Category Archives: Canada

Serious Finacial Costs and Trade Implications for Canada from Abandoning Kyoto

Canada, Climate Change, Politics, Western Canada,
Share

Read this article from The Globe and Mail on the very real risk of serious economic impacts to Canada stemming from the Harper Government’s decision to abandon its treaty commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.

There’s politics in climate change and money at stake in talks. Moral arguments aside, the politics will matter.

Canada’s
Kyoto withdrawal was an unusually big news story for a country that
gets little mention, playing as a big deal in international media. It
was a top Web-hit story for the BBC. Reporters kept asking U.S. climate
negotiator Todd Stern about Canada. Canada’s emissions story jumped to
the masses. It could be the new seal hunt. Japan and Russia won’t meet
Kyoto targets either, but Canada withdrew and got headlines.

There was also pointed criticism from countries such as China and France, and many more…

…It’s not just that the oil sands are a fast-growing source of
emissions. Canada is 30 per cent over Kyoto targets, and the oil sands
are just part. Canada is the eighth-largest greenhouse-gas emitter.
China is largest, but per person its emissions are one-third of
Canada’s. Ottawa has no regulation plan for big emitters. Canada can’t
combat the story that the oil sands make us dirty.

One day,
politics will bring cost. A 2009 U.S. bill to apply tariffs on goods for
countries that fail to meet climate standards passed the House but died
in the Senate. Mr. Levi expects Europeans or others to revive the idea.

Mr. Leach said: “I think you’re going see countries looking to apply blame by punishment.” (December 15, 2011)

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/quitting-kyoto-could-cost-canada-down-the-road/article2271728/

Share

Harper Government Laying Off Another 400 Staff at DFO

Canada, Fisheries, Politics,
Share

Read this report from the Ottawa Citizen on another round of massive lay-offs at Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

About 400 Fisheries and Oceans employees across Canada are to receive
letters from managers today informing them their jobs will be affected
as the department rolls out reductions from last year’s strategic
review.

The written notices are going to employees who work in the
seven regions where the department operates. More than 200 of those
receiving notices are biologists and other scientists and the vast
majority work outside the capital in areas of ocean management, fish
habitat management, hydrography and aquaculture. Another 39 positions
are being cut from the Coast Guard following a re-organization…

…Gary Corbett, president of the Professional Institute of the Public
Service of Canada, said he’s disappointed that the timing comes so close
to Christmas, but fears these cuts are just the beginning.

“The
cuts are going to be followed shortly by more cuts after the budget.
Tell me how a science-based department survives with a cut of a couple
of hundred scientists. How can the department continue to do what it is
supposed to do? It has to give somewhere. You can’t keep cutting,
cutting, cutting.” (Dec. 12, 2011)

Share
George Abbott (left) has been tapped to rescue the ailing BC Liberal Party...Good luck with that!

Why the BC Liberals Can’t Save Our Environment – Or Their Own Party in 2013

Canada, Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, WATER, Western Canada, , ,
Share

I see that Premier Photo–Op has appointed George Abbott, Education Minister, to work on revamping the Liberal Party to get it out of the ditch prior to the May 2013 election.
 
Good luck, George – you’ll need it.

My latter day concerns have been about environmental issues, something I don’t believe the Liberals can do, or even want to do anything about. The government would go a long way down the path of reconstruction if Premier Clark did four things: put a moratorium on fish farms along with a program of getting them on land; put a permanent stop to any new so-called “run of river” projects; announce the end of Taseko’s Fish Lake project; announce that no oil tankers will ply BC waters.

The trouble with the first three is the Campbell/Clark government doesn’t have the political courage to do them and, moreover, doing so would cost the party substantial political donations – a telling point with this bunch to whom election funds always trump honesty and honour..
 
The fourth one is tricky. The provincial government probably doesn’t have the authority to do anything about the pipelines but it sure as hell does over tankers – and without tankers there will be no pipelines. The Campbell/Clark lack of courage is because of its stupidity with the HST and it’s now so deep in debt to the feds they dare not oppose them. Yes, folks, the HST has us in thrall to Ottawa, something that in my time has never happened. In plain language the feds hold Premier Clark in a blackmail position – if BC is to be shown any mercy over the HST cock-up it must permit the Fish Lake project to proceed, make no noise on the Enbridge pipeline project and approve oil tanker traffic on the coast.
 
This, dear readers, is one reason Gordon Campbell was eager to clear out and one of the reasons Prime Minister Harper gave him that plum job in London.
 
Those are not the only problems Mr. Abbott has. The underlying malaise that the C/C government must deal with is that they have done a lousy fiscal job. While painting themselves as the fiscally sound party, they have kept the story of NDP fiscal sins front and centre, for wasn’t it they who bollixed up our economy?
 
The answer is no. The NDP look like Ebenezer Scrooge compared to the government of wastrels we’ve been governed by for the last 10 ½ years. It started right after the May 2001 election when Campbell gave away more than a billion dollars in taxes on the well off.
 
From that point until now, the Campbell/Clark government has more than tripled the real provincial debt, putting the province in hock for as far as the eye can see.
 
Because of the lousy media we have, it wasn’t much noticed that when the Liberals came down with their unbelievable 2009 election budget – which was over a billion dollars short of reality – that it was phoney as Hell and that the Liberals knew it throughout. This came out when, after the election was safely behind them, the government said that it was all the fault of the Recession. To accept this bullshit would mean that the Liberals didn’t notice the Stock Market crash in 2007/08, nor the recession that followed! They also had to ignore the information that the Finance Ministry had that tax revenues were dropping.
 
In short, the Liberal government either was so stupid as to not notice a market crash, a huge dose of criminality on Wall Street, or the severe Recession that followed – or they deliberately lied.
 
Then there was the HST that one need not mention.
 
