Tag Archives: Alberta Tar Sands

Elmer Derrick with Enbridge Executive Vice-President Janet Holder this past friday (photo: CNW Group/Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs)

Embattled Gitxsan Treaty Rep, Enbridge Deal-Maker Elmer Derrick Has Long Ties to BC Liberals

Share

The heated debate playing out in the BC media over the past few days regarding the now-disputed deal announced this past Friday between Enbridge and the Gitxsan First Nation warrants a closer examination of the lone Gitxsan man behind the deal. Just who is Elmer Derrick – besides a hereditary chief and lead treaty negotiator for the Gitxsan? It turns out Mr. Derrick also has a decade-long history as a key political appointee of the BC Liberal Party.

Mr. Derrick was among the first political appointees of Gordon Campbell (see Order in Council 847) when the former premier replaced most of the BC Hydro Board of Directors with his own appointees soon after coming to power in 2001. Derrick was among that first batch of board appointments and retained his position at least until March 2008, the last time he is listed as a director in the annual report of the crown corporation.

Mr. Derrick began his foray into politics under the NDP’s tenure, when he was appointed in 1995 to the board of the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology (O.I.C. 1331). Six years later he was becoming a go-to appointee for Campbell. In 2002, Derrick was appointed to the First Peoples’ Advisory Committee (O.I.C. 385) to the Campbell Government as well. In his biography on the Northwest Tribal Treaties Association’s website, Derrick is also listed as a board member of Powerex – BC’s electricity trading crown corporation – and “a volunteer community member of the National Committee on Sustainable Development, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada for three successive reports to the Parliament of Canada.”

Mr. Derrick involved himself in the recent BC Liberal leadership debate earlier this year – throwing his support behind losing candidate George Abbott, according to a Black Press story which is no longer posted on the company’s websites but was re-posted on a Vancouver Island realtor’s blog, where it remains at the time of publication of this story. The story notes, “Also joining Abbott at the announcement were Klahoose First Nation Chief Ken Brown, Gitsxan Chief Elmer Derrick…” (emphasis added).

Mr. Derrick has also acted as co-chair of the Northwest Power Line Coalition, an industry-driven group designed to support the building of the Northwest Transmission Corridor – an initiative championed by both the provincial Liberal and federal Conservative governments – to open up mining and hydro projects in Northwest BC. Among a group of over 50 mining and industrial equipment companies, engineering firms and trade organizations are two First Nations entities, listed as, “Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs and Tahltan Development Corporation.” A Marketwire story form January 2010 quotes Mr. Derrick: “‘We look forward to working with and supporting [BC Transmission Corporation] in this process,’ added Coalition Co-Chair Elmer Derrick, Hereditary Gitxsan Chief. ‘We are confident that the needs, concerns and questions of those impacted by this power line will be met through the environmental assessment.'”
 
Mr. Derrick has come under fire by members of his own Gitxsan nation for brokering a deal with Enbridge in support of the company’s proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline. Several hereditary chiefs from the community claimed in a press release this past Friday that Mr. Derrick had no authority to sign an economic benefit agreement with Enbridge and are now seeking to reverse that move.

Share
photo by Mark Brooks

Shades of Green: The Keystone XL Protests and the Occupy Movement

Share

The protest against the 2,763 km Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta’s tar sands to America’s Gulf States’ oil refineries are driven by a deeper concern than risk to Nebraska’s Sand Hills region and its underlying Ogallala aquifer. The same applies to The worldwide Occupy movement, too, is motivated by a deeper concern than unregulated banking practices and the growing disparity between rich and poor.

This deeper concern could be interpreted as criticism of the industrial and financial institutions that comprise the economic engines of our modern age. But even this is not deep enough. Both protests, it seems, have their deepest common cause in a loss of confidence in the system itself, a foreboding created by repeated warnings of profound environmental transformations that could traumatize our present civilization.

Granted, not everyone articulates this foreboding. But decades of multiple environmental warnings have been eroding confidence in a system that seems more interested in its own success than the ecological havoc it is causing. The cumulative effect of these warnings is a growing sense of anxiety and pessimism. Some people respond by entrenching their faith in the system and doing what they have always done; others are challenging the system by demanding change.

