Category Archives: Canada

Former Conservative Environment Minister Prentice Warns Harper Govt. on Ignoring First Nations

July 3, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, PoliticsBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gas, Politics, Stephen HarperCommon Sense Canadian

Read this column from The Georgia Straightby Charlie Smith on former Conservative cabinet minister Jim Prentice’s veiled warning to the Harper Government on the consequences of ignoring First Nations’ opposition to major resource projects. (July 1, 2012)

Sometimes, you stumble across an intriguing article where you least expect to find it.

This weekend as I was perusing a Vancouver Sun special section on energy, I spotted the byline of Jim Prentice. He’s the senior executive vice-president and vice-chairman of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

Prentice also happens to be the former Conservative environment minister who announced his resignation from the Stephen Harper government in 2010 because he wanted to spend more time with his family. Coincidentally (or not), this came shortly after he visited Haida Gwaii with environmentalist David Suzuki.

Prentice was a Progressive Conservative before his party was taken over by the more right-wing Canadian Alliance. Its roots were in the old Reform Party of Canada.

Harper, a former policy director of the Reformers, likely went a bit berserk at the sight of his environment minister hobnobbing on The Nature of Things with Suzuki.

Now in his role with the bank, Prentice writes that the objective of developing and exporting Canada’s hydrocarbon deposits is a “defining moment” for the country. He used the same language in a speech last month to the Business Council of B.C.

In the article, Prentice never mentions the proposed Enbridge or Kinder Morgan pipelines by name. However, he acknowledges that “the constitutional and legal issues surrounding west coast energy corridors, terminals and shipping are extraordinarily complex”.

One section of Prentice’s piece is worth repeating verbatim:

To begin, however, the constitutional obligation to consult with first nations is not a corporate obligation. It is the federal government’s responsibility.

Second, the obligation to define an ocean management regime for terminals and shipping on the west coast is not a corporate responsibility. It is the federal government’s responsibility.

Finally, these issues cannot be resolved by regulatory fiat—they require negotiation. The real risk is not regulatory rejection but regulatory approval, undermined by subsequent legal challenges and the absence of ‘social licence’ to operate.

There are billions of dollars at stake for Corporate Canada in the efforts to export raw bitumen through Kitimat and the Port of Vancouver and ship this product via supertankers to Asia.

In the article, Prentice is, in fact, appealing to the Harper government to modify its approach of not seriously negotiating with First Nations.

Hill Times: Harper to “Streamline” Environmental Assessments for $500 Billion of Resource Projects

July 3, 2012Canada, PoliticsPolitics, Stephen HarperCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from the Ottawa Hill Times on the Harper Government’s intention to fast-track $500 Billion worth of proposed resource development projects by “streamlining” environmental assessments. (July 2, 2012)

As the federal government looks to streamline the approval of an estimated $500-billion worth of investment in 500 mining and energy projects over the next 10 years, industry and environmental groups say they will wait and see how new timelines under Bill C-38, the Budget Implementation Act, will affect environmental assessments already underway.

Bill C-38, the Budget Implementation Act, passed its third and final reading in the House of Commons on June 18, days after a 24-four hour marathon vote on 159 bundled opposition amendments.

The Senate passed the controversial 425-page bill, which amends 70 pieces of legislation and contains 150 pages of amendments to environmental laws and the federal environmental assessment process, before adjourning for the summer on Friday, June 29.

Bill C-38 replaces the 1992 Environmental Assessment Act with a 2012 version that imposes a 24-month time limit on joint review panels involving the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, the National Energy Board, and/or the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and 365 days on standard environmental assessments. The federal Environment minister can extend a review by up to three months, and Cabinet can further extend reviews. The federal minister of Natural Resources has similar authority to extend National Energy Board reviews.

In a May 29 appearance before the Senate Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver (Eglinton-Lawrence, Ont.) said that the reforms are necessary to streamline the approval of an estimated $500-billion worth of investment in 500 mining and energy projects over the next 10 years. Projects include oil and gas pipelines, mines, hydroelectric dams, oil and gas extraction, and wind and solar farms. Mr. Oliver estimated that the projects would create 700,000 new jobs over the next decade.

“Inefficient regulation leads to unnecessary and unpredictable project delays that can create additional costs for proponents and impede their ability to attract capital and stimulate economic activity,” said Mr. Oliver, who appeared before the committee alongside Environment Minister Peter Kent (Thornhill, Ont.) and Fisheries and Oceans Minister Keith Ashfield (Fredericton, N.B.). “Both industry and government are in agreement—Canada has suffered from this regulatory malaise for too long.”

Many of the 500 projects touted by the feds are already in some stage of assessment, however, and what the changes in Bill C-38 mean for projects already under review remains unclear. The budget bill contains transitional provisions for projects that are already under review. Under these provisions, the federal Environment minister will have the authority to decide whether assessments underway before Bill C-38 are sufficient, and will impose timelines on these current reviews.

NDP Pushes Past Conservatives in Federal Polling

June 29, 2012Canada, PoliticsPolitics, Stephen Harper, Thomas MulcairCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from The Vancouver Sun, reporting on a national survey by Global TV and Postmedia that gives the NDP a 3-point advantage over their Conservative counterparts. Is Stephen Harper paying a price for his controversial omnibus budget bill, which guts environmental laws and rolls back Old Age Security, among other dramatic non-budgetary policy changes? (June 22, 2012)

OTTAWA — The federal New Democratic Party has become the leading choice among Canadian voters — especially those in Ontario and Quebec — as the most favoured party to govern the country, a major new poll has found.