In short, the Liberal Party’s renowned fiscal prudence is a crock of crap. And it’s worse – the government ought have foreseen the fiscal problems even before it hit the fan – reading numbers and foreseeing trouble is what Finance Ministries are all about.
 
To Mr Abbott – while you’re reorganizing your party, looking to the future as politicians always say, I must warn you that you will be looking to the past as well as you will be asked questions. There are, even in your own party, a great many British Columbians who want answers, no matter how awkward it might be to give them.
 

Share

Pipelines and Battle Lines Drawn by Harper Government

Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Tar Sands, Western Canada, , , , ,
Share

The paths, inexorably to a meeting point to violence, can only be changed by the senior governments, especially the feds. The cause of these paths are three: 1. the proposed Enbridge oil pipelines to Kitimat, carrying bitumen (sludge from the Tar Sands) mixed with gas (condensate), with one line running the condensate to the Tar Sands; 2. the Kinder Morgan line bringing the Tar Sands (and if the company has its way, much more of them) to Vancouver Harbour; 3. the tanker companies that would ship this gunk from Kitimat, down through the dangerous Inner Passage to China or the US – and those taking it through the dangerous 2nd Narrows into the Salish Sea, again bound for Asia or America.
 
Before going further, these projects are not only opposed by First Nations – polls show 80% of British Columbians oppose the tanker traffic and, of course, the pipelines are useless unless the gunk can be shipped.
 
The matter came to a head when President Obama refused to pass the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to Houston. Instantly, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced that the BC lines must therefore be put on the “fast track”, overlooking, one supposes deliberately, the mandate of the National Energy Board to hold hearings (whose completion time was extended this week by a full year, due in part to the enormous number of citizens and organizations who’ve registered to speak at these hearings). In fact, Flaherty confirmed suspicions that the Federal Government regards this process as a nuisance to be done then ignored.
 
Over the past few years First Nations have made it clear that this – in former Coastal First Nations’ President Gerald Amos’ words – “is not going to happen”.
 
Let’s look at the position of First Nations today.
 
This from an article I did here on December 4. This is saying a hell of a lot but the coverage of the events I’ll deal with were marked by one of the lousiest examples of media mis-reporting I can remember.
 
…Damien Gillis and I attended a press conference last Thursday called by First Nations who would be impacted by scheduled pipelines and tankers to outline their “Save the Fraser Declaration” – a document that leaves no doubt about their unified opposition to these proposals. In all, 131 nations have now signed on.

Moreover, this declaration almost certainly will be signed in the near future by the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation, who face the proposed expansion of Kinder Morgan’s pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands to their traditional territory on Burrard Inlet. The Tsleil-Waututh first came out against the company’s plans – which could see up to 300 super tankers loaded with Alberta bitumen plying the waters of Vancouver – in a press release last month…

This hugely important event received a brief column in the Business Section of The Vancouver Sun while the following day’s front page story – with a banner headline – told how Elmer Derrick, one of 60-plus hereditary chiefs of the Gitxsan Nation, had made a deal with Enbridge.

So typical for this sad excuse for a newspaper – bury the big story about an agreement that 131 Chiefs make and pounce with glee on the one who dissents.

Reaction from the Gitxsan was quick with opposition to refuse to recognize the agreement, saying that Derrick was not speaking for them – as this video taken at an emergency community meeting just days after the announcement of the deal demonstrates.

Enbridge fired back that they were comfortable with the deal with Derrick and had many other Nations on side and that they would proceed with signing with them and others.

In jumped Joe Oliver, federal Natural Resources Minister, as reported by the Sun: “[Oliver] said the project, if approved by the National Energy Board, shouldn’t be
held hostage by aboriginal and environmental groups threatening to
create a human ‘wall’ to prevent construction.” The minister continued, “Look, this is a country that lives by the Rule of Law and I would hope that that would be the standard going forward…we can’t let unlawful people oppose lawful development.”

I, apparently, came to Mr. Oliver’s mind – and to remove all doubt, sir, I will indeed be part of that human “wall” and perhaps I should tell you why.

I hardly need any publicity in this my native and much-beloved province. At any age, but especially at 80, I’ve no wish to expose myself to the health hazard posed by prison, but I can’t stand idle while the very essence of this land will be desecrated to satisfy greed without the consent of its people.

Interesting approach. I would have thought he would have said, “When the National Energy Board makes its report and if it supports Enbridge, we hope that the company can get approval from the First Nations involved.”

The scene now shifts back to Mr Derrick. Just yesterday – after going into hiding for five days from the media that had given him so much press – he had an op-ed piece in, where else, The Vancouver Sun, which, apparently, has become a great fan of his.  In it Mr. Derrick extols the virtuousness of his involvement with Enbridge and who is in and speaks for the Gitxsan and why. Interesting story but not a single solitary syllable about the environment – nor about the recent controversy of his own making, or even his alleged firing from his job as a treaty negotiator by the community he purportedly represents!

Now I don’t wish to intrude on Gitxsan politics but wouldn’t the rank and file expect their leader, who has made them $7 million for something to be received sometime, would discuss the many questions being raised by 131 of his colleagues and neighbours – men and women of many tribes – all opposed to Enbridge?

Enter the Lawyer. For any decent dispute you need lots of them. Name of Nigel Bankes from the University of Calgary. I can’t tell you what got him cranked up…was it Mr. Derrick? The Conservative government? Enbridge? The Vancouver Sun? Or did he just wake up one morning and decide to unburden himself of his long commitment to the principle that parliaments can do whatever they want?

His contribution consists in telling us that Enbridge does not need to get permission for its pipelines from “every first nation over (the pipelines) it passes…at the end of the day there isn’t a first nations veto.”

He does concede, according to the Sun, that “governments do have an obligation to consult with nations…and must demonstrate they have ‘integrated the result of consultations in the project’s design.’”

