Category Archives: Politics

Rafe on Christy Clark’s Implosion, Spying on Fracking Opponents

Canada, Politics, Western Canada
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Today, a twofer.

First, I feel sorry for Christy Clark. She is, no doubt, a very decent person and mother.

Her mistake was assuming that she had the ability to govern. She’s scarcely the first person to make that mistake, nor will she be the last.

I know “I told you sos” are not popular but I have to say it: I told you so. Clark had been a mediocre cabinet minister at best. She chose to sit out the rotting Campbell years and had no noticeable power base.

To make things worse, she won with but one member of caucus supporting her and when she awarded him a cabinet seat this was resented by more obviously qualified backbenchers. In short, damned near her entire caucus has, if not a death wish for her, at most taken a luke warm “let’s wait and see” approach.

Her two years in office have been a nightmare for her, especially since BC Rail and the HST were legacies from the Campbell dictatorship.

Unless the Liberals want a wipeout, like they administered to the NDP in 2001, they must quickly change leaders and my observation tells me that George Abbott is their best hope.

The best examples of this situation in modern times go back to 1989 with the Socreds and 2001 with the NDP and Ujjal Dosanjh.

There are differences. Vander Zalm did win the 1986 election and his resignation was so long postponed that his successor Rita Johnston had no chance. Moreover, there were no stars waiting in the wings. Even with all that, Rita Johnston avoided a wipe-out and had the party put Grace McCarthy in the leader’s chair, the Socreds would certainly have been competitive in the 1991 election – and even of she had lost, the Socred opposition would have been able to refresh the party.

In 2001, the NDP were split by the truckloads of new members brought in to support Dosanjh and he should have done what so many advised him to do – come out of the leadership convention and call an election. Instead, his dithering would bring about the party’s downfall months later.

The chance of a Liberal win in 2013 rates up there with the miracle of the fishes and the loaves – and even with a new leader the best they can hope for is having a decent opposition.

After the 2001 election, former Premier Bill Bennett told the Socreds to keep the party legally alive because who knows?

Who knows indeed?

Canada rarely rates a mention in overseas newspapers, yet in last week’s Guardian Weekly is a story about BC! And it’s right there on page 5, under the headline “Canada’s Spy Chiefs Targets Anti-Frackers”.

“Security and police agencies have been increasingly conflating terrorism and extremism with peaceful citizens exercising their democratic rights to organize petitions, protest and question government policies…” goes the story.

Watch out, you long-haired, bearded dissidents! (alas I fit that description!) Big Brother is watching you!

Actually, I have some experience in this field. In the 1992 Constitutional referendum campaign, John Crosby called me “Canada’s most dangerous man”. Prime Minister Mulroney called me a “traitor” and, according to my “spy” in the Conservative caucus, Mulroney was considering ordering an income tax audit on me.

Fracking is indeed cause for concern. The use of this controversial technique for extracting natural gas is new and worldwide.

The process involves drilling vertically into shale rock for a mile or more then drilling horizontally and pumping in chemically laced water, cracking the shale and forcing the natural gas to the surface. The activity is catching on so quickly that a few weeks ago the story was that China was spending billions on exploration for shale gas, followed a few days later by another story that China has 300 years’ supply. Russia, the world’s largest conventional gas player, is also preparing to join the fracking boom.

With all this, there has been precious little in the way of environmental study done – and that which has is raising all manner of concerns. Where does the water come from? At the end of the process, where does the badly polluted water go? What about the instability of the area after the gas is extracted?

What about economic concerns? Huge promises are being made by our premier about building an industry to supply new Asian customers with Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from BC. If China has a 300 year supply, why would they want to import LNG? What impact will this have on the Tar Sands and the pipelines to the BC coast?

By and large, the only economic studies have been done by the companies, hand in hand with compliant governments.

However, I’ve gone too far. You’re best to destroy this blog, lest, studying these points brings an early morning visit from CSIS, as they brave all slings and arrows of criticism.

Evidently, dissenters, under the cover of democratic principles, promote mistrust of and disobedience of our farsighted governments and huge international companies who only want what’s good for us. I mean, how can anyone question the orders of the Harper and Clark governments with their impeccable record on environment and public safety concerns?

Shame on us!

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Fractured Land Subject Caleb Behn in Vancouver to Discuss Indigenous Law, Resources

Canada, Energy and Resources, First Nations, Western Canada
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Caleb Behn, a young, Indigenous law student from northeast BC and the subject of the forthcoming documentary film Fractured Land, will be at the Vancouver Public Library this Thursday evening, February 28, to give a talk sponsored by Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada.

