Category Archives: Politics

Historic Outpouring of Public Opposition to Site C Dam

Hydropower, Politics, WATER, Western Canada
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Yesterday, I joined several thousand British Columbians in submitting my comments to the environmental assessment process for the proposed Site C Dam in northeast BC. While it will likely take a few days for the most recent submissions to be registered on the government website for the process, judging by early indications, this was one of the largest-ever responses by the BC public to an environmental assessment – a clear sign of how much this issue matters to British Columbians.

The Sierra Club and civic engagement driver LeadNow teamed up to facilitate online submissions and are reporting over 3,400 comments filed by yesterday’s deadline – none of which appear yet on the official review panel website. That’s on top of the close to 1,000 comments already logged prior to that campaign, which kicked in during the final couple days of commenting. So we can expect to see a final tally of well over 4,000 submissions, comparable only to the highly contentious Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal.

Herewith my own letter, addressed to Linda Jones, Panel Manager for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency:

Dear Ms. Jones,

As someone whose family settled in the Peace Valley a century ago, before losing our home, Goldbar Ranch at 20 Mile, to the first big hydro project on the Peace, I take very seriously this latest threat to the valley – Site C Dam.

Peace country is home to some of the best agricultural land in the province and critical fish and wildlife habitat. The unique soil and topographical conditions of the valley yield one of the longest growing seasons in BC. My family grew all manner of fruits, vegetables and grains there decades ago – until that sustainable way of life was taken away from us. I never got the chance to work my family’s land.

Today, we face a food security crisis in BC, producing just 40% of our total needs. We do not have an energy self-sufficiency crisis. I direct you to the work of my colleague, the independent economist Erik Andersen, who has clearly demonstrated that we have plenty of power for the foreseeable future…Unless, that is, we ramp up fracking operations, mines, and build 5-6 massively energy intensive Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plants on BC’s coast.

For evidence of this, you need look no further than our own premier’s recent comments. Ms. Clark told Global TV last week, “You can’t power up these huge [LNG] facilities without more power, so BC Hydro’s going to have to build Site C – we’re in favour of making that happen.” Last year, she acknowledged to a crowd in Fort St. John that just one of these proposed plants – Shell’s joint project with three Asian partners – would eat up the entire load of Site C, that being 1,100 megawatts.

Incidentally, how is the public supposed to take seriously this process when the outcome has clearly already been decided by our political leadership?

Despite the premier’s Orwellian assurances to the contrary, fracked natural gas, converted to LNG, then shipped halfway around the world to be decompressed and burned is not in any way, shape or form “clean energy”. Nor is a massively ecologically destructive mega-dam to power this gas development. In this era of climate change and drought conditions, I do not support using taxpayers’ and ratepayers’ dollars to subsidize the fossil fuel industry – nor to divert, contaminate and destroy billions of litres of precious fresh water, which is what these projects will do.

I respect Indigenous peoples’ rights and voice, as I respect the farming families still tilling the yet unspoiled land of the valley. I take very seriously the unified, unambiguous opposition of the Treaty 8 First Nations and farmers in the region to this project.

Moreover, I take the forced removal of the BC Utilities Commission from its role as the public’s watchdog in evaluating this project as patently undemocratic.

The lack of review of the project from a meaningful cumulative effects approach is also deeply troubling – especially in light of a recent report from the David Suzuki Foundation showing that over 65% of the region has already been marred by heavy industrial impacts – dams, roads, logging, mining, oil and gas.

This process, this project, and the draconian values that underpin them are deeply flawed.

I am steadfastly opposed to the $8 Billion-plus subsidy of the fossil fuel industry, the destruction of vital ecosystems and farmland, and the trampling on First Nations and citizens’ democratic rights that the proposed Site C Dam represents.

I urge you to do the right thing and reject this project.

Sincerely,

Damien Gillis

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HST and Pipelines: The Elephant in the Cabinet Room

Canada, Politics, Western Canada
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There is an elephant in the cabinet room and it can only be dealt with if the occupiers of that room don’t oppose any of the proposed pipelines to run through BC – this thanks to the Campbell/Clark HST mess.

In simple terms, we owe Ottawa $1.6 BILLION by backing out of the HST. It’s not brain surgery – any deal Prime Minister Harper makes to lessen this burden will require Premier Clark to not oppose the pipelines.

What other explanation can be made when you consider how quickly and enthusiastically she supported David Black’s proposed refinery in Kitimat? How is the bitumen to get to this refinery? By carrier pigeon?