The government, Enbridge and Mr. Derrick seem to be saying that the rank and file First Nations, through their leaders, do not have the right to use the international words for GO AWAY to Enbridge, because in the government reposes the law of the land, which, after a little pas de deux to entertain the masses, it can do as it pleases!

I hate to disappoint Messrs Derrick, Oliver, Bankes (sounds like a good name for a law firm) but many First Nations and their lawyers hold a contrary view and say that section 35 does in fact give them a veto.

Section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982 provides constitutional protection to the aboriginal and treaty rights of aboriginal peoples in Canada. The rights Section 35 has been found to protect are fishing, logging, hunting, the right to aboriginal title and the right to enforcement of treaties. There remains a debate over whether the right to aboriginal self-government is included within section 35. Since 1995 the Government of Canada has had a policy recognizing the inherent right of self-government under section 35.

The leaders in the aboriginal community that I have spoken to make it clear that if rights in Section 35 grant them powers as indicated, clearly they must have full rights to protect them. They go further and say that their law prevails on all matters save where their title and rights might have been ceded – and they haven’t been, where the proposed Enbridge pipeline and tanker routes are concerned.

My question as a lawyer of long ago – if the government and Enbridge say they have the right to do as they please, why not just do it? If Mr. Bankes is right that there is no right of First Nations to stop them, why doesn’t Enbridge hold some hearings with the First Nations, say that they have consulted, then get on with it?

This isn’t a smart alec question at all, for if all Enbridge need do in Bankes’ opinion is integrate the results of consultation in the project’s design, a first year law student would be all that’s needed to gussy their design up to suit.

I close with a serious warning to the government and Enbridge: You are proceeding down a one-way path to disaster. Enbridge doesn’t care for the environment – look at their record. Look at what they did in 2010 in the Kalamazoo River! Oil spills are simply a cost of business which is, happily, a tax credit.

Aboriginal peoples say that they stand upon the Rule of Law, which they say includes their own law as guaranteed under Section 35 of the Constitution Act. They make the sensible argument that to have rights over fishing, logging, hunting, the right to aboriginal title and the right to enforce treaties, those words must mean that they can legislate to protect them – otherwise the words mean nothing.

Mr. Oliver – you’re being a damned fool and a dangerous one and when the violence comes, as it will, it will be on your head and that of your government. I’m not inciting violence – on the contrary, it is because I so abhor violence I plead with your government to come to its senses.

Don’t say you weren’t warned!

Share

Chiefs Threaten Oil Pipeline Blockade in 3 Provinces Over Attawapiskat

Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Politics, ,
Share

Read this story from APTN on the escalating tensions over the crisis at Attawapiskat, culminating yesterday in calls from aboriginal leaders for an oil pipeline blockade to get the Harper Government’s attention.

“OTTAWA–Some Manitoba chiefs called for “action”
against existing oil pipelines on a day of heated words at a special
chiefs assembly in Ottawa that heard from embattled Attawapiskat Chief
Theresa Spence and saw an impromptu march to the doors of Parliament
Hill that ended with police intervention.

Terry Nelson, who is no longer officially chief of Roseau River, told
the assembled chiefs that the only way to escape from Attawapiskat-like
situations was to seize a portion of the resource wealth flowing from
their lands.

Nelson, who was given the microphone by Waywayseecappo First Nation
Chief Murray Clearsky, said there were plans to launch actions against
existing oil pipelines in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, along with
several U.S. states.

He said the only way First Nations can deal with the nagging funding
problems plaguing their communities was to seize a share of the
resources flowing from their territories.

“The chiefs in Manitoba have been listening and they hear very
clearly we have to take action,” said Nelson. “In June, we are going to
have continuous, ongoing demonstration action on the pipelines, from
Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, North
and South Dakota, to sit on those pipelines until this government comes
to their goddamn senses.” (Dec. 6, 2011)

Read full article: http://aptn.ca/pages/news/2011/12/07/chiefs-rally-around-attawapiskat-as-call-issued-for-oil-pipeline-blockade-in-three-provinces/

Share
Mark Brooks - a recent addtion to our team of Common Sense contributors

Harper’s Climate Death-Wish

Canada, Climate Change, Politics, Western Canada, ,
Share

Withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol only the latest effort to derail climate change action

Amidst the ongoing circus that constitutes the United Nations climate change summit (COP 17) currently underway in Durban, South Africa, Canada has once again distinguished itself as the country most hostile to virtually any serious international effort to curb rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Canada has long been considered a climate change pariah by the international community. We were the only signatory to the Kyoto Protocol to simply ignore its responsibilities following ratification and our country’s total emissions are now more than 34 per cent above our Kyoto targets. Not only did the previous Liberal government fail to do anything to meet its Kyoto obligations, in recent years the government of Stephen Harper has gone a step further, becoming increasingly obdurate in its efforts to deliberately obstruct the progress of international climate talks.

Why the antipathy of the Harper government toward limits to carbon emissions? Well, as you might expect, the tar sands are one factor. Tar sands reserves are now valued at a stunning $14 trillion and oil companies are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in exploiting the resource, money that could boost federal tax revenues considerably.

This is only part of the story however. Harper has long maintained his government does not support Kyoto because it does not include all of the world’s major emitters such as the United States, China and India. Their oft-repeated refrain is that Canada is a small player, contributing only 2 per cent to global emissions and, as Harper once stated, if emissions from emerging economies are not controlled, “whatever we do in the developed world will have no impact on climate change.”

Besides the fact that we are only in the first Kyoto commitment period and that subsequent phases were intended to include all major emitters, what are we to make of Canada’s Environment-minister-turned-big-oil-lobbyist, Peter Kent, saying on Monday that Canada will not renew its commitment to Kyoto, even if doing so would mean China would agree to firm targets to cut its own greenhouse gases? Worse, speculation is that sometime before Christmas when the House of Commons is not in session and the public is paying little attention, the government will announce Canada’s complete withdrawal from Kyoto. In Durban, Canada is rumoured to be encouraging other countries to follow its lead in rejecting Kyoto.