The national survey commissioned by Postmedia News and Global TV also reveals that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Tories are slipping in popularity and the once-powerful Liberals are continuing to wane.

Ultimately, the poll conducted this week by Ipsos Reid reveals a historic shift in political allegiances, as a growing consensus forms around the NDP among those Canadians who would like to see Harper’s Tories removed from office.

According to the poll, which asked Canadians who they would vote for if an election occurred today, the NDP under Thomas Mulcair would receive 38 per cent of the popular vote, up three points since last month. (That’s also well up from the 2011 election, when the NDP finished second with 31 per cent of the vote.)

The governing Tories would receive 35 per cent of the vote, down two points since last month (and also down from the 40 per cent they attained to win a majority government last year.)

Support for the Liberal party, now heading into an unpredictable leadership race that won’t include its current leader Bob Rae, is also shaky. The party would get 18 per cent of the vote, down one point from its showing in the 2011 election.

The Green party would receive about four per cent of the vote. And the Bloc Quebecois, once powerful in its province, is now running second to the NDP there.

Ipsos Reid president Darrell Bricker said in an interview Friday that the findings are part of a significant trend which shows Canadians are becoming more polarized around key issues such as the economy, the role of government, and taxes.

He said left-wing, “progressive” voters are now coalescing around the political voice that offers the strongest opposition to Harper’s government.

“That’s what’s happening now for the NDP,” said Bricker.

“We’re seeing that there is an opposition emerging. People who are against Harper figure that they have the best chance of defeating them, and that’s where they are going.”

BC Conservative MPs Who Abandoned Our Wild Salmon May Find Voters Abandoning Them

June 22, 2012Canada, Fisheries, Politics, Western CanadaPolitics, Salmon, Stephen HarperRafe Mair

Note well the names that follow, for they are British Columbia MPs who voted for the final destruction of the Pacific Salmon, the sea going Rainbow trout (Steelhead), river resident Cutthroat, resident Rainbow trout, river dwelling Dolly Varden and Bull trout:

Don Albas, Ron Cannan, John Duncan, Ed Fast, Kerrry-Lynne Findlay, Nina Grewal, Richard Harris, Russ Heibert, Randy Kamp, James Lunney, Colin Mayes, Cathy McLeod, James Moore, Andrew Saxton, Mark Strahl, Mark Warawa, John Weston, David Wilks, Alice Wong, Wai Young, and Bob Zimmer.

These toadies are our Conservative Members of Parliament, the blind followers of ultra-conservative Stephen Harper. They voted for Bill C-38, which in itself was a gross abdication of democracy in that it was an act to amend the Budget Act, yet included in it critical amendments to the Fisheries Act and many other environmental protections, making it all but a slam dunk for developers to ravage salmon habitat.

These lickspittles uttered not a word of objection (except Wilks, when caught on candid camera, before promptly recanting) that Harper abused an omnibus bill in order to restrict debate on amendments to the Fisheries Act, then proceeded to vote for it.

The Conservative Party under Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper started their war on our salmon back in the 1980s when they muzzled Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) scientists over the Alcan plan to lower the Nechako River, near Prince George, to dangerous levels, thus threatening runs of sockeye salmon en route to their spawning grounds. The danger came in summertime, when excessive heat would meet low waters – a certainty which then-Fisheries Minister Tom Siddon called “an acceptable risk”. DFO scientists had studied Alcan’s plans and vigorously opposed them and one by one they were moved sidewise, given early retirement or forced by their own code of honour to remove themselves.

The government passed an order-in-council forbidding the usual environmental assessment process, clearly knowing that it would have to call these scientists to give evidence, thus exposing the Kemano Completion program for what it was – naked aggression against the salmon.

Along the way, the DFO, mandated to protect the fish, was instructed to support Atlantic salmon fish farms on the west coast, driving another nail into the coffin of our sacred signature salmon. DFO, unable to enforce the act while supporting the presence of fish farms chose, under stern political guidance, to avoid enforcement of their mandate to protect west coast salmon. Now they have virtually no power to restrain any development. They are eunuchs.

Here’s how the Sudbury Star put it:

Bill C-38 does a lot more than simply implement the federal budget. It eviscerates many of Canada’s historic environmental laws, and establishes a new regime that promotes unrestrained economic development at the expense of environmental protection. For starters, Bill C-38 will repeal the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, one of the foundational pieces of legislation, which for decades has required an assessment of impacts when development is proposed. In place of the Act, the Conservatives are offering new legislation that will severely restrict the required assessment of environmental impacts, and limit opportunities for input from the public and First Nations.

The Fisheries Act will also be gutted by the omnibus bill, as fish habitat protections will be removed. Tom Siddon, the former Tory minister of Fisheries and Oceans in Brian Mulroney’s government, expressed his outrage over this regressive step to managing the economically important fisheries resource.

Why would the government want to gut the Fisheries Act?

Anyone in mind who might like these changes?

Here’s what Postmedia reports:

Federal fisheries officials were having “troubling” disagreements with Enbridge Inc. over the company’s interpretation of its responsibility to protect fish habitat along the Northern Gateway oilsands pipeline route before the company submitted its project proposal in 2010, according to internal documents.