Going back to the beginning of her premiership, Clark has shown sympathy for pipelines, albeit opaquely at first, until she moved to the position that if the money’s right, no problem. Of course she will demand that the pipelines be built very carefully and that any leaks are promptly taken care of by “world class” methods and, of course, Enbridge will – cross its heart and hope to die – promise that this will be done.

In reality, it’s down to money. There is now a price tag on her approval and that will, she supposes, make it all better for those nutty citizens who are so opposed to “progress”.

The Campbell/Clark government is utterly without a soul. Social costs are paid grudgingly. They love building things, no matter what the environmental cost will be. They are astonished that so many British Columbians regard the Pacific Salmon and the waters in which they reside as sacred. They think that all they must do is approve a project in principle then run it through a phony economic and “environmental assessment” process and they’ve been good little boys and girls.

This government assumes the corporations are telling the truth when they promise to practice according to the rules, so they never police and enforce rules. If a corporation does disobey the rules, they need have no fear, because even if the government does inspect, there won’t be any fines or other punishment – in fact with fish farms, when they were fined for breaches of the rules by an NDP government, they were instantly refunded when the Liberals took over. Indeed, the minister in charge used to warn the fish farms when the enforcers were going to visit!

The NDP policy re: pipelines is timid to say the least. We will see their actual policy when they lay out their platform in a couple of weeks.

What we know for sure is that Enbridge – indeed all corporations that wish to destroy our environment further – will jump for joy if the Liberals win.

And when that happens, the British Columbia we know and love will no longer be protected, for this surrender to large government and corporate interests will be the precedent by which further and more serious incursions will be approved by our political masters.

Postscript: The latest buzz word for those who support the despoliation of our land, which includes the Federal Conservatives and Provincial Liberals to a person, means that there must be a trial before the hanging. It denotes a cute little pas de deux, where the government says OK – but only after an environmental “process”. A little thought shows that we are deprived of saying we don’t want the damned thing in the first place.

There is no better example l know of this than the proposed McNab Creek gravel quarry. We are all invited to suggest environmental safeguards instead of being asked if we want it at all.

Here is one of three salmon spawning rivers in Howe Sound and we’ll throw that away for a gravel pit!

If you were to ask the local MP to help stop it he would say it must go through the “process”, which is a sham like the old Soviet Union “show trials” were.

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Mother Nature, US Govt Chase Shell Out of Arctic

Energy and Resources, International, Oil&Gas, Politics, Water and Hydrocarbons
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The Shell drilling rig that ran aground, The Kulluk (Greenpeace photo).
The Shell drilling rig that ran aground, The Kulluk (Greenpeace photo).

Shell Oil, the first energy company granted coveted Arctic drilling permits by the US Government, is shutting down operations for all of 2013, nearly as quickly as they began. Shell’s hand is being forced by the Interiror Department, following a scathing report which castigated the company for a series of misadventures in 2012 and early 2013.

The cancellation of this year’s drilling program represents an about-face from the confident predictions made last year by the Shell executive heading up the operation, David Lawrence. The Arctic drilling would be “relatively easy”, Lawrence told Dow Jones at the outset of Shell’s foray into Alaska’s Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.

The report by the Interior Department, released earlier this month, found Shell was unprepared for Arctic drilling and failed to properly oversee its contractors. Department Secretary Ken Salazar put it succinctly on a telephone press conference discussing the report. “Shell screwed up in 2012,” remarked Salazar, who stipulated that future drilling would be contingent on more detailed plans and an independent audit of the company’s management systems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV4UY52FegU

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Rafe: We Continue to go Backwards at an Unsustainable Rate

Canada, Politics, Western Canada
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Old men cannot help feeling sad – not just at the physical ramifications, the illnesses you know will come all too soon or the fact that the fateful day is not far off. It’s not even the mistakes made, the people hurt by what you’ve said and done or the opportunities missed. These things are balanced off by the knowledge that your fate is that of every living thing in the world and your family. To have the love of my life, four children (one deceased), eight grandchildren, and one great grandchild balances the unbalanceable equation.

For me, the truly horrid part is to see that not only have humans learned no lessons, we continue to go backwards at an unsustainable rate.

We have freely elected governments in both Ottawa and Victoria that not only refuse to understand the consequences of their deliberate, greedy ways, but actually believe that their actions are helpful to mankind. They have all, I assume, been taught to tell the truth but they consistently lie, such that one cannot accept a word they say. Worse, they have created an atmosphere where everyone, especially big business, must also lie – although which came first I cannot say.