Although it is technically permitted under Kyoto’s terms, withdrawal from a legally binding, multilateral environmental agreement (MEA) is almost unheard of and it is not entirely clear at this stage what the ramifications of such a move might be for future MEAs. Withdrawal may mean that Canada successfully evades responsibility for the commitments that it undertook in Kyoto but why would any nation believe that Canada will deliver on any commitments we make in the future? And what is to stop other countries withdrawing from other conventions that are no longer to their liking?

This is not to say that Kyoto is without its flaws. But it was a tentative first step by the international community to try to wrestle with a climate change problem that requires concerted international action and is quickly spiraling out of control. Any future treaty would certainly require improvements but Canada is effectively – and almost single-handedly – killing any chance of negotiating a successor to Kyoto before 2020.

So after Durban we are left with nothing but the hastily negotiated and non-binding Copenhagen Accord of 2009, an agreement that our government claims still to support. This agreement calls for the increase in average global temperatures to be limited to two degrees Celsius (2 C) above pre-industrial levels, as many scientists believe that beyond this point, we may cross a climate threshold into potentially catastrophic and unmanageable runaway warming. Yet for several reasons, Copenhagen is also doomed to fail.
 
First, voluntary commitments by the countries that have so far signed the agreement would leave the world heading for warming of over 3 C above pre-industrial levels by 2100. Second, many feel that the 2 C target is itself simply too high. An average global increase of 2 C means some regions in the developing south — much of Africa, for instance — will be subject to a 3.5 C or even 4 C increase. This, as Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has said, “is to condemn Africa to incineration and no modern development.”
 
Finally, when you crunch the numbers, it becomes clear that accepting the 2 degree limit globally would mean a dramatic reduction in global emissions in the short term. Yet by 2020, tar sands emissions are expected to triple from their 2005 levels.  It would be very difficult for Canada to reconcile any expanding tar sands production with such sharp global declines in carbon emissions. With the economies of China and India expanding at a rapid rate, there simply is not enough atmospheric space available for a tar sands industry that already accounts for a whopping 6.5% of Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
 
Industrialized countries have already emitted roughly 75 per cent of total historical greenhouse gas emissions. By asking poorer countries to bind themselves to diminishing emissions budgets before we have even attempted to meet our own targets, Canada is contributing to perhaps the single biggest impediment to progress in international climate negotiations. For developing countries, acquiescing to such a demand would be “like jumping out of a plane and being assured that you are going to get a parachute on the way down,” as the former Executive Secretary of the UN climate negotiations, Yvo De Boer, said. Why would China and India ever agree to such a deal?
 
Very few would deny the fact that developing countries will have to rein in their carbon emissions if we are to have any chance of solving the climate crisis but if countries like Canada are unwilling to make deep cuts quickly, it’s very difficult for poor countries to see how they can reconcile their development aspirations with the atmospheric limits of climate stabilization at 2 C of warming. Today, the only proven routes out of poverty still involve an expanded use of energy and, consequently, a seemingly inevitable increase in fossil fuel use and carbon emissions — unless more expensive alternative energies can rapidly be deployed.
 
So here we find ourselves at what may be an insurmountable political impasse created by sheer self-interest and apparent egotism. “Western nations are engaged in a lose-lose game of chicken with developing nations,” wrote Naomi Klein in Rolling Stone following the Cophenhagen Summit. And in the meantime, the climate will not wait for us to get our act together. As emissions rise, the climate will continue to change.
 
If even a 2-degree target is out of reach, where does this leave us? The answer is not pretty. In a recently published, must-read article called Beyond ‘dangerous’ climate change: emission scenarios for a new world, Kevin Anderson, a professor of energy and climate change at the University of Manchester, explains why a temperature increase of more than 2 degrees would be extremely dangerous. In fact, he says “a 4 degrees C future is incompatible with an organized global community, is likely to be beyond ‘adaptation’, is devastating to the majority of ecosystems, and has a high probability of not being stable.” According to the International Energy Agency, we’re currently on course for a 6 degrees C temperature rise.
 
Viewed in these stark terms, I cannot help but wonder if future generations will one day judge the actions of our political “leaders” such as Harper and Kent – who in the face of all the scientific evidence, continued to value increasing tar sands production in Canada over climatic stability – as crimes against humanity.

Share

Free Speech, Censorship, and Why Ryerson’s Journalism Program Can Go F#@k Itself

Canada, Politics, WATER, Western Canada, , , ,
Share

On November 24th a “roast” was held for me and it was a fantastic night.

During my speech I raised the “Ryerson” incident that was recently revived.
 
About 10 years ago I received a call from a young woman from the Ryerson School of Journalism who asked if I would write the main article for their “Annual”. I accepted and asked no money in return.
 
I asked her if she knew who I was and what I did. She assured me that she did.
 
Addressing myself to the graduates, I did an essay on free speech and concluded with the statement that they had all better be “ready to self censor or that they would be censored”.
 
Some weeks later the same young woman called me again and was obviously in some distress as she told me that my article was “unsuitable”.
 
“Was it badly written?” I asked.
 
“Not at all – it was very well written…it’s just…unsuitable.”
 
“To whom?” I asked.
 
“It was just unsuitable.”
 
“Why?” I asked.
 
“It’s just unsuitable – but we have a couple of options here. We can pay you $100.”
 
“I don’t want your money,” I said.
 
“The second option is you can do another article.”
 
“There is a third option,” I replied. “You can all go fuck yourselves!”
 
My God! One of the top schools of journalism rejects an article on free speech! If ever I needed verification of my statement, here it was!
 