One of the forces behind the Keystone XL pipeline protests, for example, is an organization called 350.org. It contends that the continual burning of oil – especially the “dirty” oil of the Alberta tar sands – is environmental folly. Developing the tar sands simply entrenches an indefinite commitment to oil and prevents the necessary shift toward clean, renewable energies. 350.org believes that our reliance on fossil fuels is untenable so it is “defusing the carbon bomb” – 44 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from coal, 36 percent from oil and 20 percent from natural gas. Atmospheric carbon dioxide has now reached 393 parts per million from a historical level of 280 ppm, climate stability can only be assured at 350 ppm, and emissions are on a course for 450 ppm, a concentration that could reach the feared “tipping point” beyond which our planet’s ecology would shift into uncontrollable warming.

Science supports this prediction. The International Energy Agency (IEA) reports that by 2015, given our present global emission rates, we will have lost 90 percent of our safety margin for avoiding this tipping point. By 2017, without radical reductions in greenhouse gases, we will have reached this point. So, for 350.org, stopping the Keystone XL pipeline is literally a life-or-death issue. The next struggle will be to stop the Northern Gateway pipeline, a project by transnational corporations that intends to export Alberta’s tar sands oil from BC’s West Coast to Asia.

The Occupy movement is responding differently to the same foreboding. It implicates transnational corporations in a wide range of social, financial and environmental wrongs. While these corporations have generated considerable global wealth, they have done so by exploiting the disadvantaged at the expense of everyone else – the earnings of the world’s middle class have remained almost unchanged since the 1970s. Meanwhile, income of the wealthiest 1 percent has increased manyfold – the average 2009 income for each CEO of the 500 largest corporations was $8 million.

The Occupy movement also blames financial corporations for the Great Recession of 2008, the consequences of which are still echoing around the planet. The trillions of dollars borrowed by countries to shore up their banks and avert a financial collapse became an excessive burden on precarious economies already stressed by debt.

The other wrong that motivates the Occupy movement is the undue political and economic influence held by transnational corporations. Indeed, this influence is deemed so powerful that most nations equate economic health with corporate health. Meanwhile, these corporations show no allegiance to any particular nation – they invest where the constraints are lowest and the profits are highest. An analysis by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of the interlocking relationships of the world’s 43,000 transnational corporations revealed that a core of 1,318 controlled 80 percent of the world’s operating revenue. Within this core, 147 controlled 40 percent of all wealth (New Scientist, www.bit.ly/onkFR2). So these corporations own at least this share of the record 30.6 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases emitted in 2010.

Meanwhile, transnational corporate investments continue in oil, gas and coal, helped by global government subsidies in 2010 of $470 billion. To the many billions already invested in the Alberta tar sands, an estimated $253 billion will be spent over the next 25 years. The $7 billion to build the Keystone XL pipeline is an extension of this investment. So, too, is the $5.5 billion for the 1,172 km Northern Gateway proposal. Then add the multiple LNG plants proposed for coastal BC. The Sacred Headwaters of the Skeena, Nass and Stikine Rivers in central BC, described by the renowned ethnobiologist Wade Davis as a world wilderness treasure, will be trashed by the planned gas, oil and mining industrial development there. Corporate salmon farms operate with the same intrusive aggression. Indeed, few places on Earth can escape corporate capital and its hunger to exploit resources and feed its market.

A growing number of critics now recognize this trend as pathological and dangerous – and others are beginning to recognize their complicity. This is the awareness that is motivating the Keystone XL protesters. The global Occupy movement is motivated by a similar awareness. Its action was inspired by a single question posed in Vancouver’s Adbusters magazine: “What is our one demand?” Both protest groups would probably agree that a complicated answer is coalescing into a few simple words: “Give us back our countries, our democracies and our planet.”

Share

BREAKING: Sun back-pedals on Gitxsan – First Nation Considers Firing Renegade Bureaucrat Who Made Illegitimate Deal with Enbridge!

Share

Read this follow-up correction story from The Vancouver Sun, setting the record straight after their erroneous Friday front-page story reporting that the Gitxsan First Nation had struck a deal with Enbridge regarding the company’s highly controversial proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline. As The Sun now reports, the only deal with Enbridgre was made by a lone rogue bureaucrat from the band’s treaty negotiation office and had no official support from the hereditary or elected leadership of the nation. The story reports leaders of the nation are considering firing the perpetrator of the illegitimate deal, one Elmer Derrick.

