All posts by Rafe Mair

About Rafe Mair

Rafe Mair, LL.B, LL.D (Hon) a B.C. MLA 1975 to 1981, was Minister of Environment from late 1978 through 1979. In 1981 he left politics for Talk Radio becoming recognized as one of B.C.'s pre-eminent journalists. An avid fly fisherman, he took a special interest in Atlantic salmon farms and private power projects as environmental calamities and became a powerful voice in opposition to them. Rafe is the co-founder of The Common Sense Canadian and writes a regular blog at rafeonline.com. View all posts by Rafe Mair →

BC Liberal Government Surrenders to Enbridge, Ottawa

July 23, 2012UncategorizedChristy Clark, EnbridgeRafe Mair

The BC Liberals have just offered the sword of surrender to Enbridge and Ottawa as the organ-grinder’s monkey, Environment Minister Terry Lake, made clear in a statement today.

Separating the pepper from the fly shit, the Liberals want more money and more environmental safeguards imposed upon Enbridge, which must be severely monitored by the feds. (With the same enthusiasm the Department of Fisheries and Oceans safeguards our Pacific Salmon, no doubt.)

As I said here recently, Premier Clark has declared that BC is a whore, the only thing to be decided being how much?

Let me place matters on the table once more:

There will be ruptures in this 1,100 km. pipeline by the admission of Enbridge and now conceded as the only possible inference to be drawn from Lake’s statement demanding better clean-up arrangements.
This pipeline goes over two mountain ranges and through a dense wilderness and is inaccessible to any cleanup undertaking. To make this plain to this corrupt bunch, you cannot get to the spills.
Such is the nature of the bitumen to be piped you can’t clean it up even if you could get to it.
The pipeline becomes a permanent serial polluter with one environmental catastrophe following another.

Of course Premier Clark will have her “demands” met.

More money is a slam dunk because there’s a hell of a lot of it available. It will start with offers to build the port facilities at Kitimat – which is sort of like offering to donate your the grave and headstone if you’ll commit suicide. There will be royalty sharing offered along with lots of cash to buy off First Nations.

Of course the feds and Enbridge will meet the demands in the press release which were:

The province wants limits to liability in the event of an oil spill to ensure there are sufficient financial resources to properly address the effects of a spill and it is calling for increased federal government response.

B.C. also wants tougher federal rules requiring industry to provide and replace marine response equipment.

And the province wants a Natural Resources Damage Assessment process to give certainty that a responsible party will address all costs associated with a spill.

The naiveté is breathtaking! Why, I imagine Prime Minister Harper will even say “cross my heart and hope to die” when he makes the solemn pledges!

This is an act of craven cowardice to help the bedraggled, leader challenged BC Liberals for the May 2013 election.

Harper will come up with oodles of safeguards just as the BC government did with fish farms and will pursue them with the same diligence his government and the BC government has with the Fish Farmers.

I don’t mean to be rude, folks, but how do you compensate for lost or badly polluted fish habitat, starving caribou and polluted rivers? How do you put a dollar figure on shattered ecologies? How do you compensate First Nations for lost hunting grounds? How do you compensate the tourist industry for their lost revenues?

Perhaps most importantly, what is the going rate for a province that has just sold its soul?

Premier Clark and her bedraggled, divided gutless cabinet and caucus have sold us out in hopes they can rally the right wing back into the fold and you can bet the ranch that Harper will go easy on the BC government when the HST expires next April as part of this surrender package.

Our provincial government, in place to protect our province’s integrity has, as predicted, sold us out for a mess of pottage in a sorry attempt to save its grubby political hide.

Rafe: Clark has BC Behaving Like a Prostitute on Enbridge, Only Dickering Over Price

July 22, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Western CanadaBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Christy Clark, Enbridge, Oil and gas, Politics, rafe mairRafe Mair

I wonder how many of you have come away from making a speech – perhaps the toast to the bride, being presented an award or perhaps just an after dinner speech and said to yourself, “damn … I should have said etc., etc.? I must admit that I’ve often felt that way and, even worse, I suppose, I’ve said to myself, what an idiot I was to say that!

In my recent blog on The Common Sense Canadian, I wrote about Premier Clark’s slow turnaround on the Enbridge pipeline case and in a moment I’ll tell you what I should have added.

