BURNABY, B.C. – Greenpeace protesters have set up a blockade at the Kinder Morgan oil pumping facility in Burnaby, B.C.
Spokesman Peter Louwe says two protesters have climbed onto the oil pumping mechanism and 14 other demonstrators are also on the scene and have unfurled a banner.
Louwe says the action began at around 7 a.m. and the protesters intend to stay until they have sent a message to Prime Minister Stephen Harper that expansion of oil pipelines is not acceptable.
The Kinder Morgan facility is the west coast terminus of the Trans Mountain pipeline that carries Alberta bitumen from the Edmonton area, across southern British Columbia to port just east of Vancouver in Burrard Inlet, for shipment overseas.
Kinder Morgan has applied to expand the pipeline to nearly triple its capacity from 300,000 barrels a day to 890,000.
B.C. Premier Christy Clark and Alberta’s Alison Redford (photo: Dan Riedhuber/Reuters)
VICTORIA – British Columbia Premier Christy Clark and Alberta’s Alison Redford have appointed a team of senior bureaucrats to develop an energy export plan, barely a year after a high-profile disagreement over the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline strained the two leaders’ relationship.
Clark and Redford are scheduled to publicly discuss the progress of the joint energy plan on Nov. 5 in Vancouver following the Alberta premier’s address to the city’s Board of Trade. A final report is due on Dec. 31.
Enbridge clash
The premiers are attempting to move past their very public clash over the Northern Gateway pipeline, which was the subject of a meeting in Calgary last October that Clark later described as “frosty.”
Clark had insisted the project must meet a series of conditions, including strict environmental standards and assurances that B.C. would receive a “fair share” the economic benefits, to win her approval, which prompted Redford to suggest Clark was attempting to pick Alberta’s pockets with demands for extra royalties.
“Frosty” relationship warming?
But a joint statement issued Tuesday was the latest sign that relations between the two premiers are warming. This past June, Clark and Redford met in Kelowna, B.C., and while they didn’t mention the Northern Gateway project, they announced the creation of a working group to focus on skills training, immigration and economic growth.
“In creating the working group, B.C. and Alberta identified the shared goals: opening new markets and expanding export opportunities for oil, gas and other resources,” and, “creating jobs and strengthening the economy of each province and Canada through the development of the oil and gas sector,” said Tuesday’s joint statement.
Clark and Redford both declined interview requests on Tuesday.
Alberta-B.C. working group
The Alberta-B.C. working group, jointly chaired by deputy ministers from both provinces, has been given a mandate to share information, collaborate on policy and address federal gaps on energy issues.
The terms of reference include five policy areas that mirror Clark’s five conditions.
The group has been directed to consult with First Nations; explore other resource transportation options, including rail; look at how to promote resources; and study ways to reduce the potential impact of oil spills. It is also to examine how to make sure both provinces receive a fair share of resource revenues.
“It is not about royalty sharing, but rather about receiving a fair share of the economic and fiscal benefits of a proposed heavy oil project that reflects the levels, degree and nature of the risk borne by B.C., the environment and taxpayers,” said the premiers’ statement.
[quote]Given the risk to B.C. from land-based and coastal bitumen spills, B.C. does not believe an equitable distribution exists for fiscal benefits. This imbalance must be addressed.[/quote]
First Nations remain opposed to Enbridge
Coastal First Nations spokesman Art Sterritt said northern B.C.’s aboriginals are opposed to seeing a pipeline built along their traditional territories and believe the risk of an oil tanker spill is too great to even contemplate. The Coastal First Nations group, which represents most coastal aboriginal nations from Rivers Inlet in southern B.C. to the Alaska border in the northwest, has been a staunch opponent of the pipeline.
Sterritt said his group intends to hold Clark’s Liberals to the government’s previous statements that the Northern Gateway pipeline, as it is currently proposed, fails to adequately address the potential environmental risks.
“They don’t have the technology,” Sterritt said from Terrace, B.C.
“The geography is not very friendly and there isn’t anybody in the north that wants the project. I don’t know how they are going to make it work.”
Sterritt said the possibility of transporting Alberta oil to the B.C. coast by rail, an option that will be considered by the working group, “boggles the mind.”
He warned that much of B.C.’s rain infrastructure runs over mountains and along rivers, meaning it wouldn’t change the potential risk of a spill.
Dix: Clark watering down “5 conditions”
The leader of B.C.’s Opposition New Democrats, Adrian Dix, said it appears the joint working group’s terms of reference are a watering down of Clark’s original five conditions.