Behn, who recently completed his legal studies at UVic with a concentration in environmental law and sustainability, derives from Treaty 8 country in northeast BC – one of the most heavily industrialized regions in the world. On side of his family is Dunne Za and Cree from West Moberly First Nations in the Peace River Valley, the other being Eh-Cho Dene from Fort Nelson. Both territories have been heavily affected by natural gas “fracking” operations, among other industrial activities – including logging, mining and large hydroelectric dams.

Behn’s presentation, which starts at 7 pm in the Alice McKay Room at the Vancouver Public Library’s downtown branch (350 W. Georgia), is titled “Indigenous Law as a Solution to Resource Conflict in Treaty 8”.

Event host Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada describes it as follows:

Unconventional energy development made possible by hydraulic fracturing (“Fracking”), has massively increased energy development in Treaty 8, which contains the second largest hydrocarbon deposit on earth. This has led to litigation, blockades and other forms of conflict with indigenous communities. Caleb Behn examines the potential of indigenous laws and legal traditions to ensure preservation of the environment as a condition of energy development and to effect reconciliation.

Behn’s profile has increased of late, partly due to his involvement in the documentary film Fractured Land, co-directed by The Common Sense Canadian’s Damien Gillis. The soon-to-be-lawyer recently completed a speaking tour through the Yukon, discussing proposed fracking operations there, and another with The Council of Canadians’ Maude Barlow, dealing with proposed oil and gas pipelines and tankers in BC.

Thursday’s night’s event is free of charge, but seating is limited.

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Keystone XL: Massive Civil Disobedience is Next

Canada, Climate Change, Oil&Gas, Tar Sands
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Last weekend’s rally in Washington, D.C. is being called the largest climate change rally in history. At least 35,000-40,000 people from all over North America came out on what was an unseasonably cold and windy winter day to demand that U.S. President Barack Obama deny approval of the Keystone XL pipeline and make good on his stated intentions to take serious action to address the climate crisis.

The rally included speeches by Bill McKibben of 350.org, who told the assembled crowd, “For 25 years our government has basically ignored the climate crisis: now people in large numbers are finally demanding they get to work…We shouldn’t have to be here – science should have decided our course long ago. But it takes a movement to stand up to all that money.”

Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune, who was arrested a week earlier protesting the Keystone XL pipeline in front of the White House, said, “President Obama holds in his hand a pen and the power to deliver on his promise of hope for our children. Today, we are asking him to use that pen to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and ensure that this dirty, dangerous, export pipeline will never be built.”

Canada was well represented by a number of indigenous leaders, including Chief Jacqueline Thomas of the Saik’uz First Nation. “The Yinka Dene Alliance of British Columbia is seeing the harm from climate change to our peoples and our waters,” said Thomas, Yinka Dene Alliance co-founder. “We see the threat of taking tar sands out of the Earth and bringing it through our territories and over our rivers. The harm being done to people in the tar sands region can no longer be Canada’s dirty secret.”

Will any of this make a difference? Even while the demonstration was underway, self-proclaimed environmentalists such as New York Times Dot Earth blogger Andrew Revkin was criticizing the demonstrators, writing that “a tight focus on Obama’s decision over the pipeline could be counterproductive if the hope is to build policies that might someday reduce the need for oil, whether the source is Alberta oil sands, the floor of the Gulf of Mexico or the Niger River delta.”

Many climate activists did not take kindly to Revkin’s comments, with journalist-turned-activist Wen Stephenson tweeting, “50,000 people come out to fight for our kids’ future, and you dump on it. You are what we’re fighting.”

Grist columnist David Roberts noted:

We can sit around and fill our blogs with reasons why this or that solution is the wrong one, inferior to some better one that we’d already have, goldarnit, if those meddling pushers-of-other-solutions weren’t ‘distracting’ from ours. We can fall in love with the ineffable intellectual tangle, as Revkin has, and accept that anything specific enough to build an activist campaign around will be meaningless in the context of global energy demand and emissions…But some people want to fight! Some people actually haul themselves out from behind their keyboards, call a bunch of friends, put on warm clothes, and go stomp around in public yelling about it.

Tensions are running high, as is often the case when so much is at stake. But is Revkin right? Is fighting Keystone the best strategic move or should we be directing our energies elsewhere? I was at the protest in D.C. and had the opportunity to speak with a number of climate activists about what lies ahead for the movement. From what I garnered from my discussions, I think Roberts has captured a sentiment that most of us have yet to fully realize, even those of us engaged in this struggle.

Yes, Keystone is a symbolic fight and stopping the pipeline will not fix our climate problem, not by a long shot. But for many people (and the numbers are rising), climate change represents one of humanity’s defining challenges, on par with the abolition of slavery, universal human rights and defeating fascism during the Second World War. It is the sine qua non issue of the 21st Century – no matter what else we might do, if we don’t get this one right, we’re in for an extremely rough ride.