A few weeks later I happened to be interviewing the deputy dean of Ryerson and I told him this story, off air. He protested vehemently, assuring me he would look into the matter and would get back to me in a few days.
 
I never heard from the man again.
 
Fast forward to about three weeks ago when I got an email from a young woman from Ryerson asking me if I would give her an interview for the Annual. I agreed and made a time and date in Lions Bay for the chat. She was delighted and couldn’t wait – so she said.
 
A few days later I received an email from her saying that the subject, being put to a lot of journalists across the country, was “your biggest disappointment in your career,” and asking me what my answer would be. I immediately replied “the censorship of my article for Ryerson School of Journalism.” That happened to be true.
 
She wrote back saying that this wasn’t really what she was looking for.
 
Perhaps a day later she sent another email.
 
“While I would love to conduct the interview, the issue is not that you are criticizing Ryerson or the Review (which we have no problem with), but rather that what you wish to talk about doesn’t exactly fit in with our theme. I really want to stress the fact that this is not a cancellation due to the fact that you are angry with our publication; it is because this series is specific to “most” tales. Examples from previous videos show journalists talking about their dumbest moment on a deadline, their most awkward meal, etc. And while your story is interesting to be sure, it is not a “most” something from your journalistic career. I hope you understand.”
 
Somehow Ryerson doesn’t quite understand that a journalist who has fought for years for free speech in this country would think that being denied it was a big disappointment.
 
Let me now go to 1990 when another “roast” in my honour was held. I asked that all proceeds go to the UBC School of Journalism and with some help from Jimmy Pattison, a scholarship in my name was set up and when it was handed out I was asked to make the presentation.
 
Of course I agreed and was asked to say a few words, which I did, warning the graduates that when they got into the Canadian media they would either self-censor or be censored.
 
I have never been asked back! A scholarship in my bloody name and I don’t get to make the presentation.
 
The upshot of this is that the Canadian media is censored in the absence of appropriate self-control by the journalist, as demonstrated twice by the #1 or #2 journalism school in the nation and repeatedly for a decade by my old alma mater, the University of British Columbia.
 
How does this censorship happen?
 
For the most part, it’s simply an understanding that some questions and some subjects for columns and articles are just “not on”.
 
Let’s go back to 1991-2001 when the NDP governed BC. They were, even by the standards set by the Vander Zalm government before them, pretty awful. Every political pundit in the province, including me, held their tootsies firmly to the flame for that decade. Especially expert in their shots were columnists, one of whom brought them down almost single-handedly over the “Fastcat” ferries and Mr. Clark’s naivete over a gambling licence.
 
Now it’s 2001 and Gordon Campbell is in power and almost in the drive home from government gives a huge tax rebate to better off folks. The bumbling and fumbling, the loss of BC Ferries, BC Rail and the virtual bankruptcy of BC Hydro made Glen Clark’s misdeeds look liked childish pranks. It’s been a decade of paying off political pals, resulting in the government that was supposed to be fiscally superior more than tripling the real provincial debt.
 
The zealous media that thrashed the NDP has become a snoozing, slothful syndicate of political poodles reporting only that which simply couldn’t be ignored as news; the ignoring being done on a daily basis by the same columnists who did their duty and then some during the NDP years.
 
I hasten to observe that I don’t blame the journalists themselves – they have families, mortgages and kids’ education to pay for and I don’t think I would have been any better if I didn’t have a legal profession to fall back on.
 
Probably the worst example of media favouritism is the Vancouver Sun, whose editor in charge of the editorial pages was a fellow of the Fraser Institute, a right wing (to say the least) “think tank” that churns out big business babble to a fare-the-well. If you wish an example you only need look at the number of times Mary-Ellen Walling, the fish farmers’ flack, and environmental whores like Patrick Moore, get op-ed columns with no similar access to the other side of these environmental debates.
 
This is not mere mental meandering but very practical – when you see what’s happening with wild salmon because of farmed fish cages, what’s happened to BC Hydro and our rivers because of sweetheart deals it’s been forced to make, what’s happened and is happening to lakes to be mined, to say nothing of the pipelines from the Tar Sands, then tankers down the coast, you must ask yourself where has the mainstream media been? The answer is short and clear: Up Big Business’ ass.
 
You simply cannot have a functioning democracy without a media that keeps pressure on the government as they go. That doesn’t mean that the government isn’t entitled to praise when they do good things but that their every action is assessed with a jaundiced eye as in days gone by.
 
It must always be remembered that the government has unlimited use of public funds with which to bombard the public with their spin.

I close with a bit of doggerel slightly altered to fit:

You cannot hope to bribe or twist,
(thank God!) the BC journalist
But, seeing what the man will do
Unbribed, there’s no occasion to
 
As A.J,Leibling put it “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”

 

Share

Veteran Port Moody Mayor’s Move to Provincial NDP a Telling Blow to Clark Liberals

Canada, Politics
Share

Joe Trasolini, long time civic politician and Mayor in Port Moody, has opted to run for the NDP in the forthcoming by-election. This is shattering news for the Campbell/Clark Liberals for a number of reasons.
 
First off, it was always assumed, by the Liberals at any rate, that he was a Liberal and likely their candidate in aforesaid by-election. He’s a businessman and just the sort of guy one takes to be a bit on the right of centre. To me this shows how far to the right the Campbell/Clark have swung and how well NDP leader Adrian Dix has softened his formerly pretty hard left position.
 
It will be said that Mr. Dix is an opportunist – show me a politician who doesn’t grasp the opportune moment and I’ll show you a failure. Moreover, the tiresome mantras of the “right” no longer appeal to many British Columbians who have seen Campbell/Clark more than triple the real provincial debt since they took over, making the NDP governments of the 90s look like paragons of fiscal prudence. They weren’t that of course but the argument that Liberals are the better money managers simply doesn’t wash. Adrian Dix has located the public pulse and has positioned the NDP to take advantage of that.
 