VANCOUVER — Two chiefs of the Gitxsan First Nation in northern B.C.
said they are “in shock and embarrassed” after Enbridge announced Friday
that the aboriginal community had become an equity partner in its
embattled Northern Gateway pipeline proposal.

Norman Stephens and
Marjorie McRae said they have the support of most of the other 63 chiefs
and the rest of the First Nation in denouncing Friday’s agreement
announced by Enbridge and Hereditary Chief Elmer Derrick. Friday’s deal
was projected to bring at least $7 million to the community.

“The
majority of the hereditary chiefs didn’t know that this nonsense was
coming — we didn’t even know he was negotiating with them,” said
Stephens, also a hereditary chief who goes by the traditional name
Guuhadawk. “The hereditary chiefs did not know about it and are opposed
to it.

“The claimed $7-million benefit shouldn’t even be a part of
it because it goes nowhere to compensate the Gitxsan for any damage to
our fishing stocks if there was a spill.”
(Dec. 4, 2011)

Share
Photo by Mark Brooks

Obama’s Keystsone XL Reversal: Could the Tide Slowly be Turning Against Dirty Oil?

Share

Editor’s Note: We are pleased to welcome Ottawa-based environmental journalist and educator Mark Brooks to our team of Common Sense contributors. A former analyst for the Government of Canada and an author whose work has appeared in The Globe and Mail and Ottawa Citizen, Mark brings a national perspective to The Common Sense Canadian. 

————————————————————————

Strolling around Washington, D.C. last weekend, I came upon an impressive memorial to the famous wartime president Franklin Roosevelt. Upon the gray granite walls were inscribed many of FDR’s most memorable quotations. “Men and nature must work hand in hand,” he wrote in a 1935 message to Congress. “The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature throws out of balance also the lives of men.”

Having traveled to the U.S. capital to cover the latest protest of the Keystone XL project, I wondered what FDR might say about TransCanada’s controversial pipeline proposal. A pipeline that would transport tar sands crude from northern Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico, Keystone has been described as a 2700 km “fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet” in the words of author and activist Bill McKibben. Protest organizers had hoped to encircle the White House with at least 4000 people in what McKibben called both an “O-shaped hug” and “house arrest.” Instead, at least 10,000 protesters showed up, young and old, from all over North America, ringing President Obama’s residence three-deep.

This action was the latest in a growing campaign to try to choke off supply routes to the tar sands. The company behind the pipeline, TransCanada, responded in an entirely predictable manner, betraying an almost total lack of understanding of some very legitimate concerns. “What these millionaire actors and professional activists don’t seem to understand is that saying no to Keystone means saying yes to more conflict oil from the Middle East and Venezuela filling American gas tanks,” TransCanada spokesman James Millar said. “After the Washington protesters fly back home, they will forget about the millions of Americans who can’t find work.”

Only a few months ago, approval of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline was considered a fait accompli by many of the project’s supporters. Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the approval a “no brainer” and TransCanada was so sure it would get the go-ahead from U.S. regulators, they had already bought the pipe and was stockpiling it in North Dakota. The company claims to have already spent $1.9 billion to secure land and equipment for the project and it fully expected to begin construction early in 2012. This has all changed dramatically now that President Obama has ordered the U.S. State Department to conduct a thorough re-review of the project, effectively delaying approval of Keystone until after next year’s U.S. elections.

While another version of Keystone XL may yet be approved, the delay represents a substantial victory for those groups opposing the pipeline. It is also another significant setback for the beleaguered tar sands industry coming as it does on the heels of a European Commission move to classify oil from the tar sands as carbon intensive and highly polluting.

Truth be told, Keystone approval has been plagued by problems for some time now. The U.S. State Department came under heavy criticism this summer for releasing a hasty environmental assessment that found the project would pose no significant environmental risks. It was later revealed that the Department not only allowed TransCanada to select the contractor that conducted the review, the company chosen, Cardno Entrix, turned out to have business ties with TransCanada and would likely stand to benefit from the project’s approval. Environmental groups also released emails that showed a friendly relationship between officials at State and representatives of TransCanada.