This sentiment is becoming widespread in climate activist circles witnessed by, among other things, the Sierra Club’s recent decision to advocate and engage in civil disobedience for the first time in the organization’s 120-year history. The route of international negotiations and treaties has led us no closer to arresting climate change so many are now rightfully asking: If not now, when? If this is not the issue to get us out of our chairs and into the streets to fight, then what is? New pipelines represent a tangible symbol of our continuing addition to fossil fuels, locking us in to many more years of oil consumption at a time when even the International Energy Agency is telling the world that most of the world’s fossil fuels need to remain just where they are: in the ground.

Canada’s federal government is notorious for its intransigence and lack of interest in the climate change file. In the wake of the ongoing Idle No More movement and massive opposition to the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, one wonders what climate activists in this country might be planning next. After all, Stephen Harper’s government appears hell bent on getting tar sands crude out of Alberta to international markets. If not Keystone, if not Gateway, Harper is determined to find some other way and other plans are surely in the works.

Following the protest, I had some time to visit the National Museum of African American History at the Smithsonian Institute where I came upon a quotation by the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

Whatever you may think of the campaign to stop Keystone XL, it would appear that climate change activists around the world are beginning to wake up to the cold reality of Douglass’ words. We may well look back upon last weekend’s protest as only the beginning of a long, bitter and increasingly hostile battle.

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BC's Fiscal Mess: Hydro, LNG Numbers Don't Add Up

BC’s Fiscal Mess: Hydro, LNG Numbers Don’t Add Up

Energy and Resources, Hydropower, LNG, Politics, Western Canada
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BC's Fiscal Mess: Hydro, LNG Numbers Don't Add Up
Proposed LNG plant in Kitimat – artist’s rendering

The famous bordello keeper of the 20s, Texas Guinan, used to greet her “guests” with, “Hello suckers!”

Texas Guinan has her presence today in the form of BC’s Finance Minister Mike de Jong.

First we must understand some underlying facts about BC finances.

A balanced budget – your style and mine – has us forecasting revenues and expenses accurately, including everything, not something to be pushed at a banker after a three martini lunch. If you don’t include everything you’ll have to borrow money when the car breaks down.

You and I know that if we don’t include everything, we’re just fooling ourselves. Well, folks, there’s no gentle way to put it. We have been played for fools and I’m only going to deal with three headings and leave the deep analysis to economists.

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

We are selling off some $800 million of Crown assets. This is like you and me selling our homes and using the revenue to balance our current budget. Using money from capital assets, you and I would say, doesn’t belong in our family’s budget because it simply isn’t proper revenue any more than selling off the family jewels is proper revenue.

Governments make up their own rules, of course, and some things that ought not to be are in the annual budget, while other things that ought to be there are missing.

Private Power Rip-off

Take BC Hydro – in fact, take it before General Electric takes it if the Liberal government is, God forbid, re-elected.

Under this government, BC Hydro, which used to pay us taxpayers hundreds of millions per year from its operating profits, is now essentially bankrupt, though not yet formalized. It will be sold with a Liberal victory in May.

No government would do such a thing?

Can you say BC Ferries? Can you say BC Rail?

Since the Liberals embarked on their deliberate plan to bankrupt BC Hydro, our crown jewel has seen its debt and contractual obligations rise to about $80 BILLION.

How has this happened?

Much of it comes from the sweetheart contracts BC Hydro is forced to give Independent Power Producers (IPPs). These contracts cost the public as high as five times the market rate for power and have pushed Hydro into an annual deficit position.

The trouble in dealing with this is it’s difficult if not impossible to believe.

Well believe it. Mair’s Axiom #1 prevails: “You make a serious mistake assuming that people in charge know what the hell they are doing.”

Now, if your family business started to lose big bucks and you decided to pump money from your family’s other sources of income into it, you would certainly show that in your budget. The Liberal government hasn’t told you about that.

LNG Pipe Dream

Finally, let’s take a look at projected income, particularly from Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), which is to be our fiscal saviour. Indeed, according to Premier Clark, we’ll be rolling in dough with this money!

Mr. de Jong perhaps hasn’t noticed that suddenly – and it has been sudden – the world is awash in natural gas. In the time I’ve been talking about it, our obvious major client, China, has discovered massive shale gas reserves of its own.

Believe it or not, it gets worse.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has made it clear that unless the BC government and the federal government agree to give 30% capital cost allowances – meaning they want a 30% subsidy on the money spent building facilities, like what happens in Australia – then thanks but no thanks to this LNG scheme.

A glance at the Australia experience shows that at the end of the day, the taxpayer ends up footing a big portion of the construction costs to serve a world that doesn’t want their product.

