Category Archives: Politics

North Island candidates comment on oil tankers

Canada, Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Western Canada, ,
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From the Courier-Islander – April 20, 2011

For the upcoming May 2 federal election, Vancouver Island North candidates were asked:

Last
December, the House of Commons passed a motion calling for a ban on
crude-oil tanker traffic off BC’s north coast, but the motion was
non-binding and considered likely to be ignored. What’s your position
on allowing oil tanker traffic off the BC coast? What impact would such
a ban have on the Vancouver Island North riding?

NDP Candidate Ronna-Rae Leonard:

Our
coastal life is too important to our economy and our waters are too
rough to risk tanker traffic. The Exxon Valdez disaster and the BP
spill in the Gulf of Mexico demonstrate the devastation that results
from accidental spills. The sinking of the Queen of the North ferry
showed that even with navigational technology, human error can occur.

The
oil and gas companies are far more concerned about their profits than
the B.C. Coast. It is up to us to defend what is ours. A spill would
mean the end of the very basis of our livelihoods and deprive of us of
our most precious resource.

Eight in 10 British Columbians, the
vast majority of coastal First Nations, and the Canadian Parliament all
support a ban on oil tankers on BC’s Coast. Making it law will ensure
future generations do not bear the risk of a major oil disaster.

Conservative Candidate John Duncan:

Our
Conservative party’s number one priority remains the economy, which we
will balance with responsible environmental stewardship. Oil and gas
tankers go into and out of Vancouver every day. Oil and gas tankers
have more than 100 movements a year along the BC coast to service our
coastal industries and communities. Prince Rupert and Kitimat are
increasingly important ports for international trade and their
industrial infrastructure will increasingly resemble the Port of
Vancouver. The Conservative Government has no plans to re-open the 1988
Exclusion Zone on tankers travelling between Alaska and Washington
State on the B.C. Coast and we have no plans to re-open the current
moratorium on offshore oil and gas developments on the B.C. Coast.

Liberal Candidate Mike Holland:

I
believe we need a ban on oil tanker traffic off B.C.’s north coast. A
moratorium was put in place by the Liberal government in 1972 but the
Harper Conservatives refuse to recognize the moratorium, or the
incredible risk to our coastal communities, tourism and fishery
industries that tanker traffic and an oil spill would pose. That’s why I
supported the efforts in the last Parliament by Vancouver-Quadra
Liberal MP Joyce Murray to formalize the moratorium on the shipping of
crude oil in the dangerous inland waters around Haida Gwaii and off
Northern Vancouver Island with Bill C-606, and if elected I will work
in the next parliament to ensure a formal ban is passed into law. As
the moratorium has been in place since 1972 the impact of a formal ban
on our riding would be negligible, but the impact of a spill would be
tragic and irreversible.

Green Party Candidate Sue Moen:

The
Green Party of Canada continues to call for a legislated ban on bulk
oil tankers along Canada’s entire Pacific Coast and supported the
Private member’s bill calling for this, as a significant step towards
protecting BC’s coast. The proposed pipelines that would feed that
traffic have been opposed by over 80 First Nations bands and thousands
of B.C. residents.

Greens propose more marine conservation areas,
saving more boreal forest as a carbon sink and returning resource
management to local communities.

These actions create
opportunities for employment including environmental protection,
reforestation, research, eco-system rehabilitation, and in
non-extractive eco-tourism, and many more. These are sustainable jobs. A
single catastrophic spill — a certainty in the wild waters off our
coast — would devastate all of those jobs.

I don’t want to live in a world where the clean-up of an oil spill is defined as good for the economy.

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Alexandra Morton on Candidates’ Salmon Positions + New Video

Canada, Politics, Western Canada, ,
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I am a biologist and resident of a tiny coastal community on

the coast of British Columbia.When salmon farms arrived I believed the government promotion that it
would be good for my community.But now that the industry has surrounded us with 27 huge Norwegian
salmon feedlots, there are only 8 people left, the First Nations oppose the
industry, our school is closed, we have the sea lice epidemics, mounds of waste
only bacteria can grow on, toxic algae blooms and zero jobs in the industry. We
learned at the Cohen Inquiry that the federal government has offered to sell
this Norwegian industry to us, the people of Canada. My town was based on wild
salmon through fishing, tourism and the arts. As the wild salmon went so we
went. We did not accept the low paying jobs as reward for allowing this
industry to destroy our coast.

Video from recent Alexandra Morton event in Vancouver – story continues below

Salmon feedlots break the natural laws unleashing bacteria,
viruses and sea lice. My lawyer, Greg McDade, questioned Dr. Laura Richards,
Director General of Science Pacific Region about the 2009 sockeye crash at the
Cohen Inquiry. We learned a briefing note sent to the Minister of Fisheries
stated that a virus is one of the leading suspected causes of the 2009 sockeye
collapse.  We also learned DFO
muzzled their own scientist who made this discovery, Dr. Kristi Miller. Salmon
Leukemia virus is a retro virus like HIV. DFO never told the public and left us
to blame fishermen. They also refused to test the farm salmon in an
effort to find out where this virus is coming from.