Enbridge was concluding some of the crossings, over an estimated 1,000 waterways, were low risk when fisheries biologists felt the same were medium or high risk to fish and fish habitat, according to emails obtained through the Access to Information Act.

Here’s what The Northern View wrote, reporting on Prince Rupert Council’s opposition to C-38:

Bill C-38 also includes the changes to the Environmental Assessment system for big industrial projects, and the provision that gives the federal cabinet final say over decisions made by the National Energy Board. This change has lead to a considerable loss of confidence in the Enbridge Joint Review Panel hearings by local Northern Gateway opponents, who, at the last hearing in Prince Rupert, repeatedly accused the panel of being stripped of credibility and authority.

Many, including me, have been making the point for years that under our system, Members of Parliament do not represent their constituencies but, instead, return to their ridings to tell us what Ottawa is doing to us and that we can like it or lump it.

I understand, from personal experience, how hard it is for an individual to disagree with the leader and do so publicly. But surely a time comes when the leader is so egregiously in contempt of an MP’s interests that he/she must lay it on the line, knowing it will be politically fatal. If this is not the case, what the hell do we need the MP for anyway? Is their only role to do what they’re told and check it out when a constituent’s pension cheque is late?

One of the consequences of this tight discipline is that the MP no longer informs him/herself of contentious issues. I spoke with my Tory MP, John Weston, a couple of weeks ago and it was obvious that he knew dick-all about the pipelines issue, to add to his utter ignorance of the private power (IPPs) issue. Why learn the other side when you’re going to vote as you are told? What’s the point of cluttering one’s mind with facts when they don’t count for a damn thing when you come to vote?

The system stinks but it will survive as long as the government has absolute control over government members. Here we have the proof – every single BC Conservative MP voted in favour of further decimating our Pacific salmon and their cousins.

For shame! On our Tory MPs for not standing up for their province and on all of us for not understanding how our dishonest system fails us, thus not doing anything to force a change.

Liberals to Reclassify Natural Gas for LNG as “Clean”

June 22, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, PoliticsChristy Clark, fracking, Oil and gas, PoliticsDamien Gillis

Read this blog from the Huffington Post Canada on today’s announcement from the Clark Government that it will be adding natural gas to its list of acceptable “clean” energy sources to enable proposed Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) plants in Kitimat to use natural gas to power their facilities. (June 22, 2012)

VANCOUVER – Premier Christy Clark has tweaked regulations to ensure her job creation plan that includes building three liquefied natural gas plants in northern British Columbia squares with the government’s aggressive plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Clark has previously acknowledged the plants — which are known energy hogs — could be at odds with the provincial Clean Energy Act, but she’s relying on them to create employment.

On Thursday, Clark announced she will be redefining only natural gas that’s used to power the northern LNG plants as “clean energy,” while keeping the classification of all other natural gas in the province as is.

The province’s Clean Energy Act already included cases in which burning natural gas could be considered clean, and so the altered regulation effectively brings the natural gas used to fuel the LNG plants in line.

“To make sure that B.C. can win in the global marketplace, while also doing our best to make sure we’re protecting our environment, we’ll be announcing a new regulation,” she told a conference of energy sector companies in Vancouver.

Clark added the designation will only apply to power generation that meets a set of environmental emissions standards.

BC NDP Confirm Support for Fracking, LNG

June 21, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, Politics, Water and Hydrocarbons, Western CanadaAdrian Dix, fracking, LNG, Oil and gas, PoliticsCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from the Vancouver Sun, reporting on the BC NDP’s support for natural gas and LNG development in BC integral to BC’s future, dismissing the mounting environmental concerns about fracking and LNG in the process. (June 14, 2012)

Opposition energy critic John Horgan sounded almost as happy as the B.C. Liberals recently when Shell Canada announced that it was moving forward on a $4-billion pipeline to transport natural gas from northeastern B.C. to a proposed liquefaction plant at Kitimat.

“Very good news,” Horgan said. “I’m pretty excited about it. Shell’s a big deal. They’ve got gas that they want to get out of the ground, and they want to get it to a market where they can get a better return than they do in North America.”

Natural gas, not oil, be it noted. Still his enthusiasm for LNG development stands in marked contrast to the national NDP’s recent doomsaying about resource exports, hydrocarbons, pipelines and tanker traffic.

When Horgan was reaffirmed as energy critic by new leader Adrian Dix last year – a position that is likely to translate into a term as energy minister if the New Democrats form government in 2013 – he made it clear that the party’s green proclivities on oil would have limited application to development of the provincial natural gas resource.

“A natural-gas proposal makes sense,” Horgan said, “because it’s a product from British Columbia, so the royalties would stay here, the jobs would be created here. And gas vents; it doesn’t stick.”

His made-in-B.C. stance even extends to the most controversial aspect of natural gas development, namely the means of extracting it.

Fracking, to use the unflattering short-hand term for the process of hydraulically fracturing shale rock to release the gas trapped within, has generated concerns about excessive water use, subsurface pollution, and seismic activity.

But would Horgan “call for a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing until British Columbians know more?” The question was put to the would-be energy minister by would-be NDP candidate George Heyman of the Sierra Club during Horgan’s recent appearance on Voice of B.C. on Shaw TV.