The inadequacies of Clark’s leadership are exposed once more; she cannot bring herself to talk about the tanker traffic in the Inside Passage from Kitimat – or the close to 400 tankers a year through Vancouver harbour and the Salish Sea through the Straits of Juan de Fuca that would result from the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion. Clearly the tanker issue must be dealt with at the same time as Enbridge since, as the song says, “You can’t have one without the other.”

Clearly, Premier Clark just doesn’t have the courage to have a position on the issue as a whole.

It is not as if this was a complex issue. We know by Enbridge’s own admission that we will have spills from pipelines and common sense and statistics tell us that there will be tanker spills.

In the face of these certainties, Premier Clark is talking about insufficient financial benefits, on the assumption that money will compensate us for huge, ongoing tragedies over the 1,100 km of the pipeline and tanker spills – in short, our very soul is at stake and Clark is talking money.

Here comes the line I should have used…Premier Clark reminds me of the story where a man asks a lady if she will go to bed with him for $100,000 and she hems and haws, speaks of her needy children and, with apparent reluctance agrees.

The man then asks, “Will you then go to bed with me for $100?”

The lady is outraged and asks, “What do you think I am, a common prostitute?”

“We’ve already established that, ma’am,” says the man. “Now we’re dickering over the price.”

Thus the missing line: Premier Clark has declared British Columbia to be a common prostitute and is now ready to dicker.

Rafe Responds to Liberals’ Shifting Position on Enbridge: Clark Still Missing the Mark

July 21, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Western CanadaBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Christy Clark, Enbridge, Oil and gas, Politics, rafe mairRafe Mair

I would be delighted to report that Premier Clark’s recent musings about the proposed Enbridge pipeline were a positive step but unfortunately must report that she misses the point – badly.

Her position evidently is that BC is not benefiting sufficiently from the pipeline.

The first and fatal flaw is that she doesn’t include tanker traffic, for if Enbridge goes through it must be accompanied by tanker traffic or the whole exercise is pointless.

The second and also fatal flaw is that the Premier puts the argument in monetary terms. Enbridge itself admits that it will have leaks in the same way an airplane company will have crashes. This is the critical point, for to say we’re not getting enough money from Enbridge says that we’re OK with a spill here and there as long as we’re adequately compensated. This will result in Enbridge, the government of Alberta and Ottawa coming up with a compensation package suitable to the Clark government.

Let’s remember three things: there will be spills, they will be in places no clean-up crew can reach, and there is no way bitumen, freed from the condensate which allows it to be piped, can be cleaned up anyway.

Never mind the terrible response by Enbridge to its Kalamazoo spill – the message there is that clean-up, even in a readily accessible location, can never happen. To that gloomy fact, add the admission by Enbridge and remember that there will be many spills over the years and, because cleanup is impossible, we will have more and more of our wilderness destroyed. We’ll be looking at Enbridge, a serial polluter, with the only questions being when and how bad.

I, for one, care about our land and the ecologies it supports, such that to me money doesn’t even enter the discussion.

What Premier Clark is doing is looking for a price for our wilderness and I say that this is irrelevant – no price is enough.

J’Accuse!…Fish Farmers and Our Governments

July 20, 2012Oceans, Salmon Farming and AquacultureAlexandra Morton, Aquaculture, rafe mair, SalmonRafe Mair

In 1894 a French army officer, Alfred Dreyfus, was convicted of treason and sent to Devil’s Island prison.

In 1896 a Paris journalist, Emile Zola, printed an article called “J’Accuse!”, which tore apart the case and led eventually to his pardon – which he accepted because he was dying on the vicious tropical Devil’s Island – and he was exonerated to serve, gallantly though sick and old in combat in World War I. An Alsatian Jew, Dreyfus was seen by the military establishment automatically to be suspected.

Last Monday night, along with 200 others, I listened to Alexandra Morton outline the loss of our salmon and carefully and surgically weave together the case against the fish farm industry, the provincial government and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

The case goes back 12 years and mirrors the Campbell/Clark administration.

First it involved escapees from fish farms crowding native salmon on their spawning grounds, something that continues but became less relevant as Alexandra discovered that hundreds of thousands of wild salmon smolts were being slaughtered by lice from fish farms sited on their migration routes. Lately Alexandra has concentrated on diseases imported into our waters by farmed fish.

J’accuse both senior governments of deliberately avoiding this issue.

Before going further let me stress a fact that is of great importance but overlooked.

When I started helping Alex, my veterinarian, the estimable Moe Milstein, took me aside and said “Rafe, I don’t know anything about that particular issue but I can tell you that when you take huge numbers of animals and coop them up, disease on a massive basis is inevitable.”

