques Gauthier and Lyne Mercier, along with the NEB President, Peter Watson, met with former Quebec Premier Jean Charest in January, 2015, while Charest was acting as a consultant for TransCanada.

All Jim Carr, the Minister of Natural Resources Canada, could say in reaction to the latest NEB fiasco is that the NEB needs to be modernized to avoid these conflict of interest situations. This is in keeping with Budget 2016-17, which confirms the NEB’s role evaluating the environmental impacts of pipeline projects.

What should be at the heart of the question of the environmental review process is the Harper government’s decision to put the National Energy Board in charge. Tinkering with the oil-tainted NEB engine is about changing an image and not the substance. Substance would suggest the re-habilitation of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, or some equivalent, to get the job done – properly!

Canada needs solid, clear legislation

Canada is still operating under the traditional resource economy model while its competitors are moving into fast-forward on the green economy. This is the context for Budget 2016-17 offering less for clean technologies than the budgets of previous Liberal governments.

There is a moral or common thread to this piece. First, when the government objectives are clear and well-laid out in policy and legislation, industry will comply. Second, where things are fuzzy, or in the all of the above category, industry will procrastinate though whatever loopholes are made available to them.

Canada needs solid and clear policies and legislation, not meaningless clichés or platforms for “all of the above.”

Rafe: How it became offensive for women to wear too much clothing

August 31, 2016UncategorizedfeaturedRafe Mair

Yes, yes, yes, I know, Mr. Editor, we’re in the last stretch before the last stretch just before a big, real last stretch going into next May’s election and I should be thinking wall-to-wall BC politics. Well, sir, I’m not going to do that today, for a couple reasons.

I have commented till hell won’t have it on the incompetence of the premier and her quasi-government. I have said plenty, for the nonce, on the invisibility of the Opposition and, surely, all that needs saying about the pathetic display of a Green Party many of us expected much more of.

Don’t take from this that I’m having an exotic boozy blast on Capri – it’s just that I need a little time to see how some of these issues settle out in real terms.

Besides, I’m overwhelmed by the international concern about what women should wear, where not long ago the issue was whether women wore any clothes at all.

It’s not that fashion has not been of interest going back to the famous fig leaf. We may not be quite sure what Elizabeth I looked like throughout her life but know what she wore. Literature is replete with descriptions of clothing or lack of it and fashion magazines for both men and women abound and are expensive. It’s very hard to believe that any aspect of clothing or unclothing has not been dealt with by society and that which is deemed by it to be immoral or truly harmful dealt with by the criminal law. For a criminal action to be taken, there must be an evil needing correction, otherwise there is no point.

Well, the Criminal Code, whose encodement started 125 years ago and has never stopped, with 28 parts, nearly 900 sections has not a peep about women’s clothing styles.

In recent years the criminal code has spent almost no time on the lack of clothes because since Hugh Hefner, Playboy, topless waitresses, bottomless dancers, the naked female body in all its contortions has gone from being sexy and seductive to about as provocative a litter of cats. There was a time not long ago when a Vancouver city councillor set her hair on fire over nude people at Wreck Beach (where I skinny-dipped as boy – now there was a sight!) but that’s no longer an issue. In short, dear friends, if you want to see naked females, that poses no problem – just take a Sunday drive. We even have just the beach for you here in sedate old Lions Bay.

Suddenly it’s not lack of clothes that’s the issue but the wearing of them. It seems that from the neck down, where the private parts are located, no one cares, but all hell breaks loose when the woman puts clothes on north of the larynx. It’s a big deal, apparently, if a woman wears anything that covers her face and head, especially if the item is black.

Now, by an amazing coincidence, it’s an even bigger deal if the lady happens to be Muslim. No one has yet tested a Catholic or Anglican or Jew or follower of Zoroaster on this point, I suppose because this attire is not fashionable with them. I should add that in the days when Catholic and Anglican nuns wore “habits”, clothing that covered the face although not the eyes, no one seemed to complain. It was clothing based upon religious belief but, of course, that was different.

Wasn’t it?

Now we mind a great deal but it’s excess clothing that’s such a problem on the Riviera, with women in black swimsuits that cover every square centimeter. The once-mighty nation of France, home of the Folies Bergere, the Can-Can and famous the world over for its volume and variety of hooker, banned wearing this kind of swimming suit, called the Burkini, not for offending morals but flaunting Islam. The court just threw out this law.