“No,” was the clear implication of his more lengthy reply.

“People within the NDP predisposed to green, environmental concerns were troubled that you heard from other jurisdictions where people were lighting their taps on fire because the gas had seeped into aquifers and into the water tables.

“That’s not the case in B.C. Our deposits are three and four kilometres under the ground. In Pennsylvania, the Marcellus play, which is providing gas now to much of Eastern Canada – that’s very shallow, relative to our deposits.”

He’s impressed with the B.C. industry’s experience and expertise. “We’ve been fracking in B.C. for decades and we do it fairly well. I’ve been to a number of frack sites, and I’m comfortable with the technology.”

As for water use, he maintains the provincial party has already addressed those concerns. “We’ve put in place what we consider to be a scientific panel that would review and ensure that water is disposed of appropriately, and that we reduce the amount of fresh water that’s involved in fracking.”

Seismic activity? “Not significant issues when you’re that deep in the ground. You wouldn’t want to necessarily be fracking along the Juan de Fuca fault, but in the Peace country it’s relatively safe – at least, that’s what I’m advised, and I’ve not heard of any seismic activity in the Peace.”

So green New Democrats like Hey-man should relax. But even as Horgan and his colleagues support fracking, pipelines, terminals and the tanker traffic necessary to transport the product overseas, there’s another big challenge to LNG development.

Dear Mr. Dix: A Letter From Rafe Mair to BC’s Future Premier

June 20, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, WATER, Western CanadaAdrian Dix, BC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, ipp, KinderMorgan, Oil and gas, Politics, private river power, Salmon, Water and EnergyRafe Mair

Dear Adrian Dix,

The recent polls show that you and your party have a wide lead over the Liberals and Conservatives – something which gives many of us who care deeply about the environment encouragement, including thousands of us who are not usually supportive of the NDP. It is those people whom I have in mind today.

The political spectrum has altered substantially in recent years with a wide gap in centre, which your party is clearly occupying. To do this with success you must address concerns about the nineties when the NDP was in office. Apart from the fact – a big one – that the NDP had, ahem, leadership problems, in fact the NDP had a much better track record in fiscal matters than painted by the “right”, especially when one considers the sudden trauma of the “Asian ‘flu”, which all but ground our forest sector to a halt.

The Campbell/Clark Government has, with some success, painted the NDP as a government that bankrupted the province.

I believe that you should deal with those issues – though not at length, because voters want to know what you will do, not what you have done. The fact is, however, that the Liberals will present themselves as steady stewards of the public purse, which they clearly are not, and in my view you must be able to match allegations with facts.

Before I get to the environment, one other issue. When we sit around the fire relaxing with a toddy, we often muse that it would be wonderful if the federal and BC governments could just get along. The fact is that we are a federated state which sets out – not always with clarity – the powers, rights and obligations of each government. The system is built on tension, not ass-kicking, and the Premier and her party ought to know this.

Premier Clark is presently dealing with the Kitsilano Coast Guard issue with kid gloves. That may be a good policy in issues like this but in the larger sense, the people of BC, I believe, want the provincial government to stand up boldly to the Ottawa bully, especially in these days where the Harper government wishes to devastate BC’s environment.

This segues neatly into the environment issue. This issue does not lend itself to compromise. One of the “weasel” words from the developer is “mitigation”. You either protect the environment or you don’t, and three obvious issues come to mind: fish farms, private power and the pipeline/tanker debate.

On the first, you simply must force them to go on land. I believe it was a mistake to turn that power over to the Feds but that’s been done and we must deal with what we have. I suggest a protocol which requires farms to move on shore within a reasonable time or their licenses will not be renewed. The fish farmers have all denied they do to harm the environment for over a decade and they must be brought to heel. You cannot simply pawn the issue off to Fisheries and Oceans Canada – the people expect you to act.

Your position on private power (IPPs) is more than a bit hazy. You seem to be opposed to them but will, after you make the contracts public, still honour the contracts. I realize this is a tricky issue because if you go further, you will be painted as anti-business. Can you not declare that any licenses granted but not acted upon will be taken away? On other proposals, and I especially refer to the Klinaklini, surely you must say to them, “Proceed at your peril”.

And, of course, you must revive the British Columbia Utilities Commission – with teeth, as in days of yore.

This leads to BC Hydro which, if in the private sector, would be in bankruptcy protection. Much of that unhappy situation results from the IPPs from whom BC Hydro was forced to buy electricity at hugely inflated prices. Hydro has some $40 BILLION dollars in future payments for power it does not need. How can an NDP government deal with this without taking action on these contracts? Isn’t this analogous to the mayor elected on a reform ticket still honouring sweetheart deals between the former mayor and his brother-in-law? These IPP contracts are scandalous payments to the government and its political pals and cannot be protected by “sanctity of contract”

Your position on pipelines and tanker traffic is, in my view, pretty solid but must be restated at regular times. I understand that you have postponed your decision on the Kinder-Morgan line until you see what their new proposal is. That probably made sense in the Chilliwack by-election but otherwise makes no sense at all. It is a time bomb now – how can that situation be improved by increasing the line’s capacity?

The 2013 election will largely be fought on environmental issues – for the first time in my long life.