From the outset, Alex was stonewalled by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and by the provincial Department of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries.

Study after study was produced, all being peer-reviewed in prominent scientific journals, yet Alex was pilloried and threatened with jail.

World class ocean scientists everywhere praised her work and supported her scientific methodology. She continued to be harassed and insulted by government and industry alike.

As Alex presents her case on disease in fish farms and the impact on wild salmon you begin to wonder – isn’t this where DFO steps in?

As she moves on – surely the DFO gets involved now!

But the presentation proceeded to stunningly make the case that these diseased fish farms are slaughtering entire runs of wild salmon, but nary a move by the DFO, the federal Environment Department, the Provincial Ministry of Agriculture or Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource (which now controls tenures for fish farms).

It’s worse than mere neglect – while all this is going on, not only does DFO stand idly by but the Minister is globe-trotting, flogging farmed salmon in potential markets. The provincial Agricultural Ministry, rather than pulling licenses, is considering granting new ones!

J’accuse the fish farm industry of deliberately destroying millions of Pacific salmon with their Atlantics. They have hidden their documents, dissembled at every turn, admitted that their farms ought not to be sited near migration paths while expanding their operations and markets.

J’accuse the Province of ignoring worldwide science while renewing fish farm licenses and issuing new ones.

J’accuse the Department of Fisheries and Oceans of gross neglect of its statutory mandate to protect Pacific Salmon and, quite to the contrary, shilling for industry.

J’accuse the DFO of wilfully ignoring (or worse) the ever increasing scientific evidence of fish farms infecting large runs of wild salmon.

J’accuse every federal fisheries minister since 2001 of gross neglect of his/her duty to care for the wild pacific salmon. J’accuse these ministers of forcing DFO scientists to make political decisions paramount over scientific evidence.

J’accuse the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Province of avoiding inspection of fish farms, which would have, without question, led to prosecutions.

J’accuse DFO, under political orders, of suppressing evidence and muzzling DFO scientists.

J’accuse the mainstream media of abdicating its responsibility to hold the governments they cover accountable and indeed looking for all the world as if they were promoting fish farms.

J’accuse both senior governments of failing to apply the Precautionary Principle, which would require fish farms to demonstrate they would not harm the wild salmon, instead of forcing those who care for the environment to establish their case against the farms.

This is a huge issue – in fact it goes to the root of the matter.

The Precautionary Principle is embedded in Canadian law and is sanctioned by the UN. Why shouldn’t industry be required to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that what they will do will not harm the environment?

Why should Alexandra Morton, who as a result of her decades-long fight is in straitened circumstances, be required to fund the research and carry the burden of proof?

We are fools on an international scale. Those countries which have had experience with fish farms, namely Norway, the UK and Ireland, see us as idiots.

A few years ago I was a guest of Dr. Patrick Gargan, a world renowned fish biologist who has consistently verified Alex’s work, in Galway, Ireland, where he has his laboratory. Wendy and I were guests in his lab, and his senior technician, on learning I was from BC asked, succinctly, “Can’t you fucking well read out in Canada? Don’t you know what’s happened in Norway, Scotland and here in Ireland?”

Alexandra Morton is a hero and should be recognized as such throughout the nation – a nation that gives Orders of Canada to crooks while trying to put her in jail.

I’ve known Alex for over a decade and see the tremendous personal sacrifice she has made, to say nothing of the huge financial sacrifice.

Every step of the way – from escapees to sea lice to disease – she has been hassled, slandered, insulted and ignored.

Every step of the way she’s been proved right.

We are left, right now, with the two senior governments, especially Ottawa, still in denial and with Alexandra Morton doing all the work they should be doing and paying out enormous amounts for the research DFO should be doing.

All the while, the mainstream media ignores these issues while giving the Fish Farmers ample opportunity to attack Alex’s credibility.

This gallant lady who came to the Broughton Archipelago to study whales, became dedicated to saving wild salmon – and her thanks has been shit and abuse from the authorities.

For shame!

Dix Can Reclaim Control Over Fish, Pipelines and Tankers from Harper

July 16, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Fisheries, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Western CanadaAdrian Dix, BC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gas, PoliticsRafe Mair

Dear Adrian Dix,

You and your party have taken a strong stand against the Enbridge Pipeline and tanker issues, for which I applaud you. I think you should broaden this policy, but first some background.