The past week has been especially hard for this old guy to handle. The premier of the province tells us that an oil refinery in Kitimat will blow our troubles away. We should now consider the proposed Enbridge Pipeline to be a blessing as if the diluted bitumen to pass through the pipeline is now not a worry. She tells us that the “Prosperity Fund”, from Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) revenues, will put, someday soon, $100 BILLION into our kitty for safe keeping. How unhelpful it is to point out that LNG is a glut on the market or alternatively will, at the best, offset the egregious fiscal harm done the province since the Liberals took power in 2001.

We have a federal government utterly bent on having this pipeline approved and have sent a lawyer off to convince First Nations that lots of Wampum will come their way if they just ignore their centuries old commitment to the environment.

The basic point is essentially this: when large corporate profits are at stake, the environment, our natural inheritance, means, dare I say it, fuck-all – a naughty phrase but it, better than any other, sums up this utterly uncaring attitude of those put in authority over us. It’s not that they don’t care – they do care about political funds and corporate profits while ignoring our inheritance and what should be our legacy for our descendants.

What really struck me this week was the resignation from the Sea Shepherd Society of Captain Paul Watson, who has been designated a “pirate” by the US District Court of Appeals, which made the point that the critical importance of your crusade cannot permit you to enforce your own penalties.

As I sit here by my computer this Thursday morning, I’m wearing a Sea Shepherd pullover – I put it on, eerily, before I heard the news of his departure from the organization’s anti-whaling fleet. I have been on Sea Shepherd’s Board of Advisors for over 20 years – I’ve known Paul for more than 30.

I’m not going to trouble you with Paul’s many activities but simply say that, yes, Paul did try to protect the oceans of the world, contrary to the wishes of corporations and their captive governments. For the vast majority of cases, he tried to enforce international law when no one else would. He looked at Japan killing hundreds of whales a year for scientific purposes with all the animals – surprise! surprise! – ending up as sushi in exclusive restaurants and tried to save these whales.

He tried to enforce laws against stripping shark fins away and throwing the poor creatures back in the water for a slow, painful death, so that Chinese gentlemen could get a hard on. He tried to enforce international laws against killing seals so that fancy women in Europe could wear mink coats. He went to the Faroe Islands to stop the annual “harvesting” of Pilot Whales for no better reason than they’ve always done it. (You might find it interesting to note that on the back of a Faroe bill is an engraving of a man clubbing a whale to death).

Let me try to put this in perspective. There have seldom been fundamental rights granted or enforced without the presence or threat of force. The barons at Runnymede, Martin Luther, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, the protection of minorities, and the list goes on. It’s interesting to note that in his 30-plus years, Watson caused no injuries, much less death.

I’m not making a case for Paul – he can and does speak for himself and what he believes in.

What distresses me is that governments, acting in our name, put fish farms, desecration of farmland, destruction of our rivers, pipelines and tankers, ahead of what really should count in life while so many of us vote for them.

As Pogo said in the famous cartoon of the 40s and 50s, “we’ve met the enemy and it is us.”

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Harper Government Takes Muzzling Scientists to New Extreme

Canada, Climate Change, Climate Science, Politics
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Machiavelli would approve. So would Stalin, Mao Zedong, the ayatollahs of Iran, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Bashar al-Assad of Syria. George Orwell would proudly place the audacity of information control in the Ministry of Truth, the agency in his dystopian 1984 novel in which Big Brother uses the Thought Police as the instrument that determines right from wrong, good from bad, wise from foolish, fact from fiction, reality from illusion.

Reality is shaped by information. Control information and reality is controlled. Eliminate information and the blank slate of public consciousness is vulnerable to suggestion and manipulation. Reality is, in effect, an immensely valuable but incredibly fragile commodity, forever changing as information changes. Little wonder, then, that those with a special interest in power also have a special interest in controlling information.

This would be an academic subject befitting a university class on ethics, philosophy or politics if it were not surfacing in Canada because of the Privy Council’s muzzling of scientists associated with the federal government through employment or grants. The strictures on what scientists can publicly say or publish, put in place by the Prime Minister’s office, have been tightening in recent years. In 2011 scientists protested and collectively complained that they could not speak openly to Canadians about their research and findings without receiving prior approval from the upper echelons of government—a dramatic break from the traditional freedom that is an assumed liberty in an open, modern and democratic society. Now the strictures are tightening further.