Here’s what one BC political blog had to say on the matter, comparing the LNG issue to our experience with private power:

…LNG exporters are just like our IPP run of river companies, who did nothing, built nothing, acted only on their own behalf, and laid out no money to build 1 kilowatt of power without 30 and 40 year guaranteed contracts, contracts that Gordon the thief Campbell was more than willing to sign. IPPs did not take one single risk, we, the taxpayers, the BC Hydro ratepayers were ripped off…

There are no LNG facilities built as yet, nor will there be unless government pays their capital costs and even then I predict we’ll never see a single plant, let alone the 5 or more proposed.

Christy Clark’s vaunted “Prosperity Fund” will never receive one penny.

The Speech from the Throne and the Prosperity Fund – and the Budget – are barnyard droppings and Premier Clark is trusting that a disreputable, ongoing lie will fool the public.

Hello suckers!

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Audio: Damien Gillis Talks Private River Power, Fracking, LNG, BC Election

Canada, Energy and Resources, Politics, Western Canada
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The Common Sense Canadian’s Damien Gillis and Vancouver Co-op Radio’s Imtiaz Popat discuss a range of topics relating to water and energy in advance of BC’s provincial election, scheduled for May 14. From the economic and environmental consequences of the Liberals’ private river power scheme to new plans to turn “fracked” natural gas into liquid to access new markets in Asia, Gillis raises questions that need to be addressed by both parties in the upcoming campaign.

AUDIO HERE

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Rafe on Liberals’ Delusional LNG Scheme

Canada, LNG, Politics, Western Canada
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Don’t eat that, Elmer. Them’s horse buns!

The BC Liberal Government’s speech from the throne on February 12 – which hinged on promises of a $100 Billion windfall from BC’s heretofore nonexistent Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) industry – was an appalling attempt to divert attention away from reality with pie in a distant sky.

This government must be thrown out and one can say with certainty that any replacement would be an improvement.

Billions in a few years hence, perhaps trillions after that. We’ll become the LNG capital in the world! There are one or two dark spots on this sunny painting we should look at carefully.

The LNG will come largely from fracking, which is taking the world by storm. It involves drilling deep underground into shale beds where gas is trapped, then drilling horizontally through them, and ultimately pushing huge amounts of chemical-laced water through to crack open the shale and force the gas to the surface. Under Christy Clark’s grand LNG scheme, this gas would then be transported by pipeline to Kitimat or Prince Rupert, where it would be converted into LNG for export, mostly to Asia.

The first questions – the conditions precedent to this operation – are to do with the environment. In a radio interview with the CBC’s Rick Cluff Wednesday, Premier Christy Clark repeatedly referred to this gas as “clean”. Really?

Where does this water come from? The requirements are immense, so a large supply must be found.

Where does the chemically loaded water go? Into the water table, thence to the water supply of local residents?

What is the impact of the extraction of this gas on the stability of the area? Will there be earthquakes as a result of fracking, as a recent report from the Oil and Gas Commission suggests?

What is the impact of huge water extractions on the general ecology of the the supply area? Are there fish losses? What happens to the fauna and flora after the water is extracted? What impact is there on people, especially First Nations? What will be the impact of the water lost to this process on BC Hydro and its ratepayers – like the billions of litres coming from the Williston Reservoir?

There is this question Premier Clark won’t deal with because she doesn’t give a damn – what about the impact of pipelines (all four of them proposed to cut across BC), especially on wildlife?

The fact is that these concerns are being dealt with in several regions with a moratoriumon the enterprise until the answers to these and other questions are answered.

What we do know is that these sorts of concerns do not bother the Chinese in the least, which leads into the major economic concern. Asian prices are high now – 5 or 6 times higher than in North America, which is the basis for this whole scheme. This is a direct reflection of the current lack of cheap, local supply.

So here’s the rub – what if China develops its own supply of “fracked” gas? What happens to the overseas market price then?

One doesn’t have to be an economic genius or Nostradamus to predict that our proposed customer, China, will find plenty of shale and be awash with natural gas.

Even if China does not develop its own supply, who says BC can compete with other countries, such as Australia, which is into this big time?

Another nasty question: how does Premier Clark know how much tax room there will for BC in this development? Are we to suppose that the feds will see huge money without wanting to get into the taxing game themselves, big time?

It should be noted that at present there is no LNG plant in BC.

This is the bunch that wants to be re-elected on May 14. This is their blueprint. Not only have they done nothing to relieve our financial woes they have taken us for fools by feeding us a load of unattainable and inedible pie in the sky.

This government is unfit to govern.