Dix said the working group’s mandate appears more focused on ensuring energy projects like pipelines proceed as opposed to ensuring environmental safety and meaningful consultations with First Nations.
“It’s apparent on the B.C. side where their priorities are,” he said.
Billionaire Keystone XL pipeline opponent Tom Steyer (photo: Getty Images)
OTTAWA – An anti-Keystone XL pipeline crusader has written to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, suggesting Canada’s aggressive lobbying for the project played a part in the ongoing government shutdown south of the border.
Tom Steyer, a San Francisco billionaire who’s also a major Democratic party fundraiser, chastises Harper for saying he would not “take ‘no’ for an answer” from U.S. President Barack Obama on TransCanada’s Keystone XL.
In a question-and-answer session with the Canadian American Business Council last week in New York, Harper took a hard line on how Canada would respond if the Keystone XL project is rejected by the White House.
“My view is you don’t take ‘no’ for an answer,” Harper said. “This won’t be final until it’s approved and we will keep pushing forward.”
Steyer took issue with those comments in his letter to the prime minister Friday, asking:
[quote]Have your government, your government’s lobbyist and/or agents representing TransCanada communicated with House Republicans about including Keystone in the original litany of demands put to President Obama?[/quote]
Steyer says in the dispatch that TransCanada is launching a new advertising campaign aimed at stakeholders in Washington, D.C.
“News of this advertising campaign comes in the context of House Republicans having closed down the U.S. government as well as threatening to oppose the extension of the country’s debt limit unless certain demands were met,” Steyer writes.
“Included in the original list of House Republican demands was that the Obama administration grant approval for the building of the Keystone XL pipeline.
The combination of the advertising campaign and Harper’s comments last week “raises the question of whether your office is working hand-in-hand with TransCanada to try to exploit the current situation in Washington, D.C., at the expense of the American people,” Steyer wrote.
The Prime Minister’s Office didn’t respond to queries about Steyer’s letter. Harper is currently in Southeast Asia for an economic summit with Pacific Rim countries.
Harper’s strong-arm tactics counter-productive?
The majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives, and some Democrats, have long been staunch supporters of Keystone XL and have tried in the past to insert pipeline provisions into bigger pieces of legislation.
Privately, however, some TransCanada officials have bemoaned the strong-arm tactics of some of their Republican cheerleaders.
Just this week, TransCanada’s director of the pipeline said a legislative effort by Republicans in 2012 to push Obama into approving Keystone XL unnecessarily delayed the project.
“As you recall, 2012 was an election year and politics began to weigh heavily into that process and some political manoeuvring occurred,” Les Cherwenuk said in Houston at an energy roundtable.
The president “couldn’t (approve the project) fundamentally, since the work had not been completed and he had no choice but to deny the permit.”
In early 2012, Republicans pushed a mandate through Congress demanding Obama approve the $5.3-billion pipeline within a strict deadline. But the State Department was still assessing the project amid concerns from the state of Nebraska that Keystone XL posed risks to a crucial drinking water aquifer.
The president invited TransCanada to submit another application, one that would reroute the pipeline around the aquifer.
The pipeline has become a flashpoint for U.S. environmentalists who hold it up as a symbol of America’s over-reliance on carbon-intensive fossil fuels. They argue that approving Keystone XL will encourage oilsands crude production, which emits more carbon into the atmosphere than conventional oil production.
Steyer, a former hedge fund manager who hosted Obama in his home for a Democratic fundraiser in the spring, left his firm to devote himself entirely to climate change issues. He’s emerged a major thorn in the side of pipeline proponents, and recently launched a series of TV commercials maligning Keystone XL.
Eagle Spirit Energy’s Calvin Helin speaking the Vancouver Board of Trade
A new energy company with partial aboriginal ownership is floating the idea of an oil refinery at Grassy Point, near Prince Rupert on BC’s north coast, according to a letter sent to members of a local First Nations band.
The letter, obtained through a facebook posting, was signed by chief/mayor of the Lax Kw’alaams Band, Garry Reece. It invites band members to two separate meetings about proposed energy projects. The first is an oil refinery put forth by Eagle Spirit Energy Holdings, Ltd., a company that was founded last year by Calvin Helin, an author and entrepreneur who identifies himself as member of Lax Kw’alaams First Nation and son of a hereditary chief.
The meeting is being held today “to provide Eagle Spirit Energy an opportunity to present their idea on the construction of an oil refinery and the shipment of oil from Grassy Point,” the letter indicates.
Grassy Point is also the site of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal proposed by an international consortium of companies.