“As of February 1st this year,” writes Elizabeth May in Island Tides, (Feb. 28/13), “new rules were put in place requiring that scientists working on projects in conjunction with DFO in the Central and Arctic Region to treat all information as proprietary to DFO and — worse — await departmental approval before submitting research to any scientific journals.” A week later, on February 7th, additional rules were imposed requiring that “now they must obtain prior consent before applying for research grants” (Ibid.).

In Elizabeth May’s assessment of the tightening controls on scientists and their research, the process and its intent is obvious. “The tightening of control over science must be established far earlier in the process. Stop research from being submitted to journals. Stop scientists from collaborating with others. Stop scientists from applying for research grants. Stop science from happening at all” (Ibid.). This tragedy is compounded by strictures that constrain scientists from complaining about the constraints placed on them.

An American scientist, Dr. Andrew Muenchow, who has been doing important collaborative research with DFO in the Eastern Arctic since 2003, has refused to accept the new conditions, politely calling them a “potential muzzle”. The dissemination of crucially important information from Dr. Kristi Miller on viral diseases arriving in Canadian waters from salmon farming has been obstructed by the government authorities. Scientists researching ozone depletion, Arctic ice melt, pollution and species loss have been silenced. These are typical examples of the control of information by the Privy Council, an adjunct of the Prime Minister’s office. And it contrasts dramatically with the earlier protocol in which, “Data and any other project-related information shall be freely available to all Parties to this Agreement and may be disseminated or published at any time” (Ibid.). The Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall have appeared in Canada as a blackout on any scientific studies that may conflict with the direction of government’s agenda.

This is not a mere scientific issue. Although science should be the basis upon which governments make many important legislative and policy decisions, open and free scientific research is the most obvious measure of an open and free society, one in which evidence is given precedence over ideology, and decisions are weighted and made as rationally and intelligently as possible from the best available information. Control information and decisions can be shifted toward ideology, the unexamined opinions that drift away from enlightened guidance toward blind bigotry.

Granted, governments make decisions and devise legislation based on their particular ideological bent. But this ideology must be guided by credible information. And a substantial portion of this information now comes from scientific research, collaboration, study and findings. Opinion untempered and unguided by science lacks credibility because it isn’t connected to an empirical measure of circumstances. Ideology that is untested and incompatible with evidence is medieval, for it bears little relationship to reality. Government strategy and legislation founded on uninformed opinion will invariably be flawed and dysfunctional. Even worse, the result is a burden of liabilities, faulty strategies, defective laws and missed opportunities that can be incredibly costly to a country, to its citizens and to the environment that sustains them.

The laws of science don’t change to suit political and economic agendas. Pretending that greenhouse gas emissions are not changing weather, that the Arctic is not warming, that pollutants don’t harm ecologies, and that crucial ecosystems are not under threat is denial bordering on the delusional and pathological. Scientists don’t invent what is happening to our world; they measure, witness and report to us. Muzzling their effort silences evidence and increases our vulnerability to environmental ruin.

As Elizabeth May so eloquently concludes, this suppression of the free exchange of scientific information in Canada “is the 21st Century equivalent of the Dark Ages. This is book burning and superstition run rampant. This is the administration of a steady, slow drip of poison to a weakening democracy” (Ibid.).

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Rafe: Christy Clark Must Resign

Canada, Politics, Western Canada
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Of course Premier Christy Clark must resign. This unholy bloody business called “ethnicgate” started and stayed in her office. The cabinet minister, John Yap, who ran upon his own sword, lied while doing so, saying that none of this had crossed his desk.

Why did he lie?

Clearly because his knowledge as a member of cabinet would be imputed to the premier, his boss. His note, cheering on his hired fixits, could hardly be sent unless he had Clark’s approval.

The appointment of the premier’s deputy minister to investigate this matter was wrong from the beginning and his report bears that out – he did not interview any members of caucus; more importantly he didn’t interview any cabinet ministers; most importantly, he did not interview the premier.

Mr. Dyble himself should have refused the assignment. If he took it, it had to have no strings attached – which there obviously were.

The constitutional practice over the centuries requires that cabinet ministers, including first ministers, must resign if they are under a cloud. That Premier Clark is under a cloud can scarcely be denied by her most loyal of Liberal friends.

The premier must do the right thing and do it now. Not to do so is not only dishonourable but she places herself and her party ahead of her sworn obligation as a member of cabinet and the first minister.

And that will be her legacy – a dishonourable woman who put personal and political considerations ahead of her duty.

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Premier’s calculations for pipelines, fish farms, Site C Dam don’t add up

Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics
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Gary Mason’s column in the March 12 edition of The Globe and Mail, on Christy Clark, is very interesting. The premier is complaining about the lack of precision in the NDP’s plans and calls upon Adrian Dix to spell it all out.