Stephen Hume has a fascinating article in the Saturday July 14 Vancouver Sun in which he quotes a man from Kitimat who, with the assistance of a man with mathematical training, vetted by a Mathematics professor at Thompson Rivers University, assessed the risk of spills, ruptures, etc. from the Enbridge Pipeline and tankers out of Kitimat, using Enbridge’s own figures. The results are scary, to say the least. By all means, read the article, but the bottom line is that over 50 years there is an 87% chance of a major spill on land or sea.

Here, Mr. Dix, are two other major factors – we know that getting any sort of cleanup on land is virtually non-existent due to the terrain and all but impossible at sea, AND, as Kalamazoo teaches us, there’s very little that can be done to clean up these spills. Very quickly after a spill on water, the bitumen is freed from the condensate which permits it to be piped, and it sinks like a rock.

There is one other new factor the BC government must face – almost nil protection of fish and their habitat by The Department of Fisheries and Oceans thanks to Bill C-38.

We have a jurisdictional clash here, for under The Constitution Act, federal power over fisheries is paramount but the Provinces have control over “Property and Civil Rights”.

Now we get into sticky ground here, but there’s no question in my mind that the Province can and should legislate so as to protect all wildlife, which is its clear right. Hunting laws are provincial as are fishing laws over those which do not go to sea. The dangerous ground is that if the “pith and substance” of your laws was to deal in fisheries over which Ottawa has jurisdiction it might be struck down by the courts.

There is absolutely no need to be concerned about that if you proceed properly.

Dealing with the pipeline, there is an unquestionable provincial right to protect all fauna and flora. Properly done, this would not be a ruse or look like a ruse to trample on the Federal jurisdiction over fisheries but a legitimate effort to protect our trees and our wildlife. Moreover, how could the feds be heard to complain that the matters under their jurisdiction are being protected?

The same argument applies to the coast, where birds and bears depend upon a pristine climate within which to live and eat.

Now, what I suggest Mr Dix, is that your legal beagles go to work and prepare draft legislation which could be tabled as a private member’s bill at the next sitting of the legislature – assuming there is one – and made public in the meantime. From a strictly political point of view, I can think of nothing more useful than having the Feds challenge the constitutionality of your position.

You should go one step further – return to the local governments their power to permit development in their bailiwicks as they had before the Campbell/Clark government took it away. They did that for the Ashlu private power plant. We know from the result of that project that the fish died in ponds because too much water was sucked out of the river. The Ashlu River would still be free of impediments to fish had the Squamish-Lilloett Regional District’s jurisdiction been honoured.

You have spoken loud and clear Mr, Dix – it’s time to put it in writing.

Another Open Letter to MP John Weston on Tankers, Salmon – from his Constituent, Rafe Mair

July 13, 2012Canada, Politics, Western CanadaPolitics, Salmon, Stephen HarperRafe Mair

John,

When we met at the meeting at the North Vancouver church last night, on pipelines and tankers, you mentioned that we have known one another for some years ,as we indeed have. Far from having any dislike of you, my feelings are quite the opposite. I often remember the tour you took me on of Boston when I came to address the Harvard Canadian Club, of which you were a member.

I’m going to get right down to cases. You have disappointed me in that I thought that you might just buck the system and stand up for your province but you have manifestly failed.

You said last night that you voted for Bill C-38 because it would enhance “process” around fish habitat. That was a lie, John, and I’m surprised that a good Christian would make such an egregiously false statement. You voted for C-38 because you had to – just as one of your colleagues did after expressing some public concerns. The truth of the matter is this was the Budget and you had no choice. What you could have done and should have done, seeing you are a “process” person, about which more in a moment, is support those MPs irate that the budget process should be abused to contain substantive policy changes (fish habitat, for example) in it.

Let’s get down to what you said last night. I had accused you of knowing nothing about the environmental catastrophe of pipelines and tankers and while I applaud your honesty am stunned to hear a BC MP admit he knew bugger-all about the subject matter of the controversy but relied upon “the process” to see that environmental concerns are addressed.

Your big word was “process” – a nice, lawyerly approach except you miss the entire point, and please pay attention: These hearings, be they over pipelines, tanker traffic, or so-called “run-of-river” projects do not address whether or not the project should be done in the first place.