A second meeting tomorrow is being convened “to provide a report on the activities associated with LNG on our traditional territory.” The band’s lead LNG negotiator will “discuss negotiations for a benefit package for Lax Kw’alaams.”
Eagle Spirit was launched in September of 2012, touted in a press release as “a new ground breaking Aboriginal-owned and controlled company…to assist aboriginal communities and individuals to become successful with managing economic opportunities in their traditional territories.” In the release, Chairman and President Helin stated:
[quote]We want to work with communities to establish a First Nations Energy Corridor across northern British Columbia.[/quote]
Helin, who has written and spoken extensively on indigenous self-reliance, has picked up some heavy-duty backing from investors like Vancouver’s Aquilini family, which owns the Vancouver Canucks and significant real estate holdings.
[quote]At a time when Canada faces seemingly intractable conflict between first nations and a resurgent resource sector, Eagle Spirit also presents a shimmer of hope that a third way may be possible.[/quote]
It also acknowledged “Eagle Spirit’s path, however, is unlikely to be easy, given the tremendous complexity of negotiating with dozens of first nations, and the huge cost and expertise required to build pipelines and power lines.”
It remains to be seen the level of planning Eagle Spirit has done for its proposed oil refinery, among a long list of other concerns – such as how the oil will be delivered to Grassy Point and how Helin will deal with the tremendous First Nations-led opposition to pipelines crossing their territories.
Helin’s proposal is sure to raise eyebrows in the energy sector, across BC and throughout First Nations communities.
Stephen Harper has been trying to win over Obama on the stalled Keystone XL pipeline (Adrian Wyld/CP)
Prime Minister Stephen Harper looks increasingly desperate to find ways for expanding the Tar Sands. While his government wants to ramp up bitumen production dramatically in Alberta, it faces export challenges at every turn.
This has led to some erratic and questionable moves by Team Harper in recent months – from a sudden u-turn for its aboriginal relations on the pipeline file, to aggressive US lobbying over the controversial Keystone XL project, to today’s news that it has been mulling an unprecedented plan to move massive quantities of bitumen to BC’s coast by rail.
Half a million barrels a day…by rail?
On that last point, we learned today from internal memos pried loose by Greenpeace that the Harper Government and Chinese-owned Nexen sought out CN to explore moving a similar quantity of oil to the embattled Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline proposal.
Oil is moved by rail today, but in relatively small volumes – though that trend is changing, particularly in the US with the Bakken shale in North Dakota. This has had dangerous consequences, as we saw with the catastrophic derailment in Lac-Mégantic of a train carrying highly combustible shale oil. Even with oil-by-rail shipments on the rise around North America, this Prince Rupert plan is unprecedented in its scale and risks.
While the now-defunct operator behind the Lac-Mégantic disaster – the Montreal, Main and Atlantic Railway – moved half a million barrels of Bakken oil a month, CN would be doing that on a daily basis. The company would send seven trains a day, with over a hundred cars each, carrying bitumen to the Port of Prince Rupert.
The trains would travel along Canada’s second largest salmon river, the Skeena – a derailment would be a catastrophe waiting to happen. Pipeline proponents – especially since Lac-Mégantic – have long held up rail as a straw man to persuade the public of the relative safety of pipelines, making this alternative proposal all the more baffling. Unless, of course, it’s intended to frighten British Columbians back into embracing Enbridge.
Memo blacked out
Who can say what Harper and co. are really thinking here, especially since the section of the rail memo discussing the Department of Natural Resources’ views on the matter was entirely blacked out.
The undated memo was allegedly written prior to Lac-Mégantic, so it’s difficult to say to what degree it’s being taken seriously today. Any way you slice it, this is a crazy plan, coming from a government that looks like it’s flailing around for a lifeline, amid the increasingly troubled waters for Tar Sands expansion.
Keystone antics
This desperation has played out in Harper’s erratic attempts to win over President Obama on the controversial, proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to refineries on the US Gulf Coast. With Obama’s apparent conversion on the climate file, Harper looks lost.
When trouble first began brewing for Keystone, he sent his pitbull, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, to Washington, DC for some pipeline diplomacy. The only thing missing was the diplomacy, as Oliver’s brutish antics only served to insult his hosts and provoke ridicule from more enlightened political and media observers around the world.
Following Obama’s bold climate speech this summer, Harper radically changed his tack, offering to commit to US carbon emissions targets in exchange for giving Keystone a pass. The jury’s out on how effective this tactic will prove, but it can hardly look like anything other than disingenuous, johnny-come-lately political maneuvering to Obama.