Even in usually rather temperate countries like Canada, rage rises at the sight of women in black from the neck up, even – nay, especially – if it happens to have a scarf involved. But it really hits the fan when the woman wears a veil covering her eyes. This to some is an egregious abuse of those who happen to see her and should require the utmost penalty the nation can impose. (Of course there would be an exception made for Christian women getting married, attending a baptism or Easter Sunday Services).

I mean that’s different!

Isn’t it?

There are a many reasons given as to why this outfit is so serious – it’s not our way of life; it’s not how we do things; I want to see the face of the person I am talking to; it’s a symbol of men’s domination over women…and then the lesser reasons come out.

Now, Canada is a country of amazing coincidences and by an amazing coincidence, the only women who habitually wear veils along with the other black headgear happen to be Muslims and, as we all know, Muslims are terrorists, and would cheerfully murder all white Christians in their sleep.

If one has a sensitive memory about things like this, one is taken back about 15 years or so to that deadly serious issue as to whether or not a man wearing a turban in a Legion was insulting the queen by wearing a hat. It took a while but somehow we got over that.

The argument that the outfit symbolizes male domination is troubling but scarcely unanimous. And while this is a legitimate concern of some Canadians, as is the question of female priests, married priests, and gay marriage as a sacrament, it is not a question for the Parliament of Canada, as the Supreme Court has been trying to tell it.

But let’s bring this mercifully to an end. I have an opinion and I really don’t care if no one in the world agrees.

I think it is all racist bullshit. I couldn’t care less what a woman wears anywhere on her body except as a matter of good or bad fashion or, put another way, sexual attractiveness. If she wishes to wear orange and green hair covered by a baseball cap, even a Blue Jays one, to church with a fake moustache and beard, I would consider that to be distinctly unfashionable but I certainly won’t feel threatened by it.

If people demand to see the eyes of those they speak to, then they should not speak to women wearing a veil.

If they object to women wearing dark facial covering and dark scarves, they should simply walk away, as they would from someone wearing a clown suit top only.

To those of you whom I have insulted and who feel very strongly that they have God and righteousness on their side, as far as I’m concerned – pooh.

I don’t believe you for one moment, nor do I think you believe it yourself. You just don’t like people from certain other religions or traditions displaying that fact. If First Nations folks came to your church next Sunday wearing feathered headdress and deerskin trousers you wouldn’t raise a peep because it’s not fashionable to say unkind things about them, nor should it be. It is very fashionable, however, in some circles to be very unkind to Muslims and instantly link them to violence. It’s the politics of Trump and Palin and I want no part of it.

You can hate me for this view but, in the words of Rhett Butler, “frankly, I don’t give a damn”. You should all give your heads a shake and redirect your anger at social problems, poverty, homelessness, that need attention in this country of plenty.

Rafe: With May staying on, what’s next for the Green Party?

August 24, 2016Canada, PoliticsfeaturedRafe Mair

Whither the Green Party of Canada after its recent convulsion?

In order to answer that question I think it must be understood, perhaps conceded is the better word, that the Green Party isn’t like other parties and probably never will be. If it struggles to be what it never can be, it will go the way of Technocracy and Esperanto.

The Greens’ dilemma

I have, as you might expect, a Churchhill anecdote which explains what I am on about.

Back in the 1930s, the “Wilderness Years” as they were known, a man approached Churchill and asked him what it was like to be without a power at this critical stage of history.

Churchill growled, as only he could growl, “out of office perhaps – out of power no”.

This is both the strength and the dilemma of the Greens. Almost everybody in our facsimile of democracy wants to be with a winning political party. The fact is that we don’t have a democracy because of the way traditional parties give all power to the leader, creating a chimera of a democracy, papering over the reality of a dictatorship. Happily for the political leaders, their members don’t seem to care and the general public doesn’t seem to understand. These parties often pretend to be “grassroots” parties but they are anything but and the least grassroots of them all the is the tradition-bound NDP.

On the other hand the Green Party is not only grassroots, it’s as “green” as its name implies and doesn’t suit the strange game everyone else has set up. The Green Party is an expression of a change of public philosophy regarding the use of public resources. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to raise a large sums of money from industry or other entrenched interests.

Again, this is good news and bad news. The good part is that their presentations of what the people want are usually pretty close to being accurate. On the other hand, getting elected and doing anything about these issues is well nigh out of the question because developers have all the football songs and the rest of us are stuck with hymns.

One answer to this dilemma is to simply say the hell with it, the system doesn’t want us, we’ll just go with the flow.