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MP John Weston, Rafe Mair Debate Pipeline Risks, Environmental ‘Process’

Canada, Politics, Western Canada
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The following letter to The Common Sense Canadian came from the office of John Weston, Conservative MP for West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, in response to Rafe Mair’s January 28 column. See Rafe’s further reply below.

In Rafe Mair’s article “Environmental ‘Process’ a Myth in Stephen Harper’s Canada”, published on January 28th, 2013, he makes many contentious accusations.  Regrettably, he has adopted an extremist position, rejecting a Northern Pipeline in principle, no matter what the cost to the community, to jobs, to our country, or to our economy.  When asked at a gathering in North Vancouver where I heard him speak, he rejected out of hand that a Northern Pipeline should be built, under any circumstance.  For my part, I maintain an open mind; call for a robust environmental assessment process; and would support a pipeline only if demanding environmental safeguards are in place.

Extremists are sometimes tempted to engage in personal attack rather than to focus the debate on the principles at hand.  It saddens me to observe Rafe not only adopt an extremist position, but also to yield to that temptation in his January 28th piece.  Over the years, I have expressed my admiration for him, when I worked for him as BC Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs; when he took a stand on Senate Reform, that I still endorse today; and when he performed so passionately as one of our Province’s most listened-to talk show hosts.  I still admire Rafe for his knowledge and the conviction of his beliefs.

But I regret it when he undermines his own credibility and respect by reducing important arguments, about the environment and other things, to personal attack.  He can still be a strong voice of influence in our Province without stooping so low.

Rafe Mair responds:

Of course I’m an extremist when it comes to preserving our environment, as I would be defending my wife and family.

John continually ignores the fact that spills from the proposed Enbridge line and consequent tanker traffic are not “if” but “when”. Even the federal Environment Department tells us that – not to mention Enbridge itself.

BEING AGAINST A PROJECT THAT IS BOUND TO SPILL, WITH HORRENDOUS CONSEQUENCES FOR MY PROVINCE, YOU’RE DAMNED TOOTING I’M AN EXTREMIST.

This applies equally to Kinder Morgan and its proposal to massively ramp up oil tanker traffic through Burrard Inlet.

What is the process Weston suggests for once sacred fish habitat? The same appalling process that contaminates the “run of river” and Gateway exercises? Why won’t Weston be honest (a matter I will return to) – and admit that in the case of Gateway and presumably Kinder Morgan the Minister and Prime Minister has said they will go ahead regardless of what the Joint Review Panel recommends. These are like “Soviet show trials” – first the decision, then the process; done deals are given a fake process to make them look good.

Now as to Weston’s “honesty”.

At this very meeting Weston made it appear he was supporting “process”. There is no other word for that – he was lying through his teeth. He wouldn’t utter a peep because it was stuck inside the Budget Bill, thus beyond the ability of the parliamentary poodles in the Conservative Party to speak against it – no matter what was in it.

This bundling of a contentious issue within the budget is a parliamentary disgrace as Weston well knows and he is a part of it. Weston voted forBill C-38 because if he did not, he would say farewell to a hoped-for cabinet post – but even more, he would have been tossed out of caucus, thus out of politics. (If anyone is in doubt, just google John Nunziata)

John Weston did not support the removal of habit protection out of any personal principle but because he put party and his own political survival ahead of protection of our sacred fish. In short, when Weston told the meeting he was supporting the bill on principle, he was LYING.

I must remind Weston that when he sought my advice as to whether or not he should run, this was the very conundrum I warned he would constantly face.

I might close by saying that I couldn’t believe Weston’s abysmal ignorance of the 7 species of salmon we have on this coast. He represents a coastal riding and he knows nothing about the very soul of our province, not to mention the staple food of many First Nations.

If Weston would like to debate this issue with me I would be delighted.

Rafe Mair

 

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Vaughn Palmer’s wrongheaded defense of private power projects

Canada, Economics, Energy and Resources, Hydropower, Media, Politics, Western Canada
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Wow! The Vancouver Sun has been a-burst with environmental issues, two on the front page February 6.

Let’s first back up to Vaughn Palmer’s ill thought out column of February 4. It’s nice to see Palmer has finally sacrificed his virginity and tackled the Independent Power Producers’ (IPP) obscene contracts foisted by the government on BC Hydro. Before we rejoice at Palmer’s brain transplant we must recognize what tripe this column was.

Palmer defends gross overpayments to IPPs on the grounds that the contracts were granted at a time when electricity prices were much higher, which ignores the standard practice of tying contracts to prices at the time of sale. Certainly that would make matters riskier but that’s the name of the game in business.

Then Palmer attacks us skeptics by making the case that we will welcome these IPPs when we are short of energy, which Palmer sees in the immediate future. This is not so as Economist Erik Andersen has demonstrated. (You would see more of Andersen’s work if the Fraser Institute’s house organ, The Sun, would publish his work).