Salmon farming has harmed wild salmon everywhere they
operate (Ford and Myers, 2008). Canada has already destroyed one earth’s
greatest natural food supplies, the North Atlantic cod, by muzzling their
scientists. Fisheries and Ocean Canada blindly adhered to bad policy kicking the
cod and the east coast economy over the cliff. Immediately after, the Hibernia
oils wells went onto the Grand Banks. Canada traded food security for oil, the
future for short-term gain for the corporate world. No one in DFO was held
accountable and there is every indication that they are doing this again in BC.

I am unwilling to accept our fate as victim of another bad,
misguided policy favouring industry over our communities.   As soon as oil prices rise too
far the Norwegian salmon feedlot industry will not be able to afford shipping
ground up fish from Chile to feed their Atlantic salmon here in the Pacific.
They will walk away and we will be sitting like fools with viral epidemics and
piles of manure smothering a once productive seafloor.

All too often people feel helpless. Democracy is slipping
away under the crush of the global economy.We need to wake up right now and step into the process of
how we form governments.Members
of Parliament are our agents, nothing more. Eighty-five percent of British Columbians consider
wild salmon an icon; they bring in over $2 billion a year in wilderness tourism
and fishing, they are an essential bloodstream carrying nutrients to our
forests, they are food security. We want them and our political agents have no
business hiding the truth about them from us.  It is time to elect people who will stand by us and defend
our rights and resources.

For these reasons I left home April 13th to go door-to-door
to as many federal candidate campaign offices as possible to get them on record:  Do you support wild salmon, would you
protect them by removing salmon feedlots from BC waters, would they protect the
aquaculture workers by supporting land-based aquaculture farming species that
are more sustainable, lower on the food chain than salmon?

I have been down Vancouver Island to Nanaimo, across the
ridings of Vancouver, through Chilliwack to Kamloops, Enderby, Salmon Arm,
Mission. I will be continuing through the lower mainland and southern Vancouver
Island.  It has been a fascinating
exploration. I am a biologist with very little political experience and I am on
a steep learning curve.

Here is what I have found out:

The Greens have
some candidates that are very impressive such as, Adriane Carr (Vancouver
Central) and Elizabeth May (Saanich – Gulf Islands). Sue Moen, (Vancouver
Island North) really tells it like she sees it, but is not electable.  Some Greens should get out of the way
as they are not serious about winning. Both Carr and May strongly support
wild salmon.They would transition
workers in the industry to land-based aquaculture. I think Carr and May
would go a long way to bring balance to any government. 

The Liberals
seemed uncertain of their position, with many candidates remaining silent, but
on April 18 Micheal Ignatieff said, “if fish farms are harming wild salmon
we’ve got to stop it, put it on land or stop it all together.” This is a much
stronger statement than the one made by Mike Holland (Vancouver Island-North)
who said, “We need to get the
science done to understand just what the relationship and impact is, and we
need to be prepared to go where the science takes us. If that takes us to
closed-containment only I support that, but I want the science first. I’m not
prepared to mandate a timeline at this stage.”I think Liberal Renee Heatherington (Saanich-Gulf
Islands)  may be pushing her party
to establish a policy on this.

The Conservatives
avoided me, until April 18 when MP Cathy MacLeod accepted our request to meet
in Kamloops.I was really looking
forward to hearing the Conservative position, but as we sat down she said she
could only listen and not give a position. Senator Nancy Greene joined us.I have met Nancy before and know she is
a strong wild salmon supporter.MacLeod’s attitude shifted during the meeting. I think she wanted to see
me as a nut, but as I outlined how the federal government has been hiding a
virus in the sockeye, I saw a change in her and she did say the Conservatives
are awaiting the Cohen decision. This is really not good enough.I have seen three major government
reviews on salmon farming entirely ignored by the provincial and federal
governments. The Cohen Inquiry is not a fish farm review, even if it finds
impact on the sockeye it is not mandated to do a thorough salmon farm
investigation.There is more than
enough evidence of harm to invoke the Precautionary Principle, which Canada
says it supports.

Conservative candidate John Duncan (Vancouver Island-North) told constituents in
Port McNeill that he supports continued salmon farming.At an All-Candidates meeting in Courtenay, Duncan’s seat was
empty – people call him “Mr. Invisible.”
Many of the Conservative offices are
very hard to find, and many people have told me the Conservatives do not attend the
All-Candidate meetings. Paul Forseth’s
(Burnaby–New Westminster) people didn’t want us to take pictures of their
office, saying it was private property. Colin Mayes’ campaign office address is
not on the internet – there is no website. His riding includes the Adams River,
one of earth’s biggest wild salmon runs. The people of Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon
are not pleased that Conservative MP Chuck Strahl just handed the candidacy to
his son Mark. The Conservatives get a thumbs down from me.

The NDP offices
are full of volunteers, people heading out the door with signs, tables of
coffee and snacks as no one has time to go home. Ronna-Rae Leonard (Vancouver
Island-North) is in full support of the people who make a living with wild
salmon, such as the wilderness tourism industry. But she says she is also
concerned with the people directly employed by the salmon farms. Thus she
supports building the infrastructure for a permanent land-based aquaculture
industry. Zeni Maartman (Nanaimo-Alberni) is a dynamo full of passion, energy
and deep commitment to both wild salmon and her riding.  Don Davies, Vancouver-Kingsway met with
us and is a man of action, compassion and understanding, in strong support of
wild salmon.  Fin Donnelly (New
Westminster-Coquitlam-Port Moody) joined me on the Paddle for Wild salmon
last fall, and is a hero to the wild salmon people province-wide. He tabled a
private member’s bill calling for removal of salmon farms onto land to protect
wild salmon and preserve jobs. Peter Julian (Burnaby-New Westminster) has
been involved with protecting wild salmon for a longtime.Denise Savoie (Victoria), Nathan Cullen
(Skeena-Bulkley Valley), and Jean Crowder (Nanaimo-Cowichan) have also supported wild salmon very
strongly through their careers. Cullen helped protect the North Coast from the
expansion of salmon feedlots into the mouth of the Skeena River. I am hoping the
NDP will become stronger in their platform to remove salmon farms from BC
waters.