The Nebraska legislature then began considering legislation that would have forced TransCanada to reroute the pipeline away from the Ogallala aquifer, a major source of drinking water for the region. Comments by President Barack Obama further fuelled speculation that the writing was on the wall when he took personal responsibility for approval of the pipeline and said that “folks in Nebraska, like all across the country, aren’t going to say to themselves, ‘we’ll take a few thousand jobs’ if it means that our kids are potentially drinking water that would damage their health or if … rich land that is so important to agriculture in Nebraska ends up being adversely affected.”

The decision to delay was nonetheless remarkable given the current dismal economic climate in the U.S. and the well-financed campaigns being waged by TransCanada and the governments of Canada and Alberta promising jobs and economic growth should Keystone be approved. In the end, a hodge-podge collection of environmental and labour groups, Nebraskan residents, a few politicians and a handful of U.S. celebrities have managed to, temporarily at least, derail the $7 billion project. As Naomi Klein tweeted after the decision was announced, when the campaign against Keystone XL began, “most Americans hadn’t heard of the tar sands, let alone Keystone. This is what 3 months of amazing campaigning can do.”

The governments of Canada and Alberta both expressed disappointment with the decision but remain optimistic that the project will eventually be given the green light. But rather than addressing the very legitimate concerns of the many disparate groups who have come together to oppose Keystone XL, Federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said recently that “if they don’t want our oil…it is obvious we are going to export it elsewhere.” TransCanada immediately warned that the delay could kill the pipeline but vowed to work with the State Department to find a new route. The company’s Chief Executive Russ Girling has suggested a legal battle could ensue if the pipeline is delayed.

What backers of the pipeline have not yet been able to fully grasp is that, for the growing movement opposing the project, this campaign goes far beyond Keystone. At its core, this is a struggle over the kind of energy future we want to build for ourselves. When I spoke with Naomi Klein in Washington, she put it this way. “This is not just about Keystone, it’s about all the pipelines. Whether it’s in Nebraska or British Columbia, whether we’re talking about Northern Gateway or Kinder Morgan, people have made it clear they’re willing to take actions in line with the urgency of this crisis. Even if they approve this pipeline or any other, they have to know there will be people in front of every bulldozer.” Sure enough, in the hours following the State Department decision, the Twitter-verse was buzzing with individuals committing to take non-violent action should the Keystone project ever be approved.

Also speaking in D.C., NASA scientist James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climatologists, captured what many in the crowd and a growing number around the world are coming to realize, that we are at a critical juncture. “There is a limit to how much carbon we can pour into the atmosphere. Tar sands are the turning point in our fossil fuel addiction. Either we begin on the road to breaking our addiction or we turn to even dirtier fossil fuels.” If Keystone XL or the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline to the west coast of B.C. is built, it will ensure increased tar sands production and a commensurate rise in greenhouse gas emissions.

For climate justice activists, labour groups and citizens assembled in Washington, this scenario is no longer acceptable. The decision to delay Keystone XL is no doubt reason for optimism, but it likely represents only the beginning for a movement that now appears to be at last finding its stride. What these folks are demanding is not simply that the tar sands pipelines be re-routed to safer terrain or that adequate measures are put in place to prevent oil spills, they want a long-term plan to gradually wean ourselves off fossil fuels and towards a clean energy future that could create millions of green jobs, something the governments of Canada and the U.S. have thus far refused to consider. Until they do, it will mean that “the arteries that are carrying this dirty oil all over the world” must be blocked, Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians told me. “If we can stop Keystone, we can stop Enbridge going west. It’s the beginning of a real movement with Americans and people around the world to say this is the wrong model.”

Mark Brooks’ Video of Naomi Klein speaking in Washington, D.C. on November 5

Share

Rafe in the Tyee: Keystone XL Delay Increases Pressure for BC Pipelines, Tankers

Share

Read this editorial from Rafe Mair in The Tyee on the increased pressure to build oil pipelines from the Tar Sands through BC in the wake of Obama’s decision to send the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to Texas back to the drawing board.