These are, to all intents and purposes, done deals. While the Joint Review Panel for the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project is an independent body, mandated by the Minister of the Environment and the National Energy Board, and is to assess the environmental effects of the proposed project and review the application under both the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the National Energy Board Act, you know and I know that your government is going ahead with the Gateway project, irrespective of the Panel’s findings.

This isn’t so you say? The government has an open mind on the matter?

Don’t you know what your Natural Resources minister has said ad nauseum?

Watch and read his comments such as, “Environmental and other ‘radical groups’ are trying to block trade and undermine Canada’s economy, according to Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, who has also stated, “Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade.”

Prime Minister Harper said in a Q & A, “I think we’ll see significant American interests trying to line up against the Northern Gateway project, precisely because it’s not in the interests of the United States. It’s in the interests of Canada…they’ll funnel money through environmental groups and others in order to try to slow it down but, as I say, we’ll make sure that the best interests of Canada are protected.”

John, read what your leaders have said…take the time I did on the Internet and you will find that to your Prime Minister and the Natural Resources Minister, the Gateway is a done deal and the hearings simply provide a way for environmental groups to delay.

In fact, Oliver deals extensively with timelines and the need to get this project running “expeditiously”.

I have been to enough of government sponsored “hearings” to know that they are a sham. As I’ve said, “Id rather have a root canal without anaesthetic than attend another.”

Surely, John, prisoner of the system though you might be, you must admit that your government is bent on approving Gateway and in fact your leaders admit it. That being so, John, how can you baldly state that there is “process” of any meaning here?

There are some issues that go straight to the heart our social community and how we want to live.

One such issue, 20 years ago, was the Charlottetown Accord which would have dramatically altered the Canadian system of governance. To the people of British Columbia, the pipelines and tanker traffic similarly go to the very root of what we believe in and how we want to live. We’re dealing with the very soul of BC and you would have us believe that we are getting a process within which we can make our feelings known in a meaningful way?

You know that Gateway is a done deal as far as your government is concerned and that the hearings are not designed to discover what the people want to see happen to our province. The plain truth is that no matter what the Panel recommends, your government will approve the projects.

On the questions about the Fisheries Act, to say this will enhance “process” is rather like, “In order to save the village it was necessary to destroy it.”

For habitat to be protected, development must be prohibited, for the moment you open it to “process”, you condemn it to destruction. I tried to make you and others understand that some things by their nature cannot be mediated, nor can impacts be “mitigated”, an awful weasel word. The example the minister gave of a carp pond was puerile and dangerous. It’s not carp ponds you’ve exposed to the front-end loader but the BC salmon about which you know nothing. How can you take away protection from development without knowing what the hell you’re doing?

The DFO was politicized back in the 1980s by Tom Siddon in the federal government’s giveaway to Alcan and its Kemano Completion Project. This is a very sad chapter and you should know that the Mulroney government suppressed a devastating report by DFO scientists which condemned the KCP in no uncertain terms. The scientists (dubbed the “dissident” scientists by Alcan, a sobriquet they bore with honour) were given early retirement, transferred or refused promotion they were rightly expecting). That 1984 Report was released in 1992 by me after I received it in a brown envelope. If you want the inside story on that I will introduce you to Dr. Gordon Hartman, one of those dissident scientists.

The person to talk to about the gutting of the enforcement arm of DFO is Otto Langer, an ex-DFO man to whom I would be happy to introduce you.

John, you are an embodiment of almost child-like naiveté who has been captivated by the elected dictator system we find ourselves in. You have allowed yourself to self-hypnotize into believing untruths because you must – then perpetuating dangerous falsehoods. It’s rather like the Stockholm Syndrome, where you’ve fallen in love with your captors.

I think it was Senator Daniel Moynihan who said, “You’re entitled to make up your own mind but not your own facts.”

Sincerely,

Rafe

No Time for Relief as Regulators, Media Dismiss Enbridge’s Pipedreams

July 11, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gas, rafe mairRafe Mair

No one likes to hear those four words, “I told you so”, but Damien and I have been raising the issue of Enbridge for over 2 years. Our warnings have been confirmed by the National Transportation Safety Board in the US, in ringing terms, with Enbridge being compared to the Keystone Kops, which, in addition to comparing them to the fumbling police of that name may be a not-so-sly allusion to TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline from the Tar Sands to Texas.

The report is devastating and even moved The Vancouver Sun’s Vaughn Palmer – thus far noted for his silence on this matter – to conclude that the Enbridge deal is “doomed to be non-starter.”

I wish I could feel the sense of relief many do but I can’t.