What is most interesting is Ms. Clark’s position on issues and what she deems those issues to be. (Remember that the Liberals have raised the provincial debt and other taxpayer obligations by some five fold, which should limit the generosity of both leaders).

“So not only are the people going to compare me with Adrian Dix,” said Clark, “they will be comparing leadership with an absence of courage to tell people where his party where his party stands on things. If we get into a competition of ideas in this campaign, I believe we can win that battle because I believe the things I stand for are what British Columbians want: a strong economy, smaller government, jobs for our kids, a prosperity fund, lower taxes.”

Leaving aside the prosperity fund nonsense for a moment, these words could have been attributed to all premiers I have listened to going back to my own days in the Legislature. Mindless crap, motherhood and apple pie – but predictable.

Clearly, there are a number of things Ms. Clark does not wish to debate, especially the deplorable fiscal situation and scandals galore, with two fresh ones ongoing right now.

Let’s have a look at the promise involving the chimera she calls a “prosperity fund”.

This is simple barnyard droppings wrapped in a pretty package. You will remember that in the Throne Speech this “fund” would come to pass in two years. In an interview with Justine Hunter she admitted that might be up to five years – how long will it be Ms. Clark?

How about “never”.

The plain truth is that it will never happen. Even if LNG plants (the proposed sources of funds) sprang up all over the province, which they won’t, any revenue would be required for general taxation for a province Ms. Clark’s government, and the Campbell one before it, has left broke.

It would be just as accurate for Premier Clark to promise that our economy under a Liberal government – our “prosperity” – depends upon the Easter Bunny.

Let’s turn now to what the premier is not talking about – the environment.

Readers will recall that the environment has never been a major issue in elections. The media types who conduct and participate in the traditional debate never raise this as an issue because their bosses won’t tolerate anything that smacks of being anti-Liberal.

We have had a recent environmental question arise over a refinery to be built in Kitimat by David Black. Now this is the issue in a nutshell: Premier Clark, who has raised red flags regarding the proposed Enbridge pipeline to Kitimat, has hinted at her support for Black’s alternative venture, which would see diluted Alberta bitumen refined in Kitimat before being loaded onto tankers destined for other markets.

The premier says she opposes Enbridge because it doesn’t give BC sufficient revenue to compensate for the environmental ‘risk’. Black’s alternative involves a pipeline carrying the same product from the same place, along the same route, to the same destination, where it would then be refined before being loaded onto tankers. And yet, Clark somehow seems amenable to the newer proposal.

The only apparent difference is the greater share of provincial revenue and local jobs which Black’s proposal offers and the perceived lower risk of shipping refined products vs. diluted bitumen (only for the tankers – the pipeline would be moving the same Tar Sands product).

In essence the Liberal position is we will not approve these pipelines and tanker traffic unless the bribe is sufficient to permit us to overlook the risks.

Here is the crux of the matter. Surely all would agree that in order to meet the money versus pipelines and tankers issue we must assess what that risk is. That’s only common sense.

What, then, Premier Clark, do you assess these risks to be?

Surely there must be a formula. Tell us that it isn’t just flying by the seat of our pants, or pantsuits!

What studies has your government done to assess these risks? Have you looked at the history of pipelines the world over? Have you, more to the point, assessed the risks associated with Enbridge, whose record is appalling? Black, for his part, has zero experience moving oil products – hardly any more reassuring.

But it’s more than that, for you surely agree that before making this “risk for dough” assessment you must not only deal with the possibilities of a spill but what damages would flow.

What about, say, a spill in the Rockies, or in the Coast Range, or in the Rocky Mountain Trench or in the Great Bear Rain Forest? Or by tanker. In the case of pipelines, how in hell is a company going to get men and heavy machinery to the site?

I’m sure you’ve seen by now that you must not only assess the risk of harm in various sensitive areas, be they in a fjord, Vancouver Harbour, and in all sensitive areas, which, Premier, means everywhere in the province, but what the cost will be.

Are you familiar, Ms. Premier, with the Enbridge spill in the Kalamazoo River in July 2010? There, the spill was easily accessed yet 2½ years later it has still not been cleaned up.

I shouldn’t have to ask if you know the difference between dilbit (diluted bitumen) and refined oil.

But do you? Do you know what the consequences of dilbit accidents are?

Let’s call these spills/accidents for what they really are.

They are not risks but catastrophes waiting to happen. It’s not “if”, Premier Clark, but “when”.