“Now that the Obama administration has delayed its decision
on whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta’s oil sands
to refineries in Texas, we had better gear up for quite a fight here in
British Columbia. The pressure just rose to push through two dangerous
oil sands pipeline projects running through our own province.” (Nov. 14, 2011)

Read article: http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/11/14/Oil-Spill-Threats/

Share

Obama Sends Keystone XL Pipeline Back to the Drawing Board for New Route

Share

Read this story form the Globe and Mail on the Obama Administration’s surprising decision to send Trans-Canada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline back to the drawing board for a new route. The move is expected to set the project back at least a year and a half and is being hailed as a victory by the project’s opponents.

“The U.S. State Department’s move to withhold a permit on
TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline until after the 2012 election is
officially meant to give the Obama administration more time to find an
alternative route for the conduit through Nebraska. But the
additional review announced Thursday has all the markings of a delaying
tactic aimed at sparing the President the dicey task of making a
politically tough call that could alienate a critical constituency
and/or hand ammunition to his opponents.” (Nov. 10, 2011)

Read full article

Share

Oil, Cancer & Bicycles: The Unholy Alliance of The BC Cancer Foundation and Enbridge

Share

The high-profile sponsorship of a BC cancer research charity event by the world’s biggest oil pipeline builder raises serious questions about the ethics of fundraising – and threatens to backfire for both organizations involved.

Unless you never open a newspaper, turn on the TV, listen to the radio, or surf the web, you have likely recently come across glossy ads for the “Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer”. The 2012 “Ride” will be the fourth for the annual event, with similar rides taking place in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec as well. This year’s and last year’s major sponsor is none other than controversial oil pipeline giant, Enbridge – who want to build the highly unpopular Northern Gateway Pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands to a supertanker port at Kitimat on BC’s north coast.

Here’s how the event’s organizers describe it on their website:

“The Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer® is a unique, two-day cycling event to take place on June 16-17, 2012. During this bold cycling journey, you will ride for two days through the scenic Pacific Northwest! Our vision is clear – A World Free From Cancer.”

Having long had the impression that oil – during its life cycle, from extraction through refining, transport, inevitable spillage and ultimate burning – can cause cancer, I naturally felt it hypocritical that a cancer-fighting organization would accept money and sponsorship from a Big Oil company.

So I called the Canadian Cancer Society’s BC Chapter to grill them. Upon doing so, though, I discovered that the Society – that high-profile organization most often associated with cancer-related philanthropy in this province – has nothing to do with the event. Moreover, the woman I spoke to there acknowledged it was hardly the first time they’d dealt with this confusion.

You see, the proceeds from the Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer flow to the BC Cancer Foundation, not the Society. A little more research taught me that the BC Cancer Foundation is the fundraising arm of the BC Cancer Agency, which is a BC government department – under the Provincial Health Services Authority.

So the proceeds of the Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer go, ultimately, to the BC government!

You might ask why I wasn’t more careful in reading the shiny ads for the Ride, which clearly display (though in tiny print) the BC Cancer Foundation, right there in black and white…Well, actually, not black and white, but yellow and blue.

In fact, the banners, posters and commercials for the Enbridge Ride are all in yellow and blue. An interesting choice, given that neither the corporate colours of Enbridge (gold and red) nor the Cancer Foundation (purple and green) are yellow and blue. No, yellow and blue would be the colours of the Cancer Society.
 
A huge coincidence, I’m sure. Nothing to do with giving citizens who see these ads the false impression that this event benefits the much better-known and highly regarded Cancer Society. (Yeah, right!)

The reason I know it’s all just a big coincidence is that Enbridge isn’t a multi-billion dollar oil company pushing a highly controversial pipeline through BC and wouldn’t be a company looking to do some PR damage control, and certainly wouldn’t have access to sophisticated marketing people who understand the subconscious power of branding, who, in turn, would never consider using the brand of one of BC’s most beloved non-profits, without its permission, to greenwash their company’s activities…No more then a filmmaker and writer, such as myself, would use sarcasm to make a point!

Having ascertained that this event actually represents an alliance between Enbridge and a BC Government agency – through its fundraising foundation – I contacted the BC Cancer Foundation with a few questions. Here is a sampling of my correspondence with their PR rep, Allison Colina:

Damien Gillis: Is it hypocritical for your organization to accept sponsorship from a company who deals in a known cancer-causing product? (as worded in my initial phone conversation with Ms. Colina’s colleague)

Allison Colina: With regards to petroleum products causing cancer, we turn to the research and clinical experts at the BC Cancer Agency to determine what are cancer-causing substances…According to the World Health Organization, there is no conclusive research at this time that indicates that petroleum products cause cancer.