Enbridge is not really the enemy – they are simply the designated drivers. The enemy is the consortium which wants to move bitumen from the Alberta Tar Sands to Kitimat. There are three accomplices involved: the governments of Canada, Alberta and BC.

I believe that Enbridge is in trouble on this one and, amongst other things, have risked and lost several millions on their truly laughable ad campaign. (We break here for a moment while we all retrieve our hankies to wipe away out tears).

The unhappy news is that this report on Enbridge, far from lessening the Tar Sands threat to BC, has enhanced it. There will be a new pipeline consortium put in place and the companies and their three accomplices will say, “See, we listened to your concerns and have commissioned Leakabit Pipelines from Saudi Arabia (or somewhere else), who have assured us that they are 99% certain, or at any rate pretty sure, that there will never be a spill in BC; and they cross their heart and swear that they will really and truly be good corporate citizens and we can confidently place the fauna and flora of our beautiful state – oops it’s a province isn’t it? – in their hands.”

The issue hasn’t changed by reason of the NTSB decision. Somebody is going to get the contract to take the Tar Sands Bitumen to Kitimat and we would be bloody fools to let this decision weaken our resolve to stop all shipment to Kitimat – or perhaps it might wind up in Prince Rupert – and the consequent tanker traffic out Douglas Channel through the Inner Passage. The NTSB report will also place added pressure behind the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion to Vancouver.

The only political leadership being shown is from Adrian Dix. The Cummins Conservatives support the Enbridge pipeline and the tankers it will fill, while Premier Clark has the guts of a jelly fish melting in the sun.

The Liberal government refused to join the Joint Review Panel as a government, even though First Nations did. We have, then, no place at the table. We are time-barred from even making an argument, which is probably good news in one sense since the present BC government and leader would waffle its way into supporting the Federal government.

Why is Premier Clark behaving this way?

A part of the reason is that the Liberal government is joined at the hip to the ultra-right wing Fraser Institute, who thinks it’s a grand idea to pipe bitumen through BC to the coast, thence down the coast by tanker.

There is a more pressing reason.

The HST expires a month before the May ’13 election and BC faces a crippling bill from the Feds. Whether or not the Feds have told Ms. Clark to be a good little girl and she’ll be rewarded or not, doesn’t matter – she doesn’t need to be told.

Ever since I can remember, BC governments have stood up for their province’s rights. The public expect that for the very good reason that if they don’t, the feds will run roughshod over us. The gutlessness of the premier shows up very clearly in the polls.

On the twin issues of pipelines from the Tar Sands and the tankers they will fill, the people of British Columbia, thanks to the Campbell/Clark government, are on their own. That’s happened before, as in the Charlottetown Accord Referendum in 1992, when the people in BC by nearly 70% defied both the provincial government and Ottawa.

My prediction is that one way or another, the people will rise up again against Victoria and Ottawa and make their unshakeable desire to protect their province well known.

From Moran Dam to Enbridge: The Danger of Focusing on Economics Over Environment

July 7, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, WATERBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gas, rafe mair, Salmon, Water and EnergyRafe Mair

Robyn Allan is the former President and CEO of the Insurance Corporation of BC and is an economist by trade. I have enormous respect for Ms. Allan and concur with her conclusion, stated frequently and as recently as July 6 in The Vancouver Sun, that the proposed Enbridge Pipeline will have a deleterious impact on the Canadian economy generally and that of BC in particular.

The economics of this huge issue are, of course, very important to the decision making process and to the decision itself. My caveat is, however, to dwell on the economy brings with it great risks.

The argument is the same one respecting dams and fish. If one were to debate a dam on the Fraser River near Lytton, the economic argument is all in favour of the dam. While the salmon runs to be ruined will cost the province and those who fish a lot of money, that is offset by the enormous financial gains from the dam itself many, many times over. In fact such a dam, called the Moran, has been on the drawing board since late in the 2nd World War when it was pushed by the federal government. Premier WAC Bennett raised this issue again in the 1960s and was only stopped by the outcry of those who put the heritage of our salmon ahead of the incredible profits that would come from a huge dam.

Here are the stats according to Wikipedia:

The dam would have been 261 metres (856 ft) high, generating as much power on average as Grand Coulee Dam and twice of Hoover Dam combined – much of this energy would have been sold to the north-western United States. It would form a gigantic reservoir 260 kilometres (160 mi) long, containing some 35.4 cubic kilometres (28,700,000 acre·ft) of water at maximum pool reaching almost to the town of Quesnel. A significant portion of this capacity would be reserved for flood control.