Please follow what the politicians are saying at
VoteSalmon.ca

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DFO Crime Scene – Alexandra Morton Event

Canada, Politics, Western Canada, , ,
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I am a biologist and resident of a tiny coastal community on the coast of British Columbia.

When salmon farms arrived I believed the government promotion that itwould be good for my community.

But now that the industry has surrounded us with 27 huge Norwegian
salmon feedlots, there are only 8 people left, the First Nations oppose the
industry, our school is closed, we have the sea lice epidemics, mounds of waste
only bacteria can grow on, toxic algae blooms and zero jobs in the industry. We
learned at the Cohen Inquiry that the federal government has offered to sell
this Norwegian industry to us, the people of Canada. My town was based on wild
salmon through fishing, tourism and the arts. As the wild salmon went so we
went. We did not accept the low paying jobs as reward for allowing this
industry to destroy our coast.

Video from recent Alexandra Morton event in Vancouver – story continues below

Salmon feedlots break the natural laws unleashing bacteria,
viruses and sea lice. My lawyer, Greg McDade, questioned Dr. Laura Richards,
Director General of Science Pacific Region about the 2009 sockeye crash at the
Cohen Inquiry. We learned a briefing note sent to the Minister of Fisheries
stated that a virus is one of the leading suspected causes of the 2009 sockeye
collapse.  We also learned DFO
muzzled their own scientist who made this discovery, Dr. Kristi Miller. Salmon
Leukemia virus is a retro virus like HIV. DFO never told the public and left us
to blame fishermen. They also refused to test the farm salmon in an
effort to find out where this virus is coming from.

Salmon farming has harmed wild salmon everywhere they
operate (Ford and Myers, 2008). Canada has already destroyed one earth’s
greatest natural food supplies, the North Atlantic cod, by muzzling their
scientists. Fisheries and Ocean Canada blindly adhered to bad policy kicking the
cod and the east coast economy over the cliff. Immediately after, the Hibernia
oils wells went onto the Grand Banks. Canada traded food security for oil, the
future for short-term gain for the corporate world. No one in DFO was held
accountable and there is every indication that they are doing this again in BC.

I am unwilling to accept our fate as victim of another bad,
misguided policy favouring industry over our communities.   As soon as oil prices rise too
far the Norwegian salmon feedlot industry will not be able to afford shipping
ground up fish from Chile to feed their Atlantic salmon here in the Pacific.
They will walk away and we will be sitting like fools with viral epidemics and
piles of manure smothering a once productive seafloor.

All too often people feel helpless. Democracy is slipping
away under the crush of the global economy.We need to wake up right now and step into the process of
how we form governments.Members
of Parliament are our agents, nothing more. Eighty-five percent of British Columbians consider
wild salmon an icon; they bring in over $2 billion a year in wilderness tourism
and fishing, they are an essential bloodstream carrying nutrients to our
forests, they are food security. We want them and our political agents have no
business hiding the truth about them from us.  It is time to elect people who will stand by us and defend
our rights and resources.

For these reasons I left home April 13th to go door-to-door
to as many federal candidate campaign offices as possible to get them on record:  Do you support wild salmon, would you
protect them by removing salmon feedlots from BC waters, would they protect the
aquaculture workers by supporting land-based aquaculture farming species that
are more sustainable, lower on the food chain than salmon?

I have been down Vancouver Island to Nanaimo, across the
ridings of Vancouver, through Chilliwack to Kamloops, Enderby, Salmon Arm,
Mission. I will be continuing through the lower mainland and southern Vancouver
Island.  It has been a fascinating
exploration. I am a biologist with very little political experience and I am on
a steep learning curve.

Here is what I have found out:

The Greens have
some candidates that are very impressive such as, Adriane Carr (Vancouver
Central) and Elizabeth May (Saanich – Gulf Islands). Sue Moen, (Vancouver
Island North) really tells it like she sees it, but is not electable.  Some Greens should get out of the way
as they are not serious about winning. Both Carr and May strongly support
wild salmon.They would transition
workers in the industry to land-based aquaculture. I think Carr and May
would go a long way to bring balance to any government. 

The Liberals
seemed uncertain of their position, with many candidates remaining silent, but
on April 18 Micheal Ignatieff said, “if fish farms are harming wild salmon
we’ve got to stop it, put it on land or stop it all together.” This is a much
stronger statement than the one made by Mike Holland (Vancouver Island-North)
who said, “We need to get the
science done to understand just what the relationship and impact is, and we
need to be prepared to go where the science takes us. If that takes us to
closed-containment only I support that, but I want the science first. I’m not
prepared to mandate a timeline at this stage.”I think Liberal Renee Heatherington (Saanich-Gulf
Islands)  may be pushing her party
to establish a policy on this.