Mixed signals to First Nations
Finally, there’s Harper’s dramatic swings in his approach to First Nations on pipelines. Over the past year, he and Oliver have gone from alternately ignoring First Nations’ concerns to vilifying them as “radical” opponents of Canada’s national interest.
Then, out of the blue, we learned recently that Harper and a caravan of federal ministers would be venturing out to our hinterland west of the Rockies to get First Nations onside with the proposed Enbridge and Kinder Morgan pipelines.
If this apparent reversal wasn’t baffling enough for aboriginal leaders like Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, the ministers’ attitude at the table took it to another level. Describing separate meetings with Oliver and Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Velcourt to theVancouver Observer, Phillip says the ministers made little effort to win him over:
[quote]There was just a lot of rhetoric about not dwelling on the past, looking towards the future, and realizing the benefits of the vast natural resource wealth that this country has been blessed with. Pretty much a Canadian Apple Pie lecture…There wasn’t any engagement or dialogue in terms of Minister Oliver saying ‘what will it take? What are your recommendations?…He just sat there and repeated his talking points.[/quote]
Phillip suspects this sudden action from Harper is about papering over consultation with First Nations that has been sorely lacking, paving the way for the pipelines through the argument of “national interest”.
Pipelines’ uncertain future
Whatever thinking is motivating Harper’s about-face with First Nations, if he continues down this path, his government’s actions will do little to mollify his agenda’s most powerful opponents.
It remains to be seen where Obama goes on Keystone and whether Harper gets any traction on Enbridge, Kinder Morgan – or new plans to pump bitumen East through Enbridge and TransCanada pipelines – but the more he fumbles for “radical” solutions to his pipeline predicament, the more unsure, vulnerable and desperate he shows himself to be.
Stephen Harper meets with National AFN Chief Shawn Atleo in 2011 (Reuters)
So Prime Minister Stephen Harper and members of his cabinet have been meeting with BC’s First Nations chiefs in order to get them onside with the Enbridge and Kinder Morgan pipelines. This is a gross insult and I believe will be seen as such.
Bribing First Nations
What Harper must do is get First Nations onside and this is impossible unless it takes the form of an acceptable bribe. For that is what Mr. Harper and the pipeline companies are doing. And they may be able to do it as companies have been able to in isolated circumstances with private power projects. But before we conjure a sneer at any First Nations’ possible breaking of ranks, let’s remember Robbie Burns saying, “O wad some power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as others see us”.
We Europeans accept bribes all the time. That’s what political promises are and we swallow some pretty unpalatable gunk, wrapped in a party package every time we go to the polls. We also, in making judgments, must “walk a mile in the other man’s moccasins”
Many nations live in poverty consistent with 75% unemployment and a “political promise” from the Prime Minister will be listened to. Moreover, the bands that have hitherto rejected pipelines and tanker traffic have dissension within their ranks and that’s to be expected. For example, any political offer to all municipalities would receive different response from different places.
Mr. Harper starts off wrong-footed, as he and his arrogant Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver have made it clear that the Enbridge line will go through, irrespective of findings by the Joint Review Panel looking into the environmental challenges of the Enbridge line.
This is the kind of government move that takes the breath away, but Harper & Co hope that they can still make a deal. As this process takes place, most non-natives are on the sidelines cheering First Nations along.
In my travels around the province I have met many aboriginal leaders and my sense of it is that they will remain steadfast no matter which “vigorish” is presented in a brown envelope.
Grand Chief Phillip: Ministers had nothing to offer First Nations
Curiously, according to the Union of BC Indian Chiefs’ Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, the ministers with whom he met made little effort to win him over. Phillip described separate meetings with Oliver and Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Velcourt to theVancouver Observer
[quote]There was just a lot of rhetoric about not dwelling on the past, looking towards the future, and realizing the benefits of the vast natural resource wealth that this country has been blessed with. Pretty much a Canadian Apple Pie lecture…There wasn’t any engagement or dialogue in terms of Minister Oliver saying ‘what will it take? What are your recommendations?…He just sat there and repeated his talking points.[/quote]
Phillip suspects this flurry of unexpected meetings – after years of being ignored or insulted as “radicals” opposed to development, by Oliver in particular – is about papering over consultation with First Nations that has been sorely lacking, paving the way for the pipelines through the argument of “national interest”.
If this experience is indicative of what other First Nations leaders are seeing from Harper’s pipeline push, then sooner or later the government will find this approach too is failing – forcing them to put some tangible goodies on the table.
Selling Enbridge
To sell this project to First Nations, Mr. Harper must persuade them that Enbridge has a marvelous track record, when in fact they average a spill a week or more.