You must walk the tightrope of support of our environment and the rightwing allegations that you are anti-business. You must expect that, well before the election, the federal government, with a sweetly smiling Premier Clark, will announce big contributions to the province so that we, too, can get rich out of the Tar Sands and be prepared for that. The answer is like the joke where a man asks a woman to go to bed with him for $50,000. She muses about her obligations to her kids, etc. and blushingly agrees. The man then asks if she will go to bed with him for $50 to which the indignant woman exclaims, “What do you take me for, a common prostitute?” to which the man replies, “We’ve already established that, madam; now we’re dickering over the price.”

The lesson is our province is not for sale at any price.

Sincerely,

Rafe Mair

BC Liberals Put Massive Great Bear Rainforest Private Power Project Back on Table

June 14, 2012Canada, Politics, WATER, Western CanadaBC Hydro, Christy Clark, ipp, Politics, private river power, Water and EnergyDamien Gillis

Amid the flood of bills the BC Liberals recently pushed through the Legislature in the closing days of the spring session was a quiet amendment to the boundaries of the Great Bear Rainforest – labelled Bill 49. The legislation cleared the way for one of the largest proposed private river power projects in Canadian history, on the Klinaklini River.

Bill 49 reversed then-Liberal Environment Minister Barry Penner’s 2010 decision to reject the redrawing of the conservancy boundary. The recent flip-flop is related to a lawsuit launched in 2010 by project proponent Kleana Power Corporation and its partner, the Da’Naxda’xw First Nation – whose village lies 30 km east of Alert Bay – after their project was waylaid. But did the Liberal Government need to go so far as accommodating the project by changing their own law?

The Klinaklini River, which flows west from the Chilcotin plateau into Knight Inlet on the north end of the Sunshine Coast, is the proposed site of a private river power project of unprecedented proportions. With estimates ranging from 550 to 800 Megawatts (MW) of peak energy production, it would see the mighty river diverted for 17 km through a 10 meter wide tunnel and involve a 10 to 30 meter high dam (euphemistically referred to as a “weir” and “head pond” by the project’s proponents). The dam would flood part of the conservancy; transmission lines and other components of the project would also encroach on the protected lands.

Only Alterra Power’s proposed 17-river Bute Inlet project would cumulatively surpass Kleana Power’s $2.5 billion project in scale. The Kilanklini project even approaches the scale of Site C – a conventional dam proposed for the Peace River – with its 1,100 MW capacity.

The Official Opposition came out swinging last week against the Liberals’ “broken promise” to protect the Klinaklini: “Two years ago we were delighted when the environment minister effectively killed this project by refusing to change the conservancy boundaries,” said North Island MLA Claire Trevena. “So it was extremely disappointing to see the new Liberal environment minister reverse that decision.”

As NDP Deputy Environment Critic Michael Sather asserted to Liberal Environment Minister Terry Lake during the mere 30 minutes of debate allotted by the government for Bill 49, the government has clearly gone well beyond Madam Justice Barbara Fisher’s ruling, which stated it was “not appropriate” for the court to force the government to actually change the conservancy boundary:

…the First Nation asked for the 2010 order that Barry Penner made to be quashed. They got that. They asked for the minister to be directed to recommend to cabinet that the boundaries of the conservancy be changed. They did not get that…Yet Bill 49 changes the boundaries of the conservancy, something the court didn’t grant. Why is the government abandoning its previous attempt to protect the Klinaklini River and going beyond what the judge ordered? (emphasis added)

Sather is correct here – and the reason the court did not order this change to the Great Bear Rainforest boundaries is because courts do not have the power to mandate legislation, only to strike down that which is unconstitutional.

The minister defended the government’s decision, saying, “the court ordered that the Minister of Environment has a legal duty to consult with the First Nation, a proponent in this case, about their request for an amendment — and this is the important part — with a view to considering a reasonable accommodation.” But, as Sather noted, while the judge clearly directed the government properly consult and accommodate the First Nation, she did not go as far as to order it to change the law on the plaintiff’s behalf: “It is rare, however, for the court to become involved in directing a particular form of accommodation…I do not consider this an appropriate case to direct the minister to make the recommendation sought.”

The rekindling of the project is sure to be controversial, as it comes at a highly-charged moment for both private power projects and the Great Bear Rainforest, which has become a focal point for citizens, First Nations and environmental groups battling the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline.

Private power projects have been the subject of intense criticism of late, both for revelations of widespread fish kills and weak environmental monitoring and enforcement – slammed by BC’s Auditor General – and for the economics of these deals, discredited by independent economists such as Dr. Marven Shaffer and Erik Andersen.

As The Common Sense Canadian has recently reported, BC Hydro’s new Draft Integrated Resources Plan (p.10) states the crown corporation is still intent on purchasing another 2,000 Gigawatt hours (GWhrs) a year of private power, despite losing hundreds of millions of dollars this year on the deals it already has in place. Yet the proposed Kilnaklini project would likely considerably exceed that 2,000 GWhr total.

That means Hydro’s plan would need to be revised upward to accommodate the project and would leave no room to purchase any other private power contracts – such as the even larger Bute Inlet project proposed by Alterra Power (unless it, say, quadrupled its next “Clean Power Call”). The equally controversial Bute project was also put back on the table last week as the proponent announced a deal with the local Sliammon First Nation to build transmission lines through its territory.