That was the prevailing the mood until about 20 years ago when the general public got sick to death of what the established interests were doing to them and the places that they live. They were lied to so often that eventually they could no longer take it and started to ask pointed and serious questions of the great leaders who were bringing them all of these industrial benefits.

Moreover, the rape of the environment moved from being just unpleasant to being outright dangerous. The political landscape changed as many of the”right” moved leftward and the “Left”, noting this, sidled towards the center, a fact very much lost on establishment reactionaries.

That still does not get us past the point where this new movement has difficulty in reflecting ifself politically in the legislatures. The old line parties pay a certain amount of lip-service to more gentleness towards the environment, adding to the Green Party’s fundamental difficulties in gaining access.

Power without office

Here is where the recent contest between certain factions in the Green party and the leader Elizabeth May began and as hopefully ended. It’s almost axiomatic that the less chance a party has to win, the more political rascals want to take it over. In any event, it seems quite clear that Ms. May just survived a coup attempt which had no stronger moralistic basis than a desire of others to get rid of her and take her place.

The basic issue was between those who want to concentrate on gaining power at the expense of philosophy and those, led by Ms. May, who knew and could see from history that “power” and “office” we’re not the same thing. Her obvious determination was inspired by the fact that the Greens in Europe and Australia particularly, were very powerful, even though never in office.

They are accomplishing what the rank and file had wanted to accomplish in the first place – effecting change.

I’ve not spoken to Ms. May on this but I infer from what she has said and done that she realizes power to change is far more important then the trappings of office, where change will usually be thwarted by the establishment in one uniform or another.

It is not easy to keep the foot soldiers in line when there is no immediate reward visible over the horizon. I think, however, that Elizabeth May has made precisely the correct decision in saying that she will remain as a leader for 18 months. That gives the party the opportunity to sort out just what it wants to be and how it will get there.

If the Green party plays to its strength and pushes the boo birds aside, it will become an ever-stronger force for protecting the environment from those who would sell their soul to the highest bidder.

If she were simply to leave now, the basic party would be on death row. There would be little reason to think they could form a traditional kind of party and get into the usual political morass and no reason to believe they could become a party of strong influence as it is elsewhere.

I wish her luck and hope that I am around long enough to see the end of this movie.

Elizabeth May, Rafe Mair debate Israel, BDS and Green Party’s future

August 15, 2016Canada, International, PoliticsfeaturedRafe Mair

Elizabeth May (photo: Laurel L. Russwurm/Flickr) and Rafe Mair

UPDATE: Following heated debate – including that with Rafe Mair highlighted below – Elizabeth May has decided to stay on as Green Party of Canada leader.

What follows below is my recent exchange of letters with federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May over her high-profile dilemma with the party endorsing the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement. But first, a few words to set the stage.

I began to hear rumours as you all did that Elizabeth May was going to quit the leadership of the Green Party over its resolution to support The BDS initiative, a worldwide effort to force Israel to treat Palestine and Palestinians fairly.

I then received a copy of a letter, generally circulated, sent by the former Director of Communications for the Green Party of Canada, Kieran Green, to Ms. May.

I must tell you frankly that, along with many British Columbians, I was much impressed by Ms. May’s accomplishments, supported her editorially here and elsewhere. We became friends.

I was and remain extremely disappointed and believe that Elizabeth May has let a great many people down and, perhaps worse, has taken, forgive me, the evil side of an issue, on the wrong side of history, and an issue that has nothing to do with the cause for which so many supported her so wholeheartedly.

I only hope that we don’t learn that she carries an offer from Justin Trudeau in her handbag.

Here is the correspondence between us, plus some highlights from Mr. Kieran Green’s letter to Elizabeth May:

Kieran Green’s Aug. 10 letter – select passages

[quote]…Today, Israel continues to commit crimes – bulldozing homes, building illegal settlements. In fact, Israel has violated more different international laws than just about any nation in the world today, including, but not limited to: illegal use of inhumane white phosphorous munitions; violation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty; use of collective punishment against civilians; expropriation of property from an occupied territory; claiming sovereignty over land in an occupied territory; extrajudicial executions; torture; deliberate military targeting of emergency medical first response personnel and vehicles; deliberate targeting of civilians; denial of humanitarian aid to a civilian population; use of civilians as human shields by military personnel. Many of these are explicitly war crimes under International Law…

…In supporting BDS, the Green party of Canada has stepped to the right side of history. Which side will you stand on?[/quote]

Letter from Rafe Mair to Elizabeth May – Aug. 11

[quote]Dear Elizabeth,

I whole heartedly with Kieran Green’s letter to you.