DG: …[Does] your organization [feel] it is problematic to be associated with such an unpopular company and project in BC (polls show upwards of 80% of British Columbians are opposed to oil tankers on the BC coast and Enbridge’s proposed project has been highly controversial, as you well know)?

AC: Our Gift Acceptance Policy is approved by our Board of Directors and guides management and employees in accepting gifts from a wide variety of donors and sources, and ensures that the Foundation maintains a strong base of financial support. Examples of prohibited gifts include gifts from tobacco companies, or gifts from the proceeds of crime. Since Enbridge came on-board as sponsor of the Ride to Conquer Cancer in 2010, our participation numbers have grown and we have been able to focus on our goal of a world free from cancer by directing significant funds to leading-edge research at the BC Cancer Agency thanks to the Ride.

Ms. Colina declined to divulge the dollar value of Enbridge’s sponsorship upon my inquiry. I also asked her about the Precautionary Principle – providing the example of electromagnetic radiation (EMF), which up until recently was not considered a possible carcinogen by the WHO but is today. She declined to deal with that question directly.

Upon reading Ms. Colina’s emailed answers to my questions, I decided to do a little research into the carcinogenicity of petroleum products. Was I simply mistaken in my understanding of the health implications of oil and its derivatives?

I turned to the WHO’s list of known, probable and possible carcinogens to see if there was any truth to Ms. Colina’s assertion that “according to the World Health Organization, there is no conclusive research at this time that indicates that petroleum products cause cancer.”

Well, it turns out the International Agency for Research on Cancer – the WHO subsidiary group that produces the list of carcinogens Ms. Colina referred to – does indeed list “Petroleum refining (workplace exposures in)” as a probable carcinogen and Benzene, a byproduct of petroleum, as a known carcinogen. 

I then contacted Dr. Karen Bartlett of the UBC School of Environmental Health, posing to her the same question: To what extent can petroleum products be considered carcinogenic? Here’s what she told me by phone:

“There are two major petroleum products that we know are associated with carcinogenicity. One is in the distillation process of petroleum products, which produces Benzene. Benezene is carcinogenic. The other is in the combustion of diesel. Diesel particulate is carcinogenic.”

Let’s also consider the Campbell/Clark Government’s own admissions regarding the health impacts of burning fossil fuels – diesel truck fuel, to be specific.

The following statement didn’t specify any particular diseases or health impacts – it was speaking in a general sense of overall health outcomes. In the government’s submission to the environmental assessment process for its then-proposed (now under construction) South Fraser Perimeter Road truck highway from Deltaport, the Ministry of Transportation acknowledged vehicle emissions from the highway – which passes within 500 meters of 16 schools and near many homes and workplaces – would result in increased human illness along the route.

They of course found a silver lining to all this, writing : “With increased air pollution there can possibly be increased employment (e.g., in the health sector) because of the economic activity associated with correcting the results of its impacts.” (Technical Volume 16, page 39)

So perhaps cancer and asthma are in fact good for the economy, which makes the BC Liberals’ support for the Enbridge pipeline – and acceptance of their own government agency taking money from the same company – more understandable.

That too was sarcasm – in case you missed it.

In closing, I don’t mean to suggest that cancer research isn’t of vital importance – or to impugn the efforts of the event’s organizers and participants. Surely the funds raised will go to a good cause. And surely those cyclists working hard to raise pledges for the event are doing an admirable thing which they believe in.

What I question is whether it is ethical for an organization battling cancer to accept a large donation from a company whose products cause cancer, which they do. Far from acknowledging what the WHO and many other scientists and doctors from around the world suggest, the BC Cancer Foundation prefers to misrepresent the WHO’s position and to utterly disregard the Precautionary Principle, which would suggest you don’t wait for 100% confirmation when peoples’ lives are at stake.

Moreover, is it appropriate for this organization to offer Enbridge the opportunity to greenwash its severely embattled image in BC by dishonestly associating itself – through savvy marketing and manipulation of the public – with the reputation of the Cancer Society, which in fact has nothing to do with this event?