Mr. Andersen recently wrote in a letter intended for The Sun, but unpublished thus far, “When one sees value in a deliberately created surplus of anything costly, it can only be from ignorance of need. For decades, BC Hydro has an unbroken record of estimating provincial demand well in excess of recorded demand. The BCUC (BC Utilities Commission) recognized this several times in the last century but BC Hydro keeps coming back.”

Palmer also ignores the huge debt to IPPs by reason of these shameful overpriced contracts, which stand at over $50 BILLION and rising. It doesn’t seem to bother “Poodle Palmer” that if in the private sector BC Hydro would be in bankruptcy protection at best and that as of now BC residents owe about $16,000 per man, woman and child because of Hydro’s massive $70 BILLION in debt and contractual obligations.

Naturally, Palmer ignores the huge environmental cost of these projects; moreover, he neglects to mention that the IPPs are mostly out-of-province and out of Canada companies who – and these dots connect – take all the profits straight out of the pockets of ratepayers who will be dinged with ever-increasing rates to cover the costs of these government-cosseted corporate leeches.

The lead headline in The Sun of February 6 leads into a report that the federal government is ill-prepared for a tanker spill and talks about such a thing as “unlikely” – even though the Department of the Environment, scarcely made up of tree-huggers, assert that spills are a certainty.

That’s two certainties – a spill is certain and there is no way it can be cleaned up.

In Ancient times, Cato the Elder ended every speech to the Roman Senate, whatever the subject, with “Carthago delenda est” (Carthage must be destroyed”.) Eventually the Senate got the idea and Carthage was destroyed.

We must imitate Cato and wherever appropriate pronounce the essential truth about oil spills from pipelines or tankers: NOT IF BUT WHEN!

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Rafe's Welcome Letter to New Sun & Province Publisher

Rafe’s Welcome Letter to New Sun & Province Publisher

Hydropower, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Salmon Farming and Aquaculture, Western Canada
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In the Postmedia press this past week we learned that Gordon Fisher has become publisher of The Vancouver Sun and The Province. Here is my welcome.

Dear Mr. Fisher,

My congratulations on your new posting. These two papers need all the help they can get.

I’m an octogenarian now – I love that word because it’s more descriptive than “senior citizen” and because no one I knew in my 40s would have bet a plug nickel I’d ever get this far.

As a lifetime British Columbian I go back a long way. As a youngster I was a Tillicum mostly because The Province gave you a neat faked silver totem pole as a badge. The magic words were “Klahowya , Tillicum”, which my cousin said came from Indians saying to Hudson’s Bay employees, “Clerk how you?”

I doubt that but have never heard of a better answer

I didn’t join The Sun’s Uncle Ben club because my Dad hated The Sun – in those days there was real rivalry!

I remember some of the great writers of that day – Eric Nichol, Jack Scott, Harold Weir (a rabid royalist) and I even read Sir Michael Bruce, whose taffy-nosed columns used to get under everyone’s skin.

I would like to talk about more modern times.

Back in the 70s I ran for the BC Legislature and as I awaited the election I couldn’t wait to read Marjorie Nichols in The Sunas night after night she kicked the crap out of the NDP government, especially Dave Barrett.

When I was elected it seemed as if Marjorie had had a brain transplant as now she was hammering the hell out of the Socreds and Bill Bennett!

I asked myself how Marjorie had changed so dramatically until the light went on – it wasn’t Marjorie who had changed, it was the government!

As the days passed I noticed that Jack Webster, Pat Burns, Jack Wasserman, Denny Boyd, Garry Bannerman, Ed Murphy, Jim Hume, Barbara McClintock – indeed the entire political press were “unfairly” beating up on us.

After I left the government I realized that they were “holding our feet to the fire” and it made for a better, more responsive government. It was that obligation I adopted when in 1981 I went into radio.

In the nineties you will remember the NDP under Mike Harcourt took over for the next decade.

The print media, especially Mike Smyth of The Province and Vaughn Palmer of the Sun were merciless in their pursuit of at least a close proximity to the truth. There were two areas that stick in my mind – the fast ferries issue and Glen Clark’s dealing with a man trying to get a gambling licence, who did some work on the premier’s house.

These two and Les Leyne and Jim Hume, both of the Times-Colonist, were relentless in their pursuit of the facts and highly critical of the premier and other members of the government.

In 2001 it all changed as the Liberals under Gordon Campbell took power. The media suddenly started to avoid issues or give them a once-and-for-all treatment.

Let me be specific.