The Conservatives
avoided me, until April 18 when MP Cathy MacLeod accepted our request to meet
in Kamloops.I was really looking
forward to hearing the Conservative position, but as we sat down she said she
could only listen and not give a position. Senator Nancy Greene joined us.I have met Nancy before and know she is
a strong wild salmon supporter.MacLeod’s attitude shifted during the meeting. I think she wanted to see
me as a nut, but as I outlined how the federal government has been hiding a
virus in the sockeye, I saw a change in her and she did say the Conservatives
are awaiting the Cohen decision. This is really not good enough.I have seen three major government
reviews on salmon farming entirely ignored by the provincial and federal
governments. The Cohen Inquiry is not a fish farm review, even if it finds
impact on the sockeye it is not mandated to do a thorough salmon farm
investigation.There is more than
enough evidence of harm to invoke the Precautionary Principle, which Canada
says it supports.

Conservative candidate John Duncan (Vancouver Island-North) told constituents in
Port McNeill that he supports continued salmon farming.At an All-Candidates meeting in Courtenay, Duncan’s seat was
empty – people call him “Mr. Invisible.”
Many of the Conservative offices are
very hard to find, and many people have told me the Conservatives do not attend the
All-Candidate meetings. Paul Forseth’s
(Burnaby–New Westminster) people didn’t want us to take pictures of their
office, saying it was private property. Colin Mayes’ campaign office address is
not on the internet – there is no website. His riding includes the Adams River,
one of earth’s biggest wild salmon runs. The people of Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon
are not pleased that Conservative MP Chuck Strahl just handed the candidacy to
his son Mark. The Conservatives get a thumbs down from me.

The NDP offices
are full of volunteers, people heading out the door with signs, tables of
coffee and snacks as no one has time to go home. Ronna-Rae Leonard (Vancouver
Island-North) is in full support of the people who make a living with wild
salmon, such as the wilderness tourism industry. But she says she is also
concerned with the people directly employed by the salmon farms. Thus she
supports building the infrastructure for a permanent land-based aquaculture
industry. Zeni Maartman (Nanaimo-Alberni) is a dynamo full of passion, energy
and deep commitment to both wild salmon and her riding.  Don Davies, Vancouver-Kingsway met with
us and is a man of action, compassion and understanding, in strong support of
wild salmon.  Fin Donnelly (New
Westminster-Coquitlam-Port Moody) joined me on the Paddle for Wild salmon
last fall, and is a hero to the wild salmon people province-wide. He tabled a
private member’s bill calling for removal of salmon farms onto land to protect
wild salmon and preserve jobs. Peter Julian (Burnaby-New Westminster) has
been involved with protecting wild salmon for a longtime.Denise Savoie (Victoria), Nathan Cullen
(Skeena-Bulkley Valley), and Jean Crowder (Nanaimo-Cowichan) have also supported wild salmon very
strongly through their careers. Cullen helped protect the North Coast from the
expansion of salmon feedlots into the mouth of the Skeena River. I am hoping the
NDP will become stronger in their platform to remove salmon farms from BC
waters.

Please follow what the politicians are saying at
VoteSalmon.ca

zzz

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Excellent letter in Courier-Islander: Province has ‘cut the power’ to BC Hydro

Canada, Politics, WATER, Western Canada,
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From the Campbell River Courier-Islander – April 20, 2011

by Marv Everett

Re: BC Energy & Mines Minister Rich Coleman story – “This One Has To Be Done” published in the April 15 edition of the Campbell River Courier-Islander.

Now there’s a profundity! Merely a month on the job and Hon. Rich Coleman is qualified to singlehandedly determine the engineering, safety, and financial merits of BC Hydro projects. Does he think that Hydro would be proposing the project if it didn’t need to be done? Some sort of a “make work” project perhaps? In your article Mr. Coleman goes on to say “…But we also need to minimize costs and take care about the burden we’re placing on families…you also have to figure out how you can bring your costs in and cash-flow it through so that your rates will be kept down…” To ensure that Mr. Coleman’s prerequisites can be met, he has struck a panel of “senior officials” to examine Hydro’s financial performance, its operating and capital requirements, the reliability of its forecasting systems, administrative expenses, procurement processes, cost containment strategies, and opportunities for savings.

As a retired BC Hydro manager with 36 years service I feel both compelled and qualified to comment. The underlying implication of Mr. Coleman’s comments and actions is that BC Hydro is inept and that somehow by the end of June his panel of “senior officials” is going to identify the various errors of Hydro’s ways and get them on track towards providing low cost, reliable, clean hydroelectric energy for the citizens and industry of British Columbia.

Whoa!! Reality check!! The facts of the matter are that BC Hydro through the watchful eye of the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC) and the incredible foresight of the W.A.C. Bennett government has been providing the lowest cost, reliable, green, 100% renewable electrical energy in North America to the citizens and industry of B.C for the past 50 years. And, just as importantly, they would still be doing so if the provincial government (yes, the same Liberal government that Mr. Coleman is and has been a Minister for) had not decided to use (or more accurately abuse) BC Hydro as an enormous “cash cow” and steal hundreds of millions of dollars from them per year in “dividend payments” to the “shareholder” (the government on behalf of British Columbians). The fact is that the government saw Hydro’s large cash flows and capital and operational program funds as huge cash reserves that they could “better use” to fund other government programs for which funding would otherwise have to be reduced or taxes would otherwise have to be increased. Our “diligent” premier and his cabinet simply didn’t care that their “rob Peter to pay Paul” actions would require Hydro to cut and/or seriously curtail their requisite system operations and capital programs.