What you are saying to the people of BC is that you are prepared to take a certain sum of money for inevitable “accidents”, wherever they happen and whatever damage they do.

At least be honest on this score so that the voting public has a clear understanding that for money you will abandon our heritage.

There are two other issues that I will go into in depth with as the days pass.

Your government is continuing to grant fish farm licenses in spite of Commissioner Bruce Cohen’s report. Indeed, your government is the landlord for all BC’s fish farms (signing off on the tenures they require to site and operate their farms), yet you have done no policing and the only fines ever imposed came from an NDP administration and the Campbell government gave them their fines back.

The only way these farms can make a profit is by sending their sewage (fish excrement, unconsumed food, anti-lice compounds, unconsumed medicines, drugs and colourants) into the oceans as raw sewage.

Quite apart from the appalling impact these hideous farms have had on wild salmon runs, the above should have you forcing these farms on land, as a recent federal government report recommended.

Will you do this – and if not, why not?

The weasel words, “run of river” projects, have decimated our rivers and, as with fish farms, no inspection of them takes place even though there have been 1000s of broken rules. BC Hydro, the jewel of our crown would be bankrupt if it were in the private sector because of the sweetheart deals your government has forced them to pay to private companies.

This is just one of the scandalous policies that have beset your government. What are you going to do about this issue?

Finally, Premier, why Site C Dam?

Is this really a process to provide energy to gas prospectors who can use that energy to “frack” for natural gas to make energy? And to power the liquefaction of natural gas (LNG), for which, in all likelihood, there will be no customers?

(By the way, Ms. Clark, have you even the faintest idea what the fracking process is all about, and the undetermined environmental impacts?)

Yes, Mr. Dix must come clean with his program and I intend to ask him questions like these. But you are the premier. You must deal with these issues and do so in specific terms, not barfed up stale marshmallows.

I assure you that you will hear about these issues again, for many British Columbians, including me, believe our environment and the fauna and flora it creates and protects is worth more than simply a token amount that they consider, and write off, as a cost of doing business no matter how much that may be.

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Cautious Optimism: World Leaders Ready to Tackle Climate Change?

Climate Change, Politics
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The world’s largest and most influential political and economic forces are showing signs that they might be ready to actively combat climate change. Presently the signs are only words. But the words are unequivocal and dramatic enough to be interpreted as a prelude to eventual concrete action at a global level.

Undoubtedly these words have been hastened by the collapse of a successor to the landmark Kyoto Protocol, the only legally binding international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This collapse was followed by the abject failure of subsequent negotiations. Extreme global weather events have now become so anomalous and conspicuous that they can no longer be denied as normal.

Such events are clearly sobering to those who are supervising the wellbeing of the global economy. They see trouble proliferating if something isn’t done soon to reduce the climate threat. Even US President Barack Obama, emboldened by a re-election victory and facing a last term in office, is taking an assertive position, uncharacteristically forceful and visionary (Elizabeth May, Feb. 14/13).

In his January 21st inauguration address to his fellow Americans — and to the people of the world because of the global influence of the United States — he sounded heroic. “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms…”

Obama is responding appropriately to the growing anxiety in America about a future made uncertain by strange weather. But he also sees opportunity in adversity. “We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries; we must claim its promise” (Ibid.). Obama’s new Secretary of State, John Kerry, also spoke of climate change and the need for remedial action from the international community, a sure sign that the level of awareness and commitment has reached a critical threshold.

More justification for optimism came from Christine Lagarde, the director of the International Monetary Fund. The IMF has been notorious for financing environmentally destructive projects in the interests of economic development — it hasn’t subscribed to the aphorism that the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nature. But Lagarde’s speech in Davos, Switzerland, in late January revealed a different awareness. After outlining the major threats to global economic stability, she conceded that climate change was the most worrisome, “the greatest economic challenge of the 21st century.” In elaborating, she added that, “Increasing vulnerability from resource scarcity and climate change, with the potential for major social and economic disruption; this is the real wild card in the pack.”

But Lagarde’s most candid comments came during the question period that followed her speech. This is a time when the carefully edited words of a formal presentation are replaced by candid opinion. “Unless we take action on climate change,” she said, “future generations will be roasted, toasted, fried and grilled” (Ibid.).

A normal and predictable climate, Lagarde recognized, is the single most important prerequisite for healthy economies — global, national and local. It is foundational and essential. Environmental chaos causes economic chaos, not to mention political, social and cultural chaos. Nothing functions well when communities and their complex infrastructures are buffeted by extremes and unpredictables, exactly what will happen if climate change is not addressed.