For the first time in my life, the environment has become an issue, perhaps the #1 in the province. In no special order, here are the main issues: loss of agricultural land due to the Gateway Project, fish farms, private river power, pipelines and tankers, and most recently “fracking”.

Mr. Fisher, I ask you to look at your columnists and determine for yourself whether any of these questions have been canvassed – not well canvassed but canvassed at all.

Let’s start with fish farms. These have not been covered at all in spite of the terrible consequences of them including ruination of wild salmon! I invite you to find a critical word – indeed any word at all – in Smyth or Palmer’s columns in the last 12 years. You will note that your former editor of the Sun editorial pages, a “fellow” of the Fraser Institute, freely gave op-ed opportunities to the fish farmers’ lobby, yet you’ll search in vain to see anything from, say, Alexandra Morton.

The so-called “run of river” policy has desecrated 75 rivers and proposes to do the same to hundreds more. These projects build a dam (they prefer to call them “weirs” but they are dams) which kill migrating salmon and resident trout and, in effect, permanently decimate the ecosystems that depend upon the river. You see, Mr. Fisher, these plants not only impact the fish directly but the entire ecology as they require roads and clear-cutting for transmission lines.

Let’s leave aside the environment and look at the economics.

BC Hydro is compelled by the provincial government to sign agreements with Independent Power Producers (IPPS) on a “take or pay” basis meaning that when IPPs are going all out during run-offs, BC Hydro, which has full reservoirs, must buy this power even though they don’t need it, at double to ten times the export price and many times more expensive than it can generate it themselves. BC Hydro owes IPPs for future power over $50 Billion!

This all means, of course, that Hydro can no longer pay a dividend to the government of the customary hundreds of millions of dollars and is, in fact, bankrupt by private, corporate standards.

I invite you to look at your columnists’ work over the past 5 years and try to find a discouraging word about private power. There have been the occasional, very occasional, news story but your political columnists are and have been silent.

Let me pause and tell you that after I had raised hell on this subject, Province editor Wayne Moriarty phoned me and whined, “Rafe, do you think I tell my columnists what they must not write about?” to which I replied ,“You don’t have to, Wayne, you don’t have to.”

Let’s move on to the pipelines issue, especially the Enbridge proposal and the proposed new Kinder Morgan line. At the same time, let’s glance at the tanker traffic these two pipelines will need.

These are both huge issues. The issue isn’t the risk of spills, Mr. Fisher, but the certainty of them. Even the Federal Environment Ministry (scarcely known to be tree-huggers) says that these spills are inevitable.

But, you may well ask, surely these spills can be cleaned up?

First let’s deal with the proposed Enbridge line, which is more than 1,000 Kilometers long and passes through the Rockies, the Rocky Mountain Trench, through the Coast Range then through The Great Bear Rainforest. When a spill occurs, how the devil will Enbridge get men and machines in to the spill area?

Mr. Fisher, it’s even worse. It doesn’t matter.

Enbridge had a huge spill into the Kalamazoo River in July 2010 and it hasn’t been cleaned up yet and never will be. Access to the spill site posed no difficulties but cleanup certainly did.

The cargo is what they call dilbit or diluted bitumen, product of the Tar Sands, which in itself is the world’s largest polluter. With ordinary bulk oil one can get to a lot of it by “rafting” which, as you would imagine, is surrounding it, localizing it then scooping it up.

Unfortunately, within a very short time after a dilbit spill, the bitumen separates from the diluent and sinks like a stone. Not only will Enbridge be unable to get to the spill, even if it could they would be helpless to do anything of consequence.

The problem scarcely ends there. The tanker traffic poses huge problems.

Again, Mr. Fisher, it’s not a matter of “if” but “when”. The consequences of a spill are too awful to even contemplate. Whether down Douglas Channel from Kitimat or through Vancouver Harbour from Burnaby the consequences of a spill will be horrendous.

Yes, with double hulling there will be fewer accidents, the operative word being fewer. As we know from the BC Ferry Queen of the North calamity, where there is a possibility of human error, tragedies will happen.

I’m sorry to have been so long-winded, Mr. Fisher, but my point is that Postmedia’s coverage of the matters mentioned has been pathetic and journalistic critique, let alone criticism, has been nonexistent.

I ask you, are you content to let this continue?