Scott Simpson summarized Kleana Power and the Da’Naxda’xw First Nation’s case in May, 2010, a month after Penner rejected the project:

Da’Naxda’xw First Nation and Kleana Power Corporation allege in a writ of summons filed this week in B.C. Supreme Court that the government failed to honor a 2007 commitment to exclude the project area from the bounds of the Upper Klinaklini conservancy, prior to the settling of the conservancy’s boundaries.

When the conservancy was announced in 2008, the project area was included within its boundaries — contrary to the expectations of the Da’Naxda’xw and Kleana.

The project includes a 10-metre-high weir that would cause water to back up about 5.5 kilometres into the conservancy.

Environment Minister Barry Penner has stated in the legislature that the government will not consider moving park and other protected area boundaries to accommodate electricity projects.

The plaintiffs are seeking a court declaration that would overturn the boundaries of the Upper Klinaklini conservancy, and order the B.C. environment minister to recommend to cabinet an amendment to the conservancy boundary in order to exclude the land and stream bed required to sustain the power project.

In the end, while Madam Justice Fisher’s decision, reached in May of last year, concluded that the nation had not been properly consulted, she stopped far short of telling the government to change the boundary.

The judge’s decision included another interesting conclusion.

Noting that one of the First Nation’s councillors, Fred Glendale, is also a director of Kleana Power Corp., the judge stressed that while the First Nation is entitled to be consulted and accommodated on the conservancy, the company is not: “While it may be obvious, it is important to emphasize that the Crown’s constitutional duty to consult is owed only to a First Nation. In this case, Mr. Glendale is both a councillor of the Da’naxda’xw and a director of Kleana. I have considered his evidence with this in mind, as it is not proper for a corporate entity with First Nation directors (or shareholders) to be the recipient of this constitutional duty.”

As an aside, Fred Glendale is the man who showed up to a 2008 townhall meeting in Campbell River on private power projects – hosted by Save Our Rivers Society and featuring Rafe Mair and myself – in an impressive new pearl-white Cadillac Escalade, before taking his seat next to one Dr. Alexandre Eunall. When Dr. Eunall spoke up against our criticism of the private power industry, Save Our Rivers’ founder Tom Rankin correctly identified him and Mr. Glendale as co-directors of Kleana Power. Dr. Eunall instantly clammed up at that point. Rankin also noted that Eunall has been behind a number of other private power deals where individual First Nations leaders have become personal partners in the corporation created to build the project. Another notable instance involved then-Haisla Chief Councillor Steve Wilson, who also turned up in 2008 as a director of two private power deals near his community of Kitaamat Village, unbeknownst to many of his constituents.

The Da’Naxda’xw First Nation fired back at the NDP this week for its criticism of the project. Spokesperson Dallas Smith told the Campbell River Courier-Islander, “If built, the Kleana project would be one of the most sustainable sources of clean energy in North America.”

By contrast, in a media advisory issued on June 7, Deputy Environment Critic Michael Sather had stated, “The environmental devastation from this project is unthinkable. Five species of wild salmon make the Klinaklini their home. This project would affect them, plus red and blue-listed species and a grizzly bear and moose corridor.” Smith countered, “There will be no net negative impact to eulachon, salmon or grizzly bear by the project…In fact, the project has the potential to deliver a net benefit to fish populations,” (emphais added), though he neglected to elaborate on this surprising contention.

According to the Globe an Mail’s Justine Hunter, reporting in 2010, even the Liberal minister acknowledged the project’s likely environmental impacts: “Kleana’s president said the project could be built with a fraction of the ecological footprint of Site C, but Mr. Penner said it threatened protected wetlands, fish-bearing streams, old-growth forest and grizzly-bear habitat.”

Smith also downplayed the size of the project to 550 MW, though its specs have varied wildly over the years and other private power projects in BC have wound up larger than their proposals initially suggest.

The Da’Naxda’xw may hold title to the territory affected by the project, but they and councillor/Kleana Power corporate director Glendale are asking the people of BC to purchase private power which has been roundly criticized as a sham for the public, driving up hydroelectric bills and contributing to the bankrupting of BC’s most prized crown corporation.

We are presently witnessing the travesty of BC Hydro spilling water (read: power) over its public dams while it’s stuck paying many times the market rate for private “run-of-river” power it doesn’t need. Electricity from our neighbours in Washington State is currently virtually free, as they are in the same situation with their dams (as of this publication, the price for firm, on-peak electricity on the local Mid-Columbia spot market is about $12 – whereas we’re paying up to ten times that much for IPP power in BC!) And yet, we can’t take advantage of this opportunity because of this sham private power we’ve been forced to buy.

The most important take-away here is that having title to a territory does not in any way give a First Nation or its partner corporation the right to hose the people of BC.

Moreover, with the recent exposure of serious environmental problems associated with these projects (and bear in mind this evidence has come from much smaller operations than the proposed Kilinaklini behemoth); and considering the passion demonstrated by many British Columbians in recent years for protecting the Great Bear Rainforest from other industrial impacts, this project is sure to provoke considerable outrage.

Finally, the BC Liberal Government can’t honestly contend Madam Justice Fisher forced their hand. She gave them a nudge; they took a giant leap towards making another of their precious private power projects a reality. The court did not mandate this or any other legislation – courts don’t have the power to do so. In our democracy that power is reserved for the legislature/parliament. So the Liberals should not be let off the hook for this decision to kowtow to private power interests. They’re only too eager to ignore aboriginal title and rights when First Nations oppose a favoured industrial project – i.e., Enbridge, Fish Lake – but if a nation supports a private power project, they apparently bend over backwards to accommodate it.