He must convince them that his government has put in strict rules regarding spills (never admitting the obvious inference that there will be spills), hoping that no one will notice that fines will hardly frighten Enbridge, which already has them marked off as an expense of doing business – or the fact that he has actually gutted environmental regulations.
In saying this, you will not be hearing Harper & Co playing the famous Glenn Miller hit of another epoch, Kalamazoo, for that is the living symbol of the company’s utter inability to handle a spill, which was right along side a highway. It’s been over three years and the mess has yet to be cleaned up and it never will be.
The cleanup is a major concern for all of us, but especially for First Nations. The company cannot say they will have no accidents, for even big companies, serial liars all, know you can go too far. They dissemble, obfuscate an make promises they have no intention of keeping. This means, somehow, Enbridge and Harper must convince First Nations that there will be no damage from a burst pipeline or leaky oil tanker. I don’t think they can do it.
Taking it into the street
We should see these visits for what they are: an unpopular Prime Minister paying homage to Alberta MPs and Conservative-held seats in BC. Harper needs to show his western base that he’s prepared to go the extra mile for these pipelines.
We have no right to tell First Nations what to do but we can let them know that they are supported by their fellow citizens.
In fact, that is precisely what Grand Chief Stewart Phillip asked of us, following some of these meetings last week:
[quote]My message to those who have been very diligent in their efforts to bring their concerns forward about the possibilities of catastrophic oil spills and oil line ruptures is, ‘Now is the time to bring these issues into the street, to be visible and vocal while these federal officials are in BC.’ [/quote]
Thus I close by saying that this decaying Prime Minister and his lickspittle outsiders must be dealt with by First Nations, with our support, and that I believe that they will continue to see this Harper/Enbridge road show as the covey of snake oil salesmen it really is.
2011 Rainbow Pipeline leak in Alberta (Rogu Collecti/Greenpeace)
EDMONTON – Alberta’s auditor general is going to take a deeper look at the safety of oil and natural gas pipelines in the province.
Merwan Saher said his audit will examine pipeline inspections and will look at how well companies are following government pipeline regulations and how well provincial regulations are being enforced.
“I wish to inform you that we will initiate such an audit as soon as reasonably possible,” Saher wrote in letters to Alberta’s opposition Wildrose and New Democrats, which had requested the review.
50 groups called for investigation
Last month more than 50 public interest groups called for such an investigation after a government-commissioned report said Alberta has favourable pipeline rules. Opposition parties and environmental groups said that review was too narrow because it did not look into the effectiveness of enforcement or at the cause of specific spills.
The province commissioned its report last summer after a string of oil spills, including a 475,000-litre leak from a Plains Midstream Canada pipeline in Central Alberta in June 2012.
A pipeline owned by the same company had spilled 4.5 million litres of oil in northwestern Alberta in April 2011. Earlier this year, the province slapped Plains with environmental charges in relation to that event.
Wildrose energy critic Jason Hale welcomed the auditor general’s decision.
[quote]Given how important pipelines are to Alberta’s long-term economic prosperity, it is critical we prove we are leading the way in enforcing pipeline regulations and transporting our energy products in the safest and most secure way possible.[/quote]
New Democrat Rachel Notley called Saher’s decision to audit pipeline safety a big victory for Albertans.
“This independent review will help ensure we move to better protect the environment and signal to the world that Alberta is serious about developing our abundant natural resources in a sustainable and responsible manner,” she said.
Pipelines keep spilling
Pipeline spills continued in the spring of this year. An estimated 9.5 million litres of waste water leaked in northwestern Alberta from a pipeline owned by U.S. company Apache Corp. As well, a Penn West pipeline spilled 5,000 litres of crude and up to 600,000 litres of waste water. And an Enbridge Inc. pipeline near Fort McMurray, Alta., leaked about 200,000 litres.
Jennifer Grant of the Pembina Institute, an environmental think-tank, said the audit could restore people’s confidence in Alberta’s ability to regulate pipelines and their associated risks.
[quote]With 400,000 kilometres of pipelines criss-crossing the province, and an average of two crude spills a day for the past 37 years, ensuring the integrity and safety of Alberta’s pipeline network is absolutely critical.[/quote]
A coalition of environmental groups, landowners and First Nations that have been pushing for a more comprehensive review of Alberta’s pipelines were also celebrating.
Don Bester of the Alberta Surface Rights Group said Saher’s announcement shows what can happen when people work together.
“Today is a great day,” he said. “We have always said that Albertans deserve a real pipeline safety review.”