This is not a matter of anti-Semitism as the state of Israel and now you would have one believe is the issue – so convenient to Netanyahu – but a question of fair play for a minority driven out of their lands, now, by international law, occupied lands to be returned to their owners. Why you would support contrived self pity over the clear rights of Palestinians under international law, not to mention civilized morality, is beyond me. Anti-Semitism is not even an issue except as a phoney, self-serving whine. I spent 25 years in radio receiving complaints from the Canadian Jewish Congress, as an automatic reflex, any time I criticized the state of Israel.

Indeed, there is anti-Semitism as a major social issue in the world but in this context it is an irrelevant issue, contrived by Israel, not to draw attention to discrimination against Jews, but to serve its national interests.

Of course there has been atrociously uncivilized behaviour on both sides – that is the hallmark of war, especially civil war with deep religious hatred. However you may wish to parcel out that blame, there’s plenty to go around. For the Green Party, a party of moral principles, to deprive the Palestinian people of international and Canadian support for nationhood after all these years and suffering in refugee camps is, frankly, unbelievable. There is no question but that the Jewish lobby, both in the United States and Canada, has flogged the case that any support for Palestinians is anti-Semitic, a grossly unfair tactic which should be condemned by all decent people. I can’t believe that the Elizabeth May I know and admire could fall for this crap.

It’s abundantly clear that by no means is this the attitude of Jewish people in general – certainly not those that I have known, was law partners and political associates with, and travel with and see socially. It is not easy for them to get into a societal row over such matters; it never has been and never will be. Demographic groups tend to avoid internal squabbles; certainly mine does. While I don’t say that’s right, it’s natural not to want communities and even families fighting one another. Having said that, it’s the clear obligation of those who supply money and other support to the state of Israel to make it clear that depriving Palestinians of their own nation, by occupying and destroying their homes, “legally” stealing the land and building houses on it, is not on and will not be accepted, let alone supported.

I find it impossible to understand how Elizabeth May, the humanitarian I’ve come to admire so greatly, would stake her leadership of the Green Party not on a “Green” issue, which would be understandable, but in support of an Israeli government whose policies violate principles of basic humanity. How ironic, how awful it is to contemplate that the person who established The Green Party as a political force for such good in this country is apparently about to preside at its funeral.

I beg of you to reconsider.

Most sincerely,

Rafe[/quote]

Reply from Elizabeth May to Rafe Mair – Aug. 12

[quote]I gather Rafe’s missive went to more than me? Perhaps I should share this with you.

The Green Party should not have tried out Robert’s Rules of Order. We have always used consensus based decision making. We always find common ground through mutual respect and shared values. We actually violated core values in leaving consensus decision-making. ‎It is an absolute parallel with the electoral reform debate. Parliaments that operate under FPTP are like Roberts Rules of Order – nasty. Majoritarian and prone to policy lurches thru winner take all votes. Proportional Rep democracies strive for consensus and operate much better. We accidentally backed into a process that violates our core values- Just as we make the case that Canada should move to consensus!

I want to be clearer about why I opposed the resolution on BDS. Of course, I do not condemn people in the BDS movement. In fact I am sponsoring a petition to reverse the House of Commons vote to demonize the movement itself.

My concern is that it is very divisive and, fairly or unfairly, is seen as anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. How divisive it is is very clear from what it just did to our party.

Criticism of Netanyahu’s actions is appropriate. In fact, I was the only party leader to criticize the excessive reaction by Netanyahu in bombarding Gaza in 2014. The demand for Palestinian rights is appropriate. This is all in existing GPC policy. Endorsing a series of social movement tactics is not something a political party does. For example, we can call for a two state solution and for Israel to stop the illegal expansions in occupied territory. We do not need to support one particular set of slogans and demands from a movement that is not a political party and whose demands make no sense for a party looking for solutions the Canadian Government can deliver.

Unfortunately, as noted above, the debate was run under new rules – Roberts Rules of Order. Had we followed our usual and time-worn practice of consensus based decision making, this resolution would never have passed. It was too divisive. A compromise would have been found.

As well, due to a misunderstanding, my microphone was cut off in my only intervention, after 90 seconds. What I had wanted to do when my mic was cut off was support the call from retired members of the Israeli security forces. This new group, Security First, is taking on Netanyahu. It calls for an end to illegal expansions by pointing out it makes Israel less secure. Supporting the same demands as being made by an outside group, BDS, but coming from retired Israeli defense and Mossad members is much smarter and will be more effective.