The argument that our Pacific salmon are worth more than money prevailed then – would it prevail today if the issue was revived, which I’m certain will happen?

With the proposed Enbridge Pipeline, the financial benefits are not worth the candle, as Ms. Allan so clearly and accurately says. The trouble is that the governments won’t pay the slightest attention to her or to The Common Sense Canadian’s economist, Erik Andersen. There will be a barrage of one-liners about progress, jobs, blah blah blah, so that economic truths will be trumped by public relations.

The environmental implications of the proposed pipeline are serious beyond belief. We’re talking 1,100 km, over 1000 rivers and streams. My point to Robyn is that before we get to economics, let’s see what this pipeline will do.

Enbridge has an appalling environmental record – about one rupture or spill per week. There is no question that if the pipeline goes through there will be multiple spills. And as Ms. Allan astutely points out, due to the shell corporation structure Enbridge has set up to own and operate the pipeline, their liability for a spill will be severely limited (by design, of course), leaving British Columbians holding the bag for cleanup costs.

The substance being transported is not crude oil as we understand it, but bitumen, a near solid, which unlike other oils, sinks like a stone, and is infinitely more toxic. Enbridge has shown in the Kalamazoo River case that it simply cannot completely clean up, even when it can easily bring workers and machinery into the area.

The Northern Gateway pipeline goes through some of the least accessible places it the world, where the only way to get in is by helicopter. There is no way in the world that workers and equipment could be brought to the site and even if they could, the damage from the spill could never be properly cleaned up.

It’s interesting to note that Enbridge and its supporters sneer at the possibility that they would have to file plans for crossing 1000 rivers and streams – this, they say, is absurd.

I ask why is it absurd? The common environmental requirement for pipelines is that they must file plans for crossing watercourses – why should that not be the case just because there are a lot of watercourses?

In conclusion, I thoroughly agree with Robyn Allan but simply say we shouldn’t let ourselves get to the spot where the economics are considered.

If I was a BC Tory Under Harper, I’d Resign

July 5, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oceans, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Salmon Farming and Aquaculture, Western CanadaAquaculture, BC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, KinderMorgan, Oil and gas, Politics, SalmonRafe Mair

I have received a lot of feedback on my recent blog on John Weston, MP.

Let me say that this was directed to Weston because he is my MP and it applies with equal force to all Tory MPs from British Columbia.

I’ve been asked if I would resign were I in John’s position and I say YES. Now, I realize that’s easy to say – he who has not sinned has not been tempted. I have no doubt, however. I sat in a cabinet that had half a dozen ministers who would have resigned under these circumstances. Premier Bill Bennett recognized this and it was taken into his consideration, I’m sure.

Now, under our system – such is the measure of its idiocy – all elected members on the government side must often compromise, otherwise the government couldn’t function. There were occasions where cabinet passed policy that I had spoken out against in the past and I told the press that when cabinet makes a decision all must support it. But these were areas of policy, not matters that go to the root of your commitment to your voters and your constituency. They were not matters of conscience. Any who have sat on the board of, say, a golf club will readily get the distinction between matters of business and matters of conscience. Premier Bill Bennett understood the distinction – Stephen Harper, no doubt also understands but he knows his backbenchers well and knows that there is almost nothing that goes to the conscience of his MPS because they have none.

Let’s be clear what issues we’re talking about here.

The environment of BC as a whole is not merely threatened but is on the brink of disaster from policy decisions already taken by the Harper government. I refer, of course, to its support of the Enbridge pipeline and expansion of Kinder Morgan’s pipeline to Vancouver; its open support of tankers loaded with deadly bitumen from the Tar Sands; its ongoing support of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to promote fish farms while their statutory basic raison d’etre is to protect our salmon; and its utter abandonment of protection of fish habitat as demonstrated in its gutting of the DFO in BC.

These, I contend, are not merely matters of policy but go the very root of what British Columbia is and as such simply cannot be supported by any Member of Parliament from our province.

Ask yourself this: if in the past election Tory candidates were asked if they support the above policies, I suggest that not one of them would have answered yes. If they had been and they replied that they were for these policies they would never have been elected and they know that.

I pick on Weston because, as I say, he’s my MP. In fact, the entire BC Conservative caucus ought to resign en masse. That they haven’t and won’t brands them as they are – lickspittles and toadies who put their parliamentary seat before their duty.