In fact, to add insult to injury, the Liberal government under Premier Campbell forced BC Hydro to take on billions of dollars in additional debt in the form of long term (30 — 40 year) “use or pay” contracts with private run-of-river and wind power developers. Furthermore, the contracted energy costs are two to three times higher than current electrical energy value.

So, back to Mr. Coleman’s quandary. What will his panel of experts determine? What can we do to ensure that the citizens and industry of British Columbia are getting the best bang for their energy dollar? How can we be sure that Hydro and its villainous team of engineers and technicians isn’t out to screw us? Well, I would like to humbly suggest the following solutions:

Get your grubby government hands out of BC Hydro’s pockets. For the past 50 years the citizens and industry of British Columbia have enjoyed “real” dividends from BC Hydro in the form of the lowest cost, clean, reliable electrical energy in North America (possibly the world). This didn’t happen by accident and it certainly isn’t indicative of a poorly run energy corporation.

Let BC Hydro work to its mandate and let BCUC do its job of overseeing Hydro’s operations.

Make the government the “fall guy” rather than BC Hydro and explain why Hydro is in the mess it’s in. The government created the mess so they should at least have the intestinal fortitude and integrity to admit it.

Unfortunately we are all going to have to pay to get ourselves out of this mess but at least we should know the real cause so that future generations don’t repeat this sham.

M.J. (Marv) Everett, Retired,

Campbell River

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Rafe on NDP Leadership Win for Adrian Dix

Canada, Politics, Western Canada,
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What are we to make of the NDP selection of Adrian Dix as their leader?

For one thing, leaders are not selected by the media or pundits. At least not with the provincial Liberals or NDP.

My first reaction to Adrian Dix’s choice was pretty glum. For the past 10 years the NDP have been moving towards the centre into a position where it could start getting traditional Liberal votes. Mr. Dix, on form, seems to be taking the NDP back to the days of Dave Barrett. Glee in the Liberal camp was unrestrained based upon the fact that the NDP could now be seen as a fairly bright coloured red – the “socialists” would be there to kick around. I believe, on reflection, that may be an exaggeration.

From the point of view of the Common Sense Canadian all three leadership candidates were sound on the environment and private power. But if they can’t get elected what does that matter?

But who says that they can’t win?

Premier Clark must still make decisions on the BC Rail Scandal, the environment and energy. These will be issues impossible to avoid. If nothing else, BC Rail will raise itself as soon as one Liberal accuses Dix of scandalous behaviour in doctoring a memo while trying to pull a hot chestnut out of the fire for the earlier Premier Clark. In fact Dix might be wise to raise the issue himself saying I made a dumb mistake but I’ve made a full confession – now it’s up to you Premier Clark II to do the same by opening up the IPP contracts and coming clean on BC Hydro.

The Liberals will paint Dix as being bad for business – but does that matter if he has good policies for small business? Do voters like being screwed by Big Business? In my day, admittedly a century ago, one could not go wrong by bashing Big Business and Big Labour. Now, of course, the NDP must avoid angering Labour but if Mr. Dix understands that Big Labour doesn’t lend itself to great support on the ground for the NDP and he can play to that while skating the fine line between that and Labour leadership, he might be able to do something that the NDP have always had trouble with: getting the blue collar worker.

We at the Common Sense Canadian retain our stated policy: we will support candidates who will stop the destruction of BC Hydro by Independent Power Producers and the destruction of our environment.

What about third parties, namely the BC Firsters and the Tories?

Given time, the BC First Party could do some serious damage. But they aren’t going to get time – look for an election in June, September at the latest, Chris Delaney has spent too much time hand in hand with Bill Vander Zalm and John Cummins inherits right wing nuts. Both these two parties could hurt the Liberals if they had their ducks in a row – but they haven’t. Too late to the game and no money for tickets anyway.

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Dix Clinches Leadership of BC NDP

Canada, Politics, Western Canada
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From the Globe & Mail – April 17, 2011

by Ian Bailey & Justine Hunter

B.C. New Democrats have selected Adrian Dix as their new leader,
embracing his agenda to reach out to disaffected voters as the key to
defeating Liberal Premier Christy Clark in a provincial election that
could come as early as this fall.

The second-term MLA and onetime chief of staff under former NDP premier
Glen Clark mapped out an agenda to raise taxes on banks and big
corporations to finance social programs – an approach he said will
sharply define the party from its Liberal rivals. He narrowly defeated
Mike Farnworth, who had offered a more centrist vision for leadership,
with 9,772 votes to Mr. Farnworth’s 9,095.

In a campaign that was framed around which candidate would have the best
chance of ending the NDP’s decade-long shutout from government, the MLA
for Vancouver-Kingsway said his plan would lure back to the ballot box
the 1.4 million B.C. voters who sat out the past provincial election.

Although Mr. Farnworth was regarded as the unity candidate, Mr. Dix promised to offer key roles to his fellow candidates.

“It’s time to get down to work and defeat the B.C. Liberals,” Mr. Dix told cheering delegates after the final outcome.

After some words about party unity, he swiftly went on the attack on Ms.
Clark’s record, particularly on education and child protection.