A similar expression of concern came from the new president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim. On January 28th he used an article in the Washington Post to address the American people directly. “After the hottest year on record in the United States — a year in which Hurricane Sandy caused billions of dollars in damage, record droughts scorched farmland in the Midwest and our organization reported that the planet could become 7 degrees [Fahrenheit] warmer — what are we waiting for? We need to get serious fast. The planet, our home, can’t wait” (Ibid.).

Good question. What are we waiting for? The physics that determines global climate doesn’t understand excuses: the complications of international negotiations, the politics of domestic economics, the awkwardness of national recessions, the procrastinations of powerful leaders. Neither does it understand the interests of large corporations, the inconvenience of constructing low-carbon technologies, the stubborn reluctance of old ideologues to accept new modes of behaviour more befitting our environmental reality.

The longer we wait to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the more extreme the cuts must be, the more difficult they will be to implement, and the more likely they will have to be made in increasingly adverse economic, social and political conditions. People in powerful places are beginning to realize this. Hopefully, their words will be an impetus to action.

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Rafe: Premier Must Have Known About Ethnic Voter Plot

Politics, Western Canada
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Dear Premier Clark,

You knew about “Ethnicgate” from the beginning. You had to.

I was there, Ms. Clark, and know how government works – especially when the civil service is involved in politics. With a program this size – in the hands of your senior adviser; with the complexity involved, meaning the number of people in the know; and given the channels through which this sort of plan (or should I say plot) must pass, even if you had not wanted to know, you still would have been informed.

That’s what Premiers are all about.

If – and I say this couldn’t happen – you didn’t hear or say anything, then your incompetence is beyond belief (actually, come to think of it, there’s plenty of other evidence on that point). If this is the case, then you must resign.

If, on the other hand, you knew what was happening, Premier, then you must also resign.

You make the point that “nothing crossed your desk”. But we know from the Privacy Commissioner that your government puts nothing of importance in writing.

Out of a lengthy cabinet meeting, one minister, John Yap, ran onto his sword as a sacrificial lamb. That’s a little like throwing people off the sled to the howling wolves so they will be content before they reach the driver. It is not going to work.

Even within the pitiful media, which has given the Liberal Government a free pass for 11 years, this matter will not go away.

Kash Heed is right. An examination by your own deputy minister is laughable and I wonder at why he took the task. He should have refused to get into a political matter which also involved his colleagues or offered his resignation. Only an outside person of repute, like Ted Hughes, can approach the matter with the clean hands and clear vision required.

Madam Premier, you should personally do what you would have demanded of an NDP minister in similar circumstances: RESIGN!

Your party is in danger of a wipe out like the one you inflicted on the NDP in 2001. This means that your party could in itself be in danger of collapse, for in heavy rejection by the voters, the cabinet ministers are often the first to go.

Your clear answer is two fold – resign and appoint someone from your caucus who can make the best of the May election and be in a position to rebuild the party. It was the refusal to do this in 1991 that cost the Socreds not just the election but their own party.

Who knows? When your self-inflicted wounds result in a catastrophe, maybe the Socreds will return! Stranger things than that have happened in BC politics!

To close, Premier, I will be dealing with environmental matters that your government has avoided and continues to avoid but I’ll leave on this note:

Either you are lying through your teeth or you have no business in the premier’s chair (I suppose it could be both) and must resign.

Yours truly,

Rafe Mair (BC Cabinet minister 1975-81)

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Under the Radar: Howe Sound Gravel Mine an Environmental Catastrophe

Energy and Resources, Mining, Politics, Western Canada
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There is a new axiom in BC, evidently, which says, ‘You can’t be against EVERYTHING.”

Unhappily, this had led the NDP and Energy critic John Horgan to support Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plants in northwest BC for export. This is turning out to be an unmitigated disaster and my prediction is that there will be no LNG plants in BC thus no market.

But this new axiom, so critical to those who would take away our heritage, is also permitting a gravel pit to be developed in Howe Sound at McNab Creek. This is not for want of private opposition – it is alive and very well indeed. What it’s lacking is public awareness.

Howe Sound is a world-class area. It’s taken a hell of a beating since my Dad, Mom and I fished it back when if you didn’t get a fish you must have forgotten to put a hook on your line. Eagles have returned to how they were in the days when I was a boy and so have porpoises. Whales are being sighted again. Salmon runs, except the ones dependent on the Ashlu, which has been ruined by a private power company, are returning. Howe Sound is for boaters, canoeists, and a paradise for kayaks, as it may well become again for fishermen.