My prediction is that Weston will be rewarded with a cabinet seat in the next major shuffle – after all, he has been faithful to Harper and he’s moved his family back to Ottawa, which move could well have come from a nod or a wink from Harper.

After all, if sacrificing your constituency and your province for personal gain is to mean anything, there must be a reward and in my view it will come.

Rafe Takes his MP John Weston to Task on Pipelines, Tankers, Fish Habitat

July 2, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, KinderMorgan, Oil and gas, SalmonRafe Mair

Dear John Weston, MP,

A short time ago you held a meeting in Lions Bay to announce that through your sterling work and doggedness we will soon have a National Health and Fitness Day…or is it a whole week? Well done, I’m sure.

The thought may occur to some that this is a little dollop given to backbenchers to see that they are busy little bees and not doing the devil’s work like raising real issues that concern an MP’s constituents and home province.

I invite you to answer a few questions on the minds of, dare I say, most British Columbians who want you to listen to them, then take a public stand. I certainly understand, as I’m sure most people do, the need for party solidarity under our system. This must, however, surely take a back seat to forthright and courageous deeds when the very essence of your constituency and province are at issue as they are in BC today. The Harper government, with steady support of the Victoria Liberals, have implemented policies that will destroy us.

Do you know that Enbridge, which wishes to construct a 1,100 km twin pipeline through our northern wilderness, averages a spill a week? That they’ve had hundreds of spills over the past decade?

Do you know that the pipeline traverses the Rockies, then the Coast Range, thence through one of the most important and beautiful wilderness areas in the world?

Do you know that bitumen, the substance being transported, is different than conventional crude oil in that it is virtually impossible to clean up and that it has a “shelf life” of 100 years? That its viscosity means it clings to everything it touches? Have you studied the Enbridge spill into the Kalamazoo River, a location easy to access, and seen that two years later what the company described as ”not a major spill” has not been cleaned up yet and likely never will?

Have you done your thinking and reasoned that pipelines in this region would produce spill after spill in terrain that even a helicopter would have trouble getting to?

Have you examined the tanker traffic issue carefully or, indeed, at all? Do you not accept the fact that despite all efforts, there will be a spill? That bitumen, unlike regular crude, sinks like a stone? That where ordinary crude can be surrounded by rafts, closed in then scooped up, that bitumen sinks and, thus, for all intents and purposes, can not be recovered?

Have you ever been to Douglas Channel and assessed the challenge to a tanker? Do you not know that double hulling, while helpful, scarcely solves the question of human error, nor does it remove the certainty of a spill which will make the Exxon Valdez look like a non-event? That in recent years there have been four major accidents with double hulled tankers on within the last year and that these were collisions with other ships?

Do you not realize that the Kinder Morgan line poses a huge threat to the Port of Vancouver and entire south coast, much of which you represent?

John, your government has just approved, through the notorious Bill 38, of the rape of fish habitat. Because you voted for it you must have approved this monstrous act. That, for example, salmon spawning rivers are now all but unprotected? Do you not understand The Pacific salmon and their habits? Did you know, for example, that Coho spawn in creeks and ditches, and that Municipalities often approve development in the area because they’re told the creek or ditch has no fish values?

One day you should go down to the Musqueam Nation and look at Musqueam Creek, where I fished when I was a boy, and see that thanks to the Band it still has a Coho run. It’s a tiny creek, yet is very important as are other small streams throughout the province.

I close with this question: didn’t we send you to Ottawa to represent us and work on our behalf? Don’t we have the right to expect you to fight our battles in public, not tamely accept huge and permanent damage to your province? Why do we need you – to look after late pension cheques and send birthday cards to elderly constituents?

In reality, you clearly put your duty to your leader and your party ahead of your obligations to fight our battles and you might just as well be a fencepost with hair.

John, you support fish farms, support the BC government’s raping our rivers (indeed you’ve given grants to these bastards), you support legislation to all but eliminate federal protection of fish habitat, you approve of the environmental desecration of our salmon spawning grounds, pay no attention to the sure carnage which will, as night follows day, destroy our God-granted environment if pipelines and tanker traffic are approved.

Come to think of it, John, just what the hell have you done for our constituency? More importantly, what have you and your fellow Tory lickspittles done to save our province from being environmentally trashed by your corporate friends?

I’m reminded of Oliver Cromwell’s words to the Rump parliament: “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately…Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”