Whatever the case, the project’s revival would seem to be short-lived, as the NDP have made their position clear. If the Liberals and the project’s proponents can’t ram through environmental approval and a multi-billion dollar purchase contract for the power from the project by May 2013, future Premier Adrian Dix may well kill it once and for all.

Radicalizing Scientists

June 10, 2012Canada, Climate Change, Politics, Western Canadaclimate change, coal, Politics, Ray Grigg, Shades of GreenRay Grigg

Dr. Mark Jaccard, professor of economics at Simon Fraser University and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was arrested on railway tracks near Vancouver for blocking the arrival of a Burlington Northern train loaded with Wyoming coal bound for nearby Deltaport and then Asia. Before being released from police custody, he was fined $115 for his May 5th, 2012, trespass violation under the Railway Safety Act, as were the other 12 people in his protest group. “Putting myself in a situation where I may be accused of civil disobedience is not something I have ever done before,” said Dr. Jaccard (CBC, May 5/12). He now joins at least another of his august colleagues, Dr. James Hansen, in this distinction.

Dr. Hansen is one of the world’s foremost authorities on global warming, internationally recognized and awarded for his studies, insights and conclusions on the disruptive effects of greenhouse gases on climate and ecologies. He has been arrested in 2009, 2010 and 2011 for similar protests. During testimony given before the Iowa Utilities Board in 2007, Hansen likened coal trains to “death trains”, contending that they would be “no less gruesome than if they were boxcars headed to crematoria, loaded with uncountable irreplaceable species.” In his assessment, carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels must be curtailed or the environmental consequences will be catastrophic.

Dr. Jaccard echoed this warning with his own eloquence. “The window of opportunity for avoiding a high risk of runaway, irreversible climate change is closing quickly,” he said. “Within this decade we will either have steered away from disaster, or have locked ourselves onto a dangerous course. Our governments continue to ignore the warnings of scientists and push forward with policies that will accelerate the burning of fossil fuels. Private interests — coal, rail, oil, pipeline companies and the rest — continue to push their profit-driven agenda, heedless of the impact on the rest of us.” Meanwhile, he adds, government response to climate change concerns are “entirely inadequate” (Ibid.).

As a concerned grandfather, Dr. Hansen worries about future generations. So does Dr. Jaccard. “I now ask myself how our children, when they look back decades from now, will have expected us to have acted today,” he said. “When I think about that, I conclude that every sensible and sincere person who cares about this planet and can see through lies and delusion motivated by money, should be doing what I and others are now prepared to do.”

These two scholarly, prominent and respected scientists have been radicalized by the shrinking distance between uncontrollable climate change and our options for preventative action. They are not alone in their recognition of the tragic loss of opportunity as government and industry habitually fail to implement the strategies known to reduce CO2 emissions. The level of frustration, exasperation and desperation in scientists everywhere is intensifying as they gauge the seriousness of our situation against a history of empty promises.

This history is nicely summarized in a documentary, Earth Days (2010) by the American cinematographer, Robert Stone. His film captures the evolution of a crisis as it unfolds during the last half-century. It begins with grainy images of US President John F. Kennedy promising that natural places will be saved for Americans to appreciate in a distant 2000, “If we do what is right now, in 1963.”

Subsequent US presidents discover that merely protecting natural places won’t be enough. Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson warns, “Either we stop poisoning our air or we become a nation in gas masks, groping our way through these dying cities, a wilderness of ghost towns that the people have evacuated.” Then Richard M. Nixon cautions, “The great question of the ’70s is, shall we surrender to our surroundings or will we make peace with nature, and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, to our land and to our water.”

When the “energy crisis” of the ’70s hits, a worried President Gerald Ford promises to “…accelerate technology to capture energy from the sun and the earth for this and future generations.” The next US president, Jimmy Carter, is alarmed enough to advise, “If we fail to act soon, we will face an economic, social and political crisis that will threaten our free institutions.”

Then Ronald Reagan pledges, “We must and we will be sensitive to the delicate balance of our ecosystems, the preservation of endangered species, and the protection of our wilderness lands.”

As for the intended environmental measures of George H.W. Bush, he is equally reassuring. “It is said,” he notes, “that we don’t inherit the Earth from our ancestors but that we borrow it from our children. And when our children look back on this time and this place, they will be grateful.”

Bill Clinton, with ever-clearer scientific evidence, warns, “If we fail to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, deadly heatwaves and droughts will become more frequent, coastal areas will flood and economies will be disrupted. That is going to happen unless we act.”

Finally, George W. Bush observes obliquely but succinctly, “And we have a serious problem. America is addicted to oil.”

In the 49 years since 1963, as environmental awareness has grown, some measures have been implemented to protect ecologies and reduce industrial pollution. But greenhouse gas emissions, a key issue, have continued to rise rather than fall. The United States has abandoned the Kyoto Protocol legal efforts to reduce these emissions. Canada’s endorsement of the Protocol was entirely hollow, and it has since given notice of its withdrawal. The current Canadian government assiduously avoids any mention of climate change and is even cutting relevant scientific funding — not encouraging for an expectant public and hopeful scientists.