Singer comes out swinging against Keystone Pipeline.
OTTAWA – Neil Young is singing a new tune, claiming he’s seen the pipeline and the damage done.
The Canadian music legend has waded into the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline with inflammatory comments that compare Fort McMurray, Alta., to the scene of an atomic bomb strike.
Young declared himself “against the Keystone pipeline in a big way” as he described a recent driving visit to Fort McMurray, home base to northern Alberta’s oil sands development.
“The fact is, Fort McMurray looks like Hiroshima,” Young, 67, said at an event Tuesday in Washington hosted by Democratic Senator Harry Reid and the National Farmers Union.
[quote]Fort McMurray is a wasteland. The Indians up there and the native peoples are dying. The fuel’s all over, there’s fumes everywhere. You can smell it when you get to town.[/quote]
“Fort McMurray is a wasteland. The Indians up there and the native peoples are dying. The fuel’s all over, there’s fumes everywhere. You can smell it when you get to town.”
Tar Sands infrastructure near Fort McMurray (photo: Kris Krüg)
His comments came the same day that Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver was in the American capital talking up Canadian environmental policy and TransCanada’s Keystone project, which is designed to carry Alberta oil sands bitumen to refineries on the Texas gulf coast.
“This is truly a disaster and America is supporting this,” Young said of the oil sands.
“It’s very unfortunate that this is where we get the majority of our fuel from.”
Oliver, through his office, issued a short email response Tuesday.
“I am a fan of Neil Young’s music,” said the minister.
“But on this matter we disagree because Keystone XL will displace heavy oil from Venezuela, which has the same or higher greenhouse gas emissions, with a stable and secure source of Canadian oil.”
Young’s graphic description of Fort McMurray also left some locals scratching their heads.
“I’ve lived here nine years. I’ve raised my kids here,” said Will Gibson, a spokesman for Syncrude, who related how his morning jog Tuesday included a fox sighting. “It’s a beautiful community.”
Air-quality readings are better than most metropolitan cities, said Gibson.
“I would have loved to give Mr. Young a chance to see the Fort McMurray I know,” he said.
[quote]Young, in his address, likened the jobs that will be created by the $5.4-billion Keystone pipeline project to digging a bottomless pit.[/quote]
Young, in his address, likened the jobs that will be created by the $5.4-billion Keystone pipeline project to digging a bottomless pit.
“I’ve seen a lot of people that would dig a hole that’s so deep that they couldn’t get out of it, and that’s a job too. And I think that’s the jobs that we are talking about there with the Keystone pipeline,” said Young.
Young, who has lived in the United States since his early 20s but remains a Canadian music icon for songs such as Helpless, After the Gold Rush and Heart of Gold, has a long history of wading into politically sensitive territory.
He’s been involved with Farm Aid, an organization to save family farms, for decades.
In 1970 he wrote and recorded a raging ode to four students shot dead by National Guardsmen at Kent State University during protests of the Vietnam War. The song, Ohio, hit the airwaves within three weeks of the shooting, further inflaming an already impassioned U.S. debate.
His songs Southern Man and Alabama, about racism in the American south, prompted a blistering musical riposte from the band Lynyrd Skynyrd, Sweet Home Alabama.
His 1975 song Cortez the Killer was banned in Spain by Gen. Francisco Franco because of its dark depiction of Spanish imperialism.
Young recorded a tribute single in 2001 to the doomed passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.
His 2003 album Greendale was a folksy indictment of environmental degradation, government corruption and the news media, and in 2006 his Living With War album took aim at the continuing military morass in Iraq, including the less-than-subtle song, Let’s Impeach the President.
Young said he drove his hybrid 1959 Lincoln Continental, which runs on ethanol and electricity, up to Fort McMurray while traversing the continent from his California home to Washington over the last two and half weeks.
“That’s a long way, I still feel it,” he said of the long detour north.
Petronas/Progress Energy’s proposed Lelu Island LNG plant -artist’s rendering
The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) announced today that it’s extending the public comment period for a controversial, proposed Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) plant near Prince Rupert. Concerns were raised last week by West Coast Environmental Law (WCEL) over an incorrect map in the project description documents, which made Canada’s second largest salmon river, the Skeena, disappear.
As The Common Sense Canadian reported on Friday, the plant, proposed by Malaysian energy giant Petronas’ Canadian subsidiary, Progress Energy, would be situated amid vital salmon habitat in the Skeena estuary. According to WCEL, that would have been a red flag for many citizens and environmental groups had the project documents accurately reflected this important fact. As a result, the federal agency reviewing the proposal received less feedback than a project of this nature would ordinarily elicit – a point CEAA conceded with its announcement today that public comments will now be accepted until September 20.