The range of options to get Israel to live up to international law could include sanctions and consumer boycotts. In fact language like that was in a compromise amendment I wanted to support. But it was ruled out of order. It would have allowed us to speak in our own words, to keep us from being hijacked by a one-issue movement.

So to be really clear, I respect what many in the BDS movement are trying to do. And I do not think the movement can be condemned as anti-Semitic, although it does attract some who are. It is just wrong to make an outside, and highly controversial movement, our policy.

I also look at what moves governments to change as Gandhi used to – by examining what will be effective. He once said he knew non-violent civil disobedience would move the British to leave India because he knew their conscience could be pricked. But he did not think it could work against a dictatorship. The sanctions movement against South Africa worked because South Africa was a country with Commonwealth colonial history. It really stung South African Afrikaners to be thrown out of the Commonwealth. They wanted back in. It was their “family.”

Israel is entirely different. It is a country established from the ashes of the unspeakable genocide. It feels surrounded by enemies. Its leadership and citizenry is not pricked by conscience by these tactics; it does not feel excluded and wishing to be accepted. It feels under assault and threatened. It draws more inward and erects more walls – figurative and literal. Through a history of victimization and genocide, boycotts and sanctions are experienced by the mainstream Canadian Jewish community, by Greens in Israel and by the Israeli government an attack on Israel’s right to exist. It does not move or promote change. I am convinced BDS will never advance peace or Palestinian rights. Working to promote the views of retired Israeli armed forces members and promoting more Canadian government support for Palestinian rights, for aid and development assistance is where we should be as a party. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to say any of this in the plenary debate.

You may still condemn my views, but at least you have the benefit of knowing what they are.

Elizabeth[/quote]

Rafe Mair’s reply to Elizabeth May – Aug. 12

[quote]Elizabeth,

I find it difficult to accept the breakup of a party in which Canadians placed so much hope on a failed microphone. For that’s what it amounts to. If you think the national party can carry on without you, you’re kidding yourself. Après vous, le deluge. Naturally that would have to change but for the next couple of years, the party and Elizabeth May will be synonymous unless, of course, you quit. The BC Party under Weaver is finished as I told you over a year ago. What a disaster.

I don’t need any lectures on the horrors of the Holocaust. It happened at the most impressionable time of my youth and for the rest of my life I shall remember the Atrocity films we all watched and the dozen refugee kids that came to our school for Grades XI & XII. We all learned a hell of a lot from these brave contemporaries who became classmates and friends. One of them, Tommy Korican, became an outstanding Canadian diplomat.

Your letter betrays, however, a fundamental error and Netanyahu and his gang will love you for it.

The Holocaust had nothing to do with the Palestinians.

You can argue that they should all have read the Old Testament and embraced Zionism, but would you and your family have done so?

There is no point going over uncountable miles of tragic ground. There is an Israel and it must be able to protect itself. But surely to God those that support and finance her have to condemn and force a halt to her egregious lawlessness in simply stealing Palestinian land and displacing Palestinians with settlers, no? How can you even say a word about Israel without your anger rising at this massive ongoing crime, permitted if not encouraged by the US in particular? How would you feel to be a nation of ancient occupants told that you can’t be a nation until Mr. Netanyahu says you can? The only weapons at our disposal are aid and support.

We have an obligation to Palestinians to bring some order and sense to this tragedy. Do you have any idea, Elizabeth, how Israeli Arabs are treated? The gross discrimination in all matters, much including municipal and school funding? The constant harassment with checkpoints and intolerable delays? What the hell has this to do with the Holocaust?

Of course, as I said in my last letter, there’s blame on both sides, plenty enough to go around. But when you open your eyes and look at the 2016 situation, the next move is clearly Israel’s and as long as there’s a Netanyahu, and there always is one close at hand, undeterred if not actually encouraged by the West, there can never be justice for Palestine and Palestinians.

The Green Party self immolating in Canada is sad but we’ll get over it. The Green Party destroying itself because it can’t deal with international issues because a mic didn’t work, meaning I suppose that but for a short, sharp lecture from the leader all would have been well, makes you all look like damned fools who couldn’t run the Village of Lions Bay, much less a country. If it weren’t so serious it could be a P.G.Wodehouse book.

Leadership is much more than what one does on the hustings and, critically, includes what the leader leaves as a legacy.

Sincerely,

Rafe Mair,
Lions Bay, BC[/quote]