As Dr. Jaccard was being led away in handcuffs from the stalled Burlington Northern coal train, he was asked by a reporter, “Was it worth it?” And he replied, “I don’t know. We’ll know — our kids will know — in two decades.”

BC Hydro’s Exploding Debt – Accident or by Design?

June 8, 2012Canada, Economics, Politics, WATER, Western CanadaBC Hydro, Christy Clark, ipp, Politics, private river power, Water and EnergyErik Andersen

Mysterious foreign corporate interests are directing our provincial energy policy, as BC Hydro prepares to buy yet another round of discredited private power contracts.

Recent articles about some of the wrong-headed thinking by our government that has put BC Hydro in financial harm’s way, suggest that it has just been a matter of over-enthusiasm and nothing more sinister. It is almost a description of our government as a victim that needs our sympathy not our ridicule – or worse.

Ask yourselves if it was prudent of BC Hydro to recently borrow and spend $10 billion, presumably increasing its capacity to do business, knowing that the global economy was in disarray?

Prior to 2008 publicly available indicators showed commercial/economic global affairs were in trouble. It is not unreasonable to expect those who we pay very well to know about these developments and rein in their more bullish instincts. This is called looking after the public interest. Out of the many such “situational indicators” we all have access to, take a moment to look at one – the Baltic Dry Cargo Index, the 5 year chart. The index plummeted by 94% between a record high in May 2008 and December 2008, when it hit its lowest point since 1986. This should have sent a powerful warning to the people forecasting our future energy demand.

BC Hydro’s most current forecast shows they expect the domestic need for electricity will become 64,000 GWhrs by 2017. GWhrs are the units of electricity their forecast uses so just think of them as units of useable electricity for discussion purposes. Now, most people I know, acting in a common sense way, would test this outlook against the best possible evidence of real demand available. Since the financial peak of 2008, BC Hydro’s record of sales shows demand collapsing, both in total and on a per capita basis. This reality has yet to be recognized by the “smartest guys in the room”. So for at least three years our Government and BC Hydro have been in denial of reality.

In fact, even as recently as this week, it emerges that BC Hydro is planning to buy even more private power contracts, through a 2,000 GWhr clean power call (see page 9 of Hydro’s 2012 Draft Integrated Resources Plan); at the same time we learn that Alterra Power intends to take another run at its controversial mega-IPP in Bute Inlet, announcing a deal with the Sliammon First Nation to build transmission lines for the project.

So, over the last six to eight years how much new debt has BC Hydro taken on in your name, as a citizen and owner; do you know or care? Besides the formal amount of $8 billion in new total liabilities it has added $2.2 billion of receivables from the ratepayer’s category. BC’s Auditor General reports that it looks like this category is programmed to balloon even more. These obligations do not take into account the present value of the secret IPP contracts that would probably add another $30-40 billion to total liabilities.

In the face of evidence that no new electricity generation is needed in the foreseeable future, BC Hydro is presenting a story where it sees the need for 14,000 new units by 2017, not that far off. In terms of new borrowing and spending what does this mean? If we use the values associated with the Site C project, each new unit of useable electricity comes with a capital requirement of about $2 million. Your government/public corporation is planning to contract for or directly finance new generation that will produce a new liability of about $30 billion by 2017 and double that by the end of the forecast period.

You may ask, where does this insanity stop? What motive could possibly explain this outrageous mismanagement of our public asset?

Perhaps the explanation lies outside of BC. In 2006, a new corporation came into existence in the US, dubbed the “North American Electric Reliability Corporation” (NERC).

This corporation has the legal mandate to impose its will on all North American electricity producers. This will is a legal right to levy fines of consequence on those producers not obeying instructions. This corporation is not beholden to any elected body, nor does it disclose its beneficial owners. Our federal government has accepted this reality by having the National Energy Board sign a memorandum of understanding with NERC, in the fall of 2006. NERC’s most recent annual report affirms it now has “ENFORCEMENT” powers in Ontario and New Brunswick. NERC has been and is active elsewhere in Canada, furthering its restraint of trade objective which certainly does not look as serving the public interest of BC citizens.

The forgoing is not something both the BC Government and BC Hydro would have been ignorant of, which makes knowing of an act of complicity.

Most people have memories of Enron Corporation that are generally uncomplimentary of the folks in charge of it. Some of the more prominent of these people are still around. It might amuse you to read what is essentially the Enron oath of office. It serves to illustrate the difference between the “talk and the walk” for some people.

The following quotation is taken from the 1998 Annual Report by Enron:

Our Values

RESPECT: We treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. We do not tolerate abusive or disrespectful treatment. Ruthlessness, callousness, and arrogance don’t belong here.

INTEGRITY: We work with customers and prospects openly, honestly, and sincerely. When we say we will do something, we will do it; when we say we cannot or will not do something, then we won’t do it.

COMMUNICATION: We have an obligation to communicate. Here, we take the time to talk with one another … and to listen. We believe that information is meant to move and that information moves people.

EXCELLENCE: We are satisfied with nothing less than the very best in everything we do. We will continue to raise the bar for everyone. The great fun here will be for all of us to discover just how good we can really be.

Don’t for a moment think that juvenile insincerity is limited to the US when the smell of big money is in the air. The time has long passed for being apologists for the folks who are determined to help others get control of our best provincial asset and the business monopoly that is attached.