Funding applications for groups and individuals to engage with the project’s environmental assessment process will also now be accepted until September 20.
“We are very pleased that CEAA has acknowledged the potential confusion that resulted from this incorrect map,” says WCEL Executive Director Jessica Clogg. “It’s a small piece of good news for the Skeena salmon…Flora Bank, which sits directly adjacent to the proposed project, is critical salmon habitat that was omitted from the original map.”
Clogg’s enthusiasm is tempered, though, by larger concerns which remain around the lack of big-picture review for the whole LNG program, which contains up to 12 different proposals in Kitimat and Prince Rupert.
“The ‘Case of the missing Skeena’ may have been resolved in the short term, but we still have this piecemeal approach to reviewing myriad projects, which makes it harder for people to catch things like a missing river. What we need is a process that takes a strategic look at all of the potential cumulative impacts on the things that British Columbians care about – our salmon, water, air quality and climate.”
The engineering firm that produced the faulty map, Stantec, blamed the mistake on an error that arose from combining incompatible federal and provincial mapping data sets, as senior principle Ward Prystay explained yesterday to Metro News:
“The provincial data sets and the federal data sets in this specific area didn’t compliment each other,” he said, explaining that after using layers that show First Nations communities, provincial parks, roads, railways and tidal lines, the Skeena somehow disappeared.
“…Where there was missing data they actually inserted a blue background on it to be able to get the water to show up looking like blue on the [revised] map.”
According to Karen Fish of CEAA, “The corrected map has also been included retroactively in the original project. Both the original map and the new revised map will be made available on the Agency’s website, along with a notice referring to the revision and the date on which it took place.”
With so many Canadians eagerly awaiting the end of the anti-democratic, unaccountable Harper regime, some seem to be inclined to support any alternative that may stand a chance for replacing the Cons in 2015, after the next federal election. But maybe we should take a pause to think this through just a little more. Canadian Idol Trudeau, though he hasn’t said that much so far, has already shown that he shares many of the policy positions of Harper. This is where things get scary.
With Duffy, Wallin, Wright and Harb making the news, it might seem that now is a good time to call attention to Trudeau not believing in a need for changing the Senate status quo. For Trudeau, it’s just a matter of choosing good Senators – that is to say, the Senate would be improved if Trudeau got to choose Liberal senators instead of Harper choosing Conservative ones. But these are merely small distractions from the frightening resemblances between Trudeau and Harper.
Indeed, there are extraordinary similarities between Harper and Trudeau on:
The Middle Class, Corporate Taxes, Health Care and Trade with China
Justin Trudeau claims to be a champion of the middle class. Sound good so far?
Well, never before in the history of Canada have inequalities between Canadians been more pronounced. Thanks to the corporate tax cuts initiated by the Liberals and accelerated by the Conservatives, those with power and money – especially the petroleum industry and the banks – are sitting on $600 billion in liquidity. The Conservatives tell us we must tighten our belts, that young people have to accept low wages and precarious jobs. Meanwhile, our cities are clogged for lack of investment in sustainable transit alternatives, etc., because the Conservatives tell us the cupboard is bare.
Yet, Justin Trudeau, self-proclaimed champion of the middle class, has said he will not raise corporate taxes. When push comes to shove, Liberals like Conservatives, always seem to cede to money and power.
Justin Trudeau thinks there are no money problems associated with health care, just management challenges. This position is necessary because Trudeau would lead a government short of revenues, thanks to the lowest corporate taxes among G8 nations! Conservatives couldn’t agree more. The Cons plan on cutting health care funding within 3 years. So much for caring about the middle class!
But there is much more middle class stuff that makes the celebrity Prince Trudeau a scary prospect. A case in point is Justin Trudeau favoured the sale of Nexen to state-controlled Chinese interests because he said it would pave the way to free trade with China, which would in turn pave the way to more prosperity for the middle class. The Conservatives have said the same thing. Yet the North American Free Trade Agreement has been around for a long time and middle class revenues/wages are stagnating or going down. The middle class is being hollowed out. The required fixes are internal/domestic.
Regarding the aforementioned, proposed Canada-China trade agreement, in response to massive dumping on global markets by China’s clean tech industry, the US has imposed trade tariffs running from 31% to 250% on solar tech imports from China, along with tariffs of 45% to 71% on imports of Chinese wind turbine towers; 2) the European Commission is considering tariffs averaging 47% on solar tech imports for China; and 3) Canada is the only country dumb enough to accept, under the proposed China-Canada agreement, a guaranteed exemption for environmental technologies from commercial barriers.