Secondly, The Liberals have not understood that it is no longer an “inclusive” party as was the Bill Bennett Socreds. Gordon Campbell was a big time admirer of Bennett but utterly lacked his sense of where the people were. Moreover the Campbell/Clark Liberals didn’t understand where Bennett stood on “people” issues. Until recently, the NDP have demonized Bill Bennett as being a hard right-winger but the new NDP sings a different song than their parents did. I remember talking to Graham Lea, a former NDP cabinet minister who laughingly said to me, “Perhaps the NDP should consider that the reason the Socreds win so often is because the voter likes them!”
 
There is a lot of cheeriness we environmentalists can take by Mr. Trasolini’s nomination. In saying this I don’t know Mr. Trasolini and haven’t the faintest idea what environmental opinions he has. We can, I believe, draw some inferences.
 
When the Campbell/Clark government were, in 2008, about to license the private power boys to dam the Pitt River and its tributaries, the barnyard droppings hit the fan – especially on the north side of the Fraser where Mr. Trasolini plies his trade – it couldn’t possibly have missed his attention and he would have seen up close how his and adjacent areas felt about this.
 
The other inference is easier to draw.
 
The environmental issues in this province – private power, fish farms, pipelines, tanker traffic, destruction of the Agricultural Land Reserve to name the most obvious – have drawn a very clear line, clear blue water you might say, between the Liberals and the NDP. Therefore the dots can easily be connected – the NDP have these issues in their playbook and Mr. Trasolini understands what their policy is.
 
For old-timers, this declaration by Mr. Trasolini, and its impact, is very reminiscent of 1975 when three Liberal backbenchers and one Tory crossed the floor to join Bill Bennett’s Socreds.
 
A businessman with a strong political record is a very big boost indeed to the NDP and fortifies my belief that these aren’t the Dave Barrett NDP but a mature centrist party that looks better and better, not just as stacked against the Liberal’s appalling record, but on their own coming of age.

Share

From Gustafsen Lake to Fish Lake: No Place for Violent Stand-Offs in Era of Youtube and Facebook

Canada, Fisheries, Mining, Politics, Western Canada, , , ,
Share

Picture this: It’s 2012 and you live half way around the world – let’s say, Sydney, Australia. You open up your Facebook page to find a new viral youtube video out of BC, shared on your wall just moments ago by a friend in Canada. With a click of the mouse you find yourself watching footage of heavily armed mounties in riot gear advancing on a dirt road blockade – made up of indigenous peoples and a varied band of supporters.

The video tells you it’s somewhere in Tsilhqot’in Territory, west of Williams Lake, BC. It might as well be Timbuktu – it’s the people, the situation, the deeply human experience that you, like millions of others around the world, are tuning into.

An iPhone camera documenting the scene pans over to a First Nations elder – a grandmother of the Xeni Gwet’in people of the Tsilhqot’in, firmly planted in her wheelchair, staring down the police and trucks carrying mining equipment parked behind them. Shutters snap thousands of hi-res images of the unfolding drama. One of the policemen bellows orders from a megaphone, something about a final warning, lost in the chants of the protestors – which go something like, “The world is watching!” 

Then, the moment of truth: A gang of jack boot and baton-clad officers emerges through a fog of freshly deployed tear gas, descending on the protestors, who have formed a human chain around this grandmother…

I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

Within the hour this clip, from one of many cameras documenting the confrontation, has been uploaded to youtube and shared through facebook, twitter, email chains, etc. The footage is so graphic, so viscerally archetypal in nature – a classic David-vs-Goliath scene – so perfectly capturing the injustice of the situation, that it’s hard not to react to it. Activists and independent media in BC forward it furiously to their Canadian and International contacts – including media.

Soon, producers at major international outlets like the BBC are downloading HD quality images and preparing news stories – which are as much about the viral video clip that’s shocking the world as the violence itself over a mine in BC.

The eloquent chief of the First Nation whose territory the mine would invade, Marilyn Baptiste, is fielding calls from everyone from Amy Goodman to Anderson Cooper. Within days, the governments of BC and Canada, the mining company, the already severely embattled RCMP have been indelibly connected by tens of millions of people around the world to the violent oppression of environmental protestors, among them aboriginal grannies in wheelchairs.

And by the time these parties realize what hit them, it’s too late – they have lost all control of the story. It’s now an international spectacle.  And guess what? Forget about that mine. It’s done like dinner.

A little far-fetched, you say? Allow me to explain.

I raise this hypothetical scenario not to shock or scare, and certainly not to incite the type of situation I describe – quite the opposite. I present it because this is exactly where things are headed at this very moment  – based on our present trajectory. My colleague Rafe Mair has been prophesying this unfortunate conclusion for years now – in these pages and before that – and, sadly, I too have come to envisage the same inexorable results from the bad decisions being made by our politicians, on this issue and many others.

As for Fish Lake/Prosperity Mine, it’s mostly the fault of the BC Government, first under Gordon Campbell, now under Christy Clark – who continues  to astonish by out-doing even her predecessor in the contest to be the premier with the worst environmental record in BC, perhaps Canadian, history (she’s probably neck and neck with Ralph Klein at this stage, but Christy’s just getting warmed up). Let’s review the Campbell/Clark Government’s record on the issue with a brief timeline:

  • First, the BC Government quickly and painlessly approved Taseko Mines’ plan to destroy Fish Lake for its “Prosperity Mine”, only to be embarrassed in late 2010 when the Harper Government rejected the same proposal following its far more extensive Federal Panel Review (the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Federal Environment Ministry and dozens of expert interveners and First Nations were all strongly opposed to the project).
  • Then, a full six weeks before the Harper Government decided to grant Taseko a second shot at an environmental review early last week, based on an amended plan that doesn’t directly destroy Fish Lake (but is, nevertheless, as bad or worse ecologically than its predecessor, according to the First Nations), the Clark Government quietly issued work permits to the company to begin building roads and doing heavy-duty exploratory drilling. This was a breathtakingly provocative and inflammatory move  by Premier Clark, amid an already highly charged atmosphere. Unbelievable, really – flouting the Feds, First Nations, and the people of BC in one fell swoop.
  • Upon discovering this, last week, the First Nations filed a petition in the BC Supreme Court to suspend or cancel those permits while the project is still under federal review (a no-brainer, it would seem)
  • This past Saturday, Chief Baptiste personally (and alone, I’m told, by solid sources) confronted Taseko’s trucks that had just moved into the territory to begin work. Having been informed by the chief that they were trespassing, the truck drivers turned around and left.
  • Now this week, Taseko Mines has filed for an injunction against the Tsilhqot’in, seeking to bar the First Nations from preventing the company’s workers from entering their territory! At the same time, The First Nations have filed for a counter-injunction against the company. As you can see, things are escalating at lightning speed – with more hearings scheduled for tomorrow. It remains to be seen how the courts will rule – lord knows they’ve been put in a hell of a spot by the Province.

So it is at the feet of one Premier Christy Clark that the lion’s share of the blame lies – and will lie, if things get even more out of hand. But knowing how vehemently opposed the First Nations are to this project on their territory; knowing the litany of new problems with the alternate proposal  – which has already been presented publicly through the original Federal Panel Review – the Harper Government should never have sent this project back for a second review. So both of these governments are complicit on some level in forcing the all-too-real hypothetical situation I’ve described here.

I say all these things now, knowing that at least some people within the Clark and Harper administrations will read this (and please help ensure they do, by forwarding this article to your MLA and MP). It is to them I’m speaking.

I implore Mr. Harper and Ms. Clark to recognize how the world has changed since the 1990’s-era Gustafsen Lake, Oka, and other relatively recent violent stand-offs between indigenous peoples and the RCMP and Sûreté du Quebec, still seared in our national consciousness.

Today, we live in the post-Dziekanski era – where one false move by law enforcement and governments is instantly on the public record for millions to see. The Surveillance State works both ways, you see; police can bring their cameras to intimidate protestors, but it is they who are really on candid camera now. (Though, I want to be clear: the police are mere pawns in this game – it is the politicians who drive the situation; and yet, the RCMP’s image is at an all-time low, which will likely make the media and public more ready to blame the police if things go sideways here).

Granted, there may be some instances where the public is divided on the rough handling of protestors by police – some instances, even, like Vancouver’s recent Stanley Cup Riot, where they collectively wish law enforcement took a harder line.

But this is a mine, after all – with undeniably severe ecological impacts; a mine which has already been rejected by the federal government; a mine which prompted an RCMP investigation into insider trading when millions of shares were dumped weeks in advance of the federal government’s rejection of it; a mine which First Nations, with very real and powerful legal rights, vehemently oppose; a mine which a significant majority of BC citizens also oppose. So the prevailing sympathy will be with the mine’s opponents if the conflict descends into violence.

If the Tsilhqot’in people and their supporters are smart – and they are, I believe – they will be preparing right now for the aforementioned scenario. They will take donations to purchase some affordable yet highly effective camcorders. They will train their membership in how to film, edit and upload footage to youtube; how to circulate it through email and social media. They will continue developing information trees, local and international media contacts (they’ve been extraordinarily effective at garnering media interest up to this point, party thanks to their impressive chiefs Marilyn Baptiste and Joe Alphonse). If they are smart, they will do the above – and they will wait.

They will wait and pray that our courts do the right thing and force Taseko to stand down – at least until the federal government has completed its environmental review of the company’s amended proposal. They will wait and hope the Clark and Harper governments come to their senses. But they will be prepared for the worst-case scenario.

With words bearing the full force of their conviction, the Tsilhqot’in have repeatedly demonstrated the resolve to stand on that blockade – even give their lives to protect their sacred land and water – and many supporters have already vowed to stand by their side.

But in addition to that, they will have the cameras ready to roll, the iPhones and laptops set to upload to the world the reality of the injustice being perpetrated upon them. And in the era of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the social media-fueled Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, Keystone XL and Enbridge protests, the world simply has no stomach for watching cops beat up good people standing up for the right values.

So to our provincial and federal governments – and particularly to Ms. Clark – I say, think long and hard before you venture any further down this road. It can only end badly – not just for the brave souls who will inevitably suffer through the sacrifices they make standing up for what they believe in – but for you, your government and your very legacy…not to mention Canada’s reputation in the eyes of the world.

For all our sakes, let us hope cooler heads prevail.

Share

Canada: Peace, Order, Good Government…and Violence?

Canada, Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Western Canada, , , ,
Share

A version of this article first appeared on the website of Strategic Culture Foundation, a Russian online paper.

Let me explain the title to this article. Canada’s overriding mission, according to its constitution. is “Peace, Order and Good Government”, yet I see violence ahead and It’s all about the Tar Sands in Alberta, the worst polluting project in the world, and proposed pipelines from them to the British Columbia ports of Kitimat and Vancouver.
 
As an inseparable companion is the Keystone XL pipeline from the Tar Sands to Houston, Texas.
 
Sniffing anxiously around is China which has $75 BILLION invested in the oil pit.
 
It must be noted that in the middle of the mess that’s a-brewing are First Nations, who, in contradistinction to many aboriginals elsewhere, carry a lot of legal weapons arising out of Supreme Court of Canada decisions and their rights to unceded territories in BC, and it may be within that power that they can stop pipelines – and their stated goal is to do just that.
 
The proposed pipelines to Kitimat through BC will be sited through one of the last real wilderness areas in the world. There are two pipelines – one to carry the Tar Sands gunk, officially called bitumen, and the other to take back to Alberta the condensate which is mixed with the Bitumen to allow it to flow through the pipeline. Enbridge, the pipeline company, has an appalling record on spills and time taken to respond.
 