This hasn’t all happened by accident. There are a number of organizations and individuals who have put their hearts and sweat into making these good things happen.

Now in the midst of this recovering of our heritage, a company called Burnco wants to build a 77-hectare gravel pit, running day and night, all year. In doing this they will excavate the entire estuary from one side of the valley to the other, thus eliminating one of only three estuaries in Howe Sound.

This horrid enterprise will change the movement of water through the valley thus threatening the entire estuary and the ecology it sustains. There are 21 species at risk, including Roosevelt Elk, introduced there in 2010 by the BC Ministry of Environment (one of my old stamping grounds) as well as our usual coastal wildlife.

There are other serious problems – like a gravel pit being worked 24/7/365, bringing noise and light pollution in a big way.

Here is the bad news – the really bad news. The project has already got approval in principle and is moving towards environmental hearings. This is the beloved “process” of the MP for the area, John Weston. He has never seen government-style “process” at work. I have and at the risk of repeating myself I’d rather have a root canal without anesthetic than go to another of those democratic disgraces.

When you go to such a meeting to protest the project, period, you are ruled out of order. You’re only there, you see, to help frame the environmental principles to be imposed. The unstated reality, none the less a fact for not being stated, is that this is a done deal.

Even the environmental review is cold comfort, for whatever constraints are put in place, the company will ignore them. You don’t have to go far to see what I mean – wander up to the Independent Power Project (IPP) on the Ashlu River. Though they crossed their heart and hoped to die that they would live up to their commitment they haven’t. The environmental destruction they have inflicted has been enormous.

Just 16 private power projects in this region – a quarter of the total in operation in BC – generated a staggering 749 environmental violations in a one year period, according to recent documents pried loose by freedom of information request. These companies faced virtually no consequences for their actions.

It’s a bit long but worth reading is what Gwen Barlee of the Wilderness Committee wrote on the subject:

Last year (2011) I received a tip that there were serious problems with the Ashlu private power project. The person who called me said: ‘they are killing the river.’

We had been hearing rumours that private power projects have significant problems with fish kills, so when I got that phone call I immediately submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to confirm what was happening.

FOIs are a tool used by civil society groups like the Wilderness Committee, reporters and private citizens to gain access to government documents that might not otherwise see the light of day. They can be an important part of keeping government open and transparent…

…After waiting for more than eight months for our FOI to arrive, we received more than 3000 pages of government documents about environmental problems at the Ashlu project. Those documents showed that there were repeated problems with fish being stranded on gravel bars resulting in fish kills and that efforts to get the owners of the project, Innergex Renewable Energy Inc, to address these issues were “not satisfactory.”

In those documents staff from the provincial Ministry of the Environment and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) where quoted as saying things like “FYI: lotsa dead fish from yesterday’s Ashlu episode . . . will be interesting to see DFO’s response” and “I agree, their requirement is to keep the fish ladder functional, and this is the key time of year regardless of whether they think they are ‘losing too much water’ to keep it operational.”…

…One of the most concerning revelations of these investigations is an industry practice known as ramping, which increases and decreases flow levels downstream of the power project. Ramping down the river flow has the potential to strand and kill fish and can also result in egg dewatering and cause spawning interference.

The private power industry has often claimed that their projects would not be built in fish habitat but we have seen that in far too many cases that is not the case. According to … Watershed Watch, 72% of river diversion projects are located in known or suspected fish habitat. Private power proponents have told us that their projects would not impact fish but now we are seeing serious problems in regards to fish stranding, kills and habitat damage.

Let’s put it plainly – once you get to the environmental assessment stage, it’s all easy as pie to agree to anything and know that no government inspectors will trouble you – and even if they do, there will be no charges laid.

All is not lost.

First Nations have a special connection to this area and will no doubt fight the project.

Secondly, if the people make enough fuss, the project can be stopped, as the Glacier-Howser private river power project was stopped by irate citizens. There’s a story there to end on.

The company, which gets the right to put on the meeting, doesn’t like too many tiresome citizens around, so instead of holding this hearing in Nelson, the population centre, they hold it in Kaslo, a town with but 1,000 people.

Over 1,100 people showed up! And the project was effectively stopped because the company couldn’t or wouldn’t put in proper safeguards for the Bull Trout population.

The motto is, as the great Scottish Bard, Sir Harry Lauder put it, “Keep right on ‘til the end of the road.”

Or as I put it after the Alcan victory in 1993, you never know you’ve won until you’ve won.

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