Guns: an integral part of Canadian culture
Justin Trudeau thinks that guns are an integral part of Canadian culture and that the gun registry was ineffective. Stephen Harper has similar views. This, despite the fact that the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs supported the gun registry as: 1) an effective tool for police in the line of duty; 2) regarding the development of evidence related to judicial proceedings.
Environment, submission to the fossil fuel Lobby, Tar Sands, Kinder Morgan and Keystone
Then there’s the matter of the environment. Trudeau and Harper say they favour sustainable development but the legacies of both of their parties suggest otherwise. Prior to their defeat, the Liberals had several climate change action plans. They all failed to do the job, because when you got down to the details, their plans were concessions to money and power. Jean Chrétien promised the petroleum industry that, in the event of a price on carbon, there would be a very affordable ceiling on the price of carbon. Stéphane Dion came out with his billions for a Climate Fund just before the Martin government was defeated, a fund that would have the government pay the largest emitters to reduce their respective emissions or invest in carbon offsets. In other words, the more one emits, the more the government would subsidize – a pay-the-polluter principle rather than the polluter pays. No wonder Canada’s emission levels spiked upwards during the Liberal reign!
Thanks to Conservatives’ narrow focus on accommodating the fossil fuel lobby, Canada is one of the rare developed nations that is not a full participant in one of the greatest job creation areas of our time, the clean tech sectors. China had 1.6 million jobs, and Germany 372,000 jobs in clean tech sectors in 2011. Today, there are over 500 wind tech manufacturing facilities in the US; wind energy was the largest source of new electrical power generation in the US in 2012; the US solar sector employed 119,000 Americans in 2012; and 20% of US venture capital activity in 2011 and 2012 went towards the US clean tech sectors. Yet Canada is barely participating in green economy and, the few advancements that are being made, are thanks to provincial policies
What can we expect from Trudeau on environmental matters? Don’t get your hopes up. Justin Trudeau has already ceded to power and money by being very vague on environmental matters so as not to offend anyone. Following the Jean Chrétien model, Boy King Trudeau supports the Keystone pipeline and the expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline to Vancouver (to export tar sands oil to Asia), while saying he is a champion of the environment – even though the emissions associated with tar sands-related production for these pipelines would negate any of the Trudeau’s nebulous motherhood notions of being on the side of the environment.
Poor Sense of Priorities: Pot Over the Lac-Mégantic Tragedy
More recently, Trudeau has shown his true colours on priorities, with the July 2013 refusal of both the Conservatives and Liberals to interrupt their summer break for the purpose of holding sessions of the Parliamentary committee on Transport to look into the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster that left an estimated 47 people dead. One doesn’t need to await the report of the Transportation Safety Board to figure out that the Transport Canada approval of the Montreal Maine and Atlantic Railway request to have only one person operate a train with 72 wagons of dangerous cargo was a stupid decision.
Former Transport Canada employees have said that, under the Harper regime, safety has taken a back seat to corporate profits. The odds of the tragedy ever happening with 2 people in charge of the train would have been very minimal. But Trudeau thinks the top message for the lazy, hazy days of summer is about legalizing pot. Glad to see he has got his priorities right.
Employment insurance
It was the Liberals who started gutting Employment Insurance and the Conservatives have merely followed through. Justin Trudeau must be counting on the short memory of Canadians.
Wrap-up
Wrapping up, juggling complex issues such as taxation fairness, equal opportunity and participation in the global migration to a green economy, health care, day care etc., requires well-thought-out, synergistic policies with real depth. But both Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau prefer to operate in sound bites and clichés on such matters. Harper answers all tough questions with, “but it’s the economy.” As for Trudeau, he simply repeats his aforementioned mantra that he is for the middle class without any references as to what he would do now that income inequalities have reached an historic high and corporate tax revenues aren’t sufficient to do anything meaningful for the middle class.
Unfortunately, you won’t see much of the above-mentioned criticisms in the media. With very few exceptions, journalists are not interested in the policy details or comparative analyses. The majority of English newspapers in Canada are partisan and represent, first and foremost, corporate Canada, money and power. Canadians have been criticized by some journalists for falling for a superficial Justin Trudeau brand, but the reasons for this can, in part, be found in the lack of depth by the journalists making such criticisms.
Once again, the Liberals are presenting themselves as the best option to address their own poor legacy.
With Trudeau at the helm, Canada now has two Conservative parties.