Of huge importance is the shipping of this gunk down the coast of BC, arguably the prettiest and most treacherous coast in the world.
 
First Nations, plural, have unceded land where they have traditionally fished and hunted for centuries. All along the pipelines and down the coast the various nations have said, “no way”. And as to the tanker traffic, the huge Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 remains burned in their memories.

Meanwhile, on the south coast of BC, another pipeline battle is mounting around KinderMorgan’s plans to turn Vancouver into a major shipping port for the Tar Sands. The company wants to boost the existing Trans-Mountain Pipeline, designed to supply the Lower Mainland with oil for local uses, from 300,000 barrels to 700,000 barrels a day, with hundreds of Suezmax tankers shipping toxic bitumen through the Salish Sea en route to Asia and the United States.

The stakes of this issue were ratcheted up a notch when the First Nation in whose traditional territory the pipeline terminates and the tankers depart from – the Tsleil-Waututh (“People of the Inlet”) – took a strong stance against the expansion of this pipeline and tanker traffic through their waters.

Up until recently, KinderMorgan may have figured it was going to slide its pipeline under the radar, while protests raged against Enbridge and TransCanada (the company behind the Keystone XL). But it looks very much now as though they won’t be so lucky.

Hanging over these proposals is the uncomfortable truth that spills from the pipelines and tankers are not a threat but a reality waiting to happen. On the tanker issue, for example, Environment Canada, scarcely full of Greenies, says that there will be a spill of 1,000 barrels every four years and a 10,000 BBL spill in 9.
 
Here’s the chilling fact: not only are the spills a certainty, no matter what size the spill the damage will be horrific. The Enbridge pipeline passes through Caribou feeding grounds and over and through a great many fish bearing rivers and streams including three major salmon spawning rivers.
 
I would suggest readers go to this site to see the Enbridge spill into the Kalamazo River in Michigan and note that Enbridge’s record on this spill is typical and it hasn’t been cleaned up 15 months later (and never will be). Remember, this spill happened in a populated area, not the wilds of British Columbia.
 
Let’s take a look at the Keystone XL pipeline to Houston. Readers have no doubt read about the rallies including movie stars in front of the White House. President Obama has postponed the decision until 2013.
 
Here’s the crunch – this postponement means that huge pressure now will be mounted against by the government of Canada and within hours of the President’s announcement the Canadian Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty said, “it may mean we have to move quickly to ensure that we can export oil to Asia through British Columbia”. (Cynics like me note that the formal environmental hearings of Mr Flaherty’s government have scarcely begun, confirming what we always knew – these hearings are a farce.)
 
That is a declaration of war.
 
I am a peaceful man who hates violence so much he turned off the first Harry Potter movie. I have lived in, and loved my province for a lifetime of nearly 80 years and I can tell you that there’s going to be violence and that I will be lying in front of the first bulldozer. The largest of the First Nations along the proposed pipeline has contemptuously turned down a 10% piece of the action. Unless that’s just part of a dickering process  –I don’t think so – First Nations will pose a huge actual and political problem for the Federal Government.
 
Moreover, it’s not just the pipelines that will be resisted – I don’t believe that coastal First Nations can be bought off and the pipelines are useless without the tanker traffic.
 
What President Obama and Finance Minister Flaherty have done is to all but ensure violence. Obama’s postponement until 2013 really means more like 2014 since the Keystone XL people know that they must, as a minimum, come up with an alternative to avoid the environmental concerns with their present plans. Trans-Canada is already trying to push the project forward with a few minor tweaks, but that may be wishful thinking as the have to get by the growing numbers of environmentally sensitive people who will have been emboldened by Obama’s action. In the meantime the pressure on BC will substantially increase.
 
This brings in China. It’s not just the money, although even to China, $75 billion is a hell of a lot of dough; what’s also at stake is China’s need for oil. What will China do? It sure as hell isn’t going to just turn around and find another pen to play in. Ironically, the BC premier has just been in China trying to sell them BC lumber and BC coal!
 
Let’s pause and catch our breath. Are we not supposed to be weaning our way off the use of fossil fuels? Are we not supposed to be finding alternative sources for our power and fuel needs? Yet here we have the Premier of British Columbia flogging coal, for God’s sake! And we have the national finance minister unable to wait to destroy our province in order to jack up production and sales of the worst fossil fuel of the lot!
 
It would be folly and unhelpful for me to predict how China will deal with the US but clearly British Columbia can be and will be hit hard.
 
Doesn’t that mean that Canadians will buckle under pressure?
 
That’s what Mr. Flaherty hope, but I believe he’s whistling past the graveyard. He doesn’t know or understand British Columbians.
 
Back in 1992 the federal government held a national referendum on proposed changes to the Constitution which we were told would solve all our problems with Quebec. One of then-Prime Minister Mulroney’s senior aides told me and my radio audience that if the referendum failed, the country would immediately collapse. In the face of extreme forces such as 100% of business and 100% of labour, plus both the federal and provincial governments, British Columbians turned it down by just under 70%!  Every single constituency (the votes were counted according to provincial election boundaries) turned this deal down and it was fascinating to see that every ethnic area voted just as the rest of British Columbians did. In short, British Columbia is very different than other provinces – it doesn’t accept threats.
 
There is always the danger that the forces for expanding the Tar Sands to Asia will abandon the highly controversial Enbridge pipeline for the lesser known expansion of the KinderMorgan line to a tanker terminal in Burnaby, next to Vancouver. 
 
If that’s the plan, the war simply shifts battlefields. And the First Nations and their supporters have already signaled their intention to fight back.
 
Take it from me, as they sing in The Music Man, “There’s Trouble in River City” – a heap of trouble.

Share