Yours very truly,
Rafe Mair

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Idling Harper: Why First Nations Movement Poses Genuine Threat to PM

Idling Harper: Why First Nations Movement Poses Genuine Threat to PM

Canada, First Nations, Politics, Uncategorized
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Systems are always bigger and more complex than the individuals who try to control them. So political systems, like ecological ones, can be influenced and guided for a while by the stringent and obsessive management of details, but the intricate convolutions within their countless interacting parts eventually expose the futility of such effort. This is now becoming apparent in the present Conservative government in Canada under the authoritative — some say autocratic — leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The Prime Minister is known for his propensity to control, a predilection that includes his caucus, parliament and the research studies from every scientist in the employ of the federal government. All information is vetted through his office, the PMO, to be certain it conforms to the message and the image he wants to portray of himself as a rational and competent manager of the nation’s business. But this strategy ultimately fails because even the most fastidious control can never match the complexity of systems. Like trying to prevent water from flowing downhill, pressures build, leaks occur, the ground saturates, and the whole containment effort finally collapses.

An extremely revealing leak occurred at the Salt Spring Forum on December 2, 2012, where Tom Flanagan, Stephen Harper’s former professor, mentor, advisor and campaign manager, was invited as the featured guest — “former” because Flanagan’s 2009 book, Harper’s Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power, ended their communication (Jane Petch in Island Tides, Dec. 13/12, p.9-10).

But Flanagan certainly communicated to his Salt Spring Island audience about someone he knows extremely well. “Stephen is very intelligent,” he said. “He’s an abstract strategic thinker who translates ideas into action. He is an unusual package of characteristics. He can be charismatic in small groups, morose, secretive, suspicious and vindictive. These may not be traits you want in your next door neighbour, but they are very useful in politics.”

“He develops strategies for himself,” Flanagan confided. “He listens to his Chief of Staff, Nigel Wright, and a small group of men he has come to trust: Baird, Clements and Flaherty. He doesn’t consult widely before decisions are made, and this has created problems for him.” Amazingly, Flanagan declared that he was unaware of any vision the Prime Minister had for Canada. “Stephen’s allergic to laying out a vision. He’s more concerned with the specifics.”

When asked about the Prime Minister’s dismantling of environmental regulations, Flanagan said that “Stephen sees through an economic lens, not an environmental one.” As for ignoring the scientific evidence of climate change, Flanagan explained that, “Everyone sees evidence through different binoculars. …It depends on what evidence you look at.” He added that he agreed with Stephen Harper’s policy of “appearing to make a difference without actually changing anything.”

Such a policy reveals a noteworthy fallacy. If the Prime Minister is attending only to details without being guided by a larger strategy, then how can he control outcomes? All his decisions and legislation suggest he is having a profound effect on Canadian politics. His efforts to spend Canada out of the Great Recession of 2008 have committed the treasury’s finances to massive deficits. His prorogation of parliament to avoid a vote of non-confidence has left an indelible scar on the country’s democratic psyche. His citation for contempt of parliament has created unprecedented cynicism in the House of Commons. His disregard of overwhelming scientific evidence for climate change and environmental deterioration now appears like petulant, stubborn and abject denial — an international embarrassment and a neglect tantamount to criminality. His omnibus budget bills, C-38 and C-45 that avoided parliamentary debate on a host of new laws, have created a bitter electorate.

Perhaps the Canadian public has become accustomed to the shock of the Prime Minister’s political tactics. But environmentalists and scientists have reacted with incredulity and dismay. And First Nations across the country, already extremely tense and enormously frustrated by the lack of respect for their rights and interests, have been unwilling to tolerate the trespasses included in C-38 and C-45.

First Nations, mythologically and traditionally, have always lived close to nature. It is the foundation of their history, culture, security prosperity and future. So they duly interpreted the wholesale relaxation of regulations in the Fisheries Act, the Navigable Waters Protection Act, the Environmental Assessment Act, the National Energy Board Act and the Indian Act as assaults on their interests. These measures also violated Section 35 of Canada’s Constitution Act (Island Tides, Jan. 17/13). The pending investment agreement with China, FIPA, and a proposed free trade agreement with Europe, CETA, also challenge First Nations’ rights. Their response was “Idle No More”, a diverse and amorphous uprising against an authoritarian government that failed to consult with them — just as it failed to consult with parliament.

The Idle No More activists are correct in claiming that their protests are not just for themselves but for all Canadians. The omnibus measures in C-38 and C-45 that show a contemptuous and autocratic disregard for legally binding treaty obligations parallel the Prime Minister’s disregard for Canada’s democratic and parliamentary traditions, a matter that should be of concern to every citizen of this country.

The Idle No More movement is so diverse and amorphous that it will be difficult to control by the Prime Minister and his powerful PMO. Such a vague and unfocused opponent will be an elusive target for Stephen Harper’s vindictiveness. A restless and evolving movement with a wide range of demands will be impossible to manipulate with his secretive strategies. So Stephen Harper’s suspicious nature will be forced to confront a dilemma of his own making. Charisma is not going to solve this problem. And if frustration should activate the morose streak in his character, he can stew in it until the end of First Nations’ patience — which could be a very long time.

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