“They are going to try to win the election on personality,” he said. He
promised a positive – and very different – agenda. “We are going to
bring change to British Columbia.”

The province is not due for a general election until the spring of 2013,
according to the fixed-date election law. However, Ms. Clark, who won
her party’s leadership in February, has floated the idea of an early
vote to earn a mandate from the province.

Mr. Farnworth has consistently topped public-opinion polls as the
candidate best positioned to challenge the Liberals, but New Democrats
found more appeal in Mr. Dix’s sharply partisan rhetoric.

The three-month-long campaign ended on a night when many B.C. voters
were wrapped up in a different contest – the third Stanley Cup playoff
game for the hometown Vancouver Canucks. The game was carried on large
screens in the convention hall in between rounds of voting.

With just about 800 delegates in the room, most party members – around
18,000 – had cast their ballots in advance polling by telephone or via
the Internet.

Another 1,832 delegates voted on Sunday. On the first ballot, Mr. Dix
was leading over Mr. Farnworth by a little more than 600 votes – less
than 4 per cent of the ballots cast. Mr. Dix had 7,638 votes and Mr.
Farnworth, 6,979.

John Horgan was in third place in the first round, with 4,844 votes,
while marijuana activist Dana Larsen garnered just 531 votes.

In the second round, Mr. Dix increased his lead slightly to almost 800 votes – 7,748 to 6,951. Mr. Horgan had 5,034 votes.

In his final speech to candidates at Sunday afternoon convention in
Vancouver, Mr. Dix urged delegates to opt for his sharper, more
ideologically driven agenda. He said the NDP would make a mistake by
tacking to the political middle. “We are not going to win the next
election by sidling up to the Liberals,” he said. But he also won
applause for pledging to work with all of his rivals in the next
election campaign – regardless of who was chosen leader.

Throughout the campaign, Mr. Farnworth portrayed himself as a centrist
who would carry on along the path of former premier Mike Harcourt,
reaching out to business and labour alike. “If you are ready for change,
I am ready to lead,” Mr. Farnworth told delegates.

John Horgan used his address to urge the party to use the leadership
contest to reinvigorate the party. “We are going to change the direction
for the New Democratic Party,” he said.

There were no sharp personal divisions among the candidates during a
strangely collegial leadership race in which the rivals spent much of
their time expressing their admiration for each other.

The leadership convention opened with a tribute to former leader Carole
James, who had led the party through two elections but could not break
though the B.C. Liberal hold on power. She urged the party to wrap up
the leadership process, united to defeat the Liberals.

The leadership contest was launched after Ms. James, party leader for
seven years, was forced out amid a caucus revolt involving just over a
third of her 34-member caucus.

The rebellion was led by party stalwart Jenny Kwan, one of three MLAs
who quietly approached Ms. James in November, shortly after Gordon
Campbell announced he was stepping down as premier and Liberal leader,
saying she should do the same.

Ms. James initially dug in and won a decisive vote of her party’s
governing body, but the dissent continued to split the party. Ms. Kwan
finally went public: “I have seen debates stifled, decision-making
centralized and individual MLAs marginalized.”

On Dec. 6, Ms. James quit as leader, leaving her critics – whom she
described as self-serving bullies – with no excuses for further discord.

The so-called Baker’s Dozen of 13 NDP MLAs who said the party was
stagnating under Ms. James, did field two candidates – Harry Lali and
Nicholas Simons, but both dropped out before voting began. They both
endorsed Mr. Horgan.

The leadership campaign was a chance for the debt-mired party to renew.
It’s membership stood at just 12,500 before Ms. James stepped down, and
the party was having to lean heavily on its riding associations to repay
its 2009 election debts.

With the membership signup drive, the party now has 28,500 members. 

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Bolivia Set to Pass ‘Law of Mother Earth’

Canada, Climate Change, Politics,
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From The Guardian – April 11, 2011

by John Vidal

Bolivia is set to pass the world’s first laws granting all nature equal
rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and
grassroots social groups, redefines the country’s rich mineral deposits
as “blessings” and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.

The
country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the UN
climate talks for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish
11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist;
the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human
alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance;
the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular
structure modified or genetically altered.

Controversially, it
will also enshrine the right of nature “to not be affected by
mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of
ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities”.

“It makes world
history. Earth is the mother of all”, said Vice-President Alvaro García
Linera. “It establishes a new relationship between man and nature, the
harmony of which must be preserved as a guarantee of its regeneration.”

The
law, which is part of a complete restructuring of the Bolivian legal
system following a change of constitution in 2009, has been heavily
influenced by a resurgent indigenous Andean spiritual world view which
places the environment and the earth deity known as the Pachamama at the centre of all life. Humans are considered equal to all other entities.

But
the abstract new laws are not expected to stop industry in its tracks.
While it is not clear yet what actual protection the new rights will
give in court to bugs, insects and ecosystems, the government is
expected to establish a ministry of mother earth and to appoint an
ombudsman. It is also committed to giving communities new legal powers
to monitor and control polluting industries.

Bolivia has long suffered from serious environmental problems from the mining
of tin, silver, gold and other raw materials. “Existing laws are not
strong enough,” said Undarico Pinto, leader of the 3.5m-strong
Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia, the
biggest social movement, who helped draft the law. “It will make
industry more transparent. It will allow people to regulate industry at
national, regional and local levels.”

Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca said Bolivia’s traditional indigenous respect for the Pachamama was vital to prevent climate change.
“Our grandparents taught us that we belong to a big family of plants
and animals. We believe that everything in the planet forms part of a
big family. We indigenous people can contribute to solving the energy,
climate, food and financial crises with our values,” he said.

Little
opposition is expected to the law being passed because President Evo
Morales’s ruling party, the Movement Towards Socialism, enjoys a
comfortable majority in both houses of parliament.

However, the
government must tread a fine line between increased regulation of
companies and giving way to the powerful social movements who have
pressed for the law. Bolivia earns $500m (£305m) a year from mining
companies which provides nearly one third of the country’s foreign
currency.

In the indigenous philosophy, the Pachamama is a living being.

The
draft of the new law states: “She is sacred, fertile and the source of
life that feeds and cares for all living beings in her womb. She is in
permanent balance, harmony and communication with the cosmos. She is
comprised of all ecosystems and living beings, and their
self-organisation.”

Ecuador, which also has powerful indigenous
groups, has changed its constitution to give nature “the right to exist,
persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions
and its processes in evolution”. However, the abstract rights have not
led to new laws or stopped oil companies from destroying some of the
most biologically rich areas of the Amazon.

Coping with climate change

Bolivia
is struggling to cope with rising temperatures, melting glaciers and
more extreme weather events including more frequent floods, droughts,
frosts and mudslides.

Research by glaciologist Edson Ramirez of
San Andres University in the capital city, La Paz, suggests temperatures
have been rising steadily for 60 years and started to accelerate in
1979. They are now on course to rise a further 3.5-4C over the next 100
years. This would turn much of Bolivia into a desert.

Most
glaciers below 5,000m are expected to disappear completely within 20
years, leaving Bolivia with a much smaller ice cap. Scientists say this
will lead to a crisis in farming and water shortages in cities such as
La Paz and El Alto.

Evo Morales, Latin America’s first indigenous
president, has become an outspoken critic in the UN of industrialised
countries which are not prepared to hold temperatures to a 1C rise.

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Federal & Provincial Elections: Crucial Choices for BC’s Future

Canada, Politics, WATER, Western Canada, ,
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The Common Sense Canadian is not a supporter of any political party but deals in issues and essentially we concentrate on the linked issues of the environment and energy matters.

The rationale for the Common Sense Canadian’s policy is this: every political party has the “cure” for all our social needs and each of them declares that it and only it has the ability to make the right moves to bring the actual result for what is demanded. But we have reached a crossroads – a true moment of truth.

There is surely one lesson we have learned: no matter how bad the opposition says the government is, the fiscal damage is reparable. Moreover, we ought also to have learned that each incoming government says that the situation was worse than they thought yet somehow they don’t turn out to be much of an improvement.

There is a huge difference in the messages. The Provincial Liberals, following the Socred line, tell us that the NDP left the treasury empty and ruined the economy. They make no allowances for what was known as the “Asian Flu” that so damaged BC’s export business. The fact that the NDP balanced their last year’s budget and that Premier Campbell thus saw fit to give better off people an instant billion dollar-plus tax break seems lost in the rhetoric that is politics.

I think that the case can be made that the Campbell government missed the clear signs of a recession which were there to be seen and simply didn’t tell the truth about that, and, of course, the HST.

The 1991-2001 NDP left a lot to be desired, especially in the leadership department – with four premiers in that period – and were so incapable of keeping the ship steady they were forced to bring outsiders into cabinet.

It’s not my purpose to defend or vilify either party but simply to make the point that no government has a monopoly on stupidity and no government has really wrestled the problems of health care, education, welfare and unemployment to the ground and none are likely to.

In the many years I’ve been involved in political life this is the first time I’ve seen a situation which, if not changed, will permanently leave longstanding wounds – wounds which will get worse and be incurable to boot. One of these is of a visual nature which goes to the very root of what British Columbia really is; that goes to the very root of how we keep being prosperous or at least give stability to our province in economic terms. These issues are intertwined.

The first is the environment. Virtually all mankind has played havoc with the environment but that’s surely no excuse for us to falter. We don’t have to destroy our forests to make a living. We have no need to jeopardize, indeed kill off our wild salmon so that people other than British Columbians can provide dividends for their shareholders.

We have no need to sacrifice our rivers so, once again, outsiders can profit from the electricity produced.

The second is BC Hydro, the main gem in the provincial crown. WAC Bennett saw three areas where the people, through those they elect, could use crown corporations for good policy decisions.

Bennett knew that no private ferry system would keep unprofitable routes yet he also knew that all British Columbians must have decent, affordable transportation options, so he bought Black Ball Ferries and created BC Ferries – which Gordon Campbell privatized. It left us the worst of all results – BC no longer directs its affairs but must still subsidize it.

Bennett knew that BC, large and bountiful as it is, needed a rail system that would lose money on some runs in order to open the province up and thus should be owned by the people and again a vehicle for public policy. Campbell gave this away to the private sector which won’t tolerate losing lines.

Bennett also knew that for British Columbians to compete and prosper it must have certainty of power both at home and in industry, so he bought out BC Electric Railway and created BC Hydro. This company was a huge success yet Campbell has developed a private power scheme leaving BC Hydro in a position that, if it couldn’t go on raising rates to subsidize its mandated giveaway program, would be bankrupt. It will be sold by way of bankruptcy, a bankruptcy which is clear on the horizon.

We must surely re-evaluate our political priorities. If the sale or disposition of our public assets would bring us prosperity thus making us better able to meet social obligations that would be one thing. But the fact is that each of these privatizing schemes hurts our economy badly.

For the first time in our history we have embarked on a program to destroy our environment and our ability to make our own rules about transport and power – and we have done this for the immense enrichment of others.

For the first time we have policies in place that will deliberately destroy the environment for private energy we can’t use, the profits from which go to large out of province corporations.

I believe that the last chance we’ll have to save the situation is in the forthcoming federal election and the provincial election most likely to occur this Fall, if not sooner.

This means, in my view, we must make a stark decision: are we, in exchange for the usual promises about health care, education, and welfare, going to put back into government those who are destroying our environment and giving away our power?

To this must be added that both the Federal Conservatives and the provincial Liberals have lied through their teeth in doing their destructive deeds.

The federal Conservatives are as much to blame as the Campbell/Clark bunch. One need only look at what’s coming out of the Cohen Commission to see how the destruction of our salmon by fish farms is not an accident but a very careful and deliberate policy. Moreover the feds have actually been financing the Independent Power Producers with our tax money! Can you beat this? Your tax dollars are going to help General Electric destroy our rivers and our power system!

In one line I want to dispose of the notion that we need majority governments: can you imagine what the Harper government would have done if they had a majority?

At The Common Sense Canadian we will support candidates who will end the giveaways and recover that which can be recovered, knowing that painful though the decision may be to many of us, our environment and energy will continue to be stolen from us, with one of the clear consequences that we have even less money to look after our hospitals, schools, universities and those who need help.  

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Horgan Puts Private Power Industry on Notice

Canada, Politics, WATER, Western Canada,
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Over the past several weeks, The Common Sense Canadian has published the energy positions of the BC First Party and NDP leadership hopeful Mike Farnworth. Now we are pleased to bring our readers a statement from NDP leadership candidate John Horgan.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

Early on in my campaign to lead the BC NDP, I put independent power producers on notice that a John Horgan-led government will immediately put a moratorium on run of river power projects and conduct a review of existing power purchase agreements to determine if they are in the public interest. That might not make me many friends, but it’s the right thing to do.

The days of secret agreements that guarantee huge profits for private power operators at the expense of ordinary ratepayers will be over. The days of pet projects at the whim of politicians without any regard for the public interest will be over too. I would immediately move to restore the BC Utilities Commission to its rightful place as an independent oversight body that looks out for all British Columbians.

I was part of the Mike Harcourt administration that encouraged run of the river power projects – but only when it made sense. We had a plan that would see small communities served by true micro-hydro projects that would get them off diesel generators. Our plan required projects to be small in scale, without fish implications, and built for local energy needs.

But the BC Liberals saw the potential for their friends to make a buck (A LOT of bucks!), and the result of their ideologically driven agenda is what you see today – a crippled BC Hydro forced to jack rates by 50 per cent to keep up to rising costs from tens of billions of dollars in contractual obligations so their rich friends can get richer on the backs of British Columbians.

The reckless energy policies culminated last June when the government forced the so-called Clean Energy Act through the legislature with closure and no debate. Now our new “families first” premier has instructed her new energy minister to find a way to keep those rate hikes low because we’re heading into an election and she wants to appear the hero. That is just not good enough. The Clean Energy Act needs to be revisited and may need to be re-written completely, and I am committed to doing that as Premier of British Columbia.

As the BC NDP’s energy critic over the past five years, and an energy advisor to NDP governments in the 1990s before that, I recognize that energy issues are inextricably linked to environmental issues. That’s why I have embedded the two into my comprehensive environmental protection plan, and made that plan one of four key priorities of my campaign along with economic growth and social justice, education and training, and honest government.

My plan for the environment includes addressing climate change and creating a real green energy plan, protecting our environment including reinvesting in parks and the land base, providing real land and water stewardship, and protecting our ocean and coastline. I am committed to restoring the integrity and strength of our environmental assessment process that was groundbreaking when we introduced it in the 1990s, but has been seriously eroded under a decade of BC Liberal rule.

I will work with the environmental and business communities, working people, and experts to develop effective ways of reducing our carbon footprint, conserving energy, and protecting our natural environment. I also believe that we must create opportunities for young people to acquire skills necessary to build and compete in the new green economy. That includes replacing a plan to spend a billion dollars on smart meters with a plan to make a smart investment in home energy retrofits.

My environmental plan won praise from the Wilderness Committee when I was the first to release one. Gwen Barlee said, “Horgan’s environmental platform is far-reaching and comprehensive. It makes a commitment to a healthy environment and sets the bar for other leadership candidates to follow.” Noted environmental activist Vicky Husband recently told The Tyee, “[John Horgan has] shown a very strong environmental bent and sense of responsibility. If he becomes leader of the opposition, the environment will become a major issue.”

British Columbia is a commodity based economy that is transitioning to a new green economy. That transition will require us to both protect our environment and invest in green technology development and training to ensure British Columbians have the skills to take on the jobs of the future. Under my leadership, an NDP government will ensure that the natural legacy we inherited from those who came before us is protected for those who will come after us.

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