Make no mistake, that is precisely what Enbridge is up to with its sponsorship of this event – and the BC Cancer Foundation and BC Government’s Cancer Agency well know it, or most certainly should. And if this sponsorship in anyway helps to mollify public opposition to the ghastly Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, then lives may be lost as a result – if it helps to get the pipeline built. That’s why this matters. And why it’s not okay to say this money goes to positive ends and leave it at that.

This money may in fact go to very negative ends, if one examines the bigger picture and considers the implications of being complicit in greenwashing the expansion of the Alberta Tar Sands, the eventual certainty of ecologically disastrous oil spills via the pipeline and tanker traffic on our coast, and the increase of carbon emissions, air pollution and climate change – all of which cost lives.

The question now is how will the public, knowing the true nature of this scheme, choose to respond to the Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer? If more people understood what Enbridge was up to – if the BC Cancer Foundation and BC Government were to hear loudly from the public on this matter – that would effectively nullify what Enbridge is trying to do with this event. It might even backfire and cause the company even more problems as it enters the critical public comment phase of the National Energy Board review of its pipeline proposal, this coming January.

Campaigns and movements thrive on specific challenges to direct their energies toward – this could very easily become one of them.

Share

Oil Pipelines and Tankers: A Bad Proposition for BC’s Economy and Environment

Share

There are two stories about pipelines this week – the first was a Vancouver Sun article October 25. Here it is, in part:

Sixteen business and labour leaders have signed an open letter to British Columbians urging their support for natural gas and oil pipeline proposals across the northern half of the province which they say are needed to link Canada’s energy resources and B.C.’s economic future more closely to Asian economies.

The letter marks the first public relations campaign aimed at swaying opinion province wide towards energy projects in the North. Up until now, only regional support groups have been formed, such as the Enbridge Northern Gateway Alliance, which is actively supporting Enbridge’s $5.5-billion Alberta-to-Kitimat pipeline project in communities along the pipeline route.

The letter was written by former federal transportation minister Chuck Strahl. Signatories include former international trade minister David Emerson, the B.C. and Yukon Territory Building and Construction Trades Council, the Business Council of B.C., the Vancouver Board of Trade and the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, the country’s largest industrial association.

As for the second story, on October 24 I attended the Jack Webster Awards dinner where Kevin Redvers of CTV did a story called Black Blood – Tainted Land. What a sight with dying caribou showing the results of an oil spill two years ago and how the black ooze is still there with the consequent loss of a staple part of the diet of First Nations.

Clearly the business and labour people don’t care a fiddler’s fart about the environment and any concerns they might have are a carefully disguised secret.
 
The people of BC have a choice to make – at least they would if we had democracy in this province. It is a clear either/or – either we follow the union and business leaders and have the certainty of oil spills or we don’t.

We will have spills – there are no ifs ands or buts about it. The federal Department of Environment, scarcely made up of wild eyed environmentalists, says this about tanker traffic out of Kitimat – there will be a 1000 barrel spill every four years, a 10,000 spill every 9 years! One can only imagine what the odds are for a spill from pipelines!
 
These pipelines traverse over 1,000 kilometres of wilderness which, amongst other things, contains three of the most important fisheries we have. The pipelines are impossible to patrol and any spills will be difficult and time-consuming to deal with and, as Kevin Redvers has demonstrated, the damage is permanent.
 
Moreover, BC makes dick-all out of this – we are simply the right-of-way.
 
This, then, is the bottom line: We will trade our wilderness for infinitesimal rental money with certain environmental catastrophes. Don’t believe for a moment that pipeline companies will “minimize” the risk. Even if that were true, which it isn’t, the consequences are so terrible that this feeble statement is an insult to our intelligence. Moreover, the jobs will be short term and will be mostly from out of province.
 
Please believe it – the spills will come, our rivers and wilderness will be damaged and the damage will be huge and permanent.
 
The Campbell/Clark government must hold a referendum and let British Columbia citizens decide the fate of their favoured and much loved province.
 

Share

Poll Shows British Columbians Heavily Opposed to More Oil Tanker Traffic Through Vancouver

Share

Read this report from the Vancouver Sun on a new poll showing only 31% of British Columbians are in favour of twinning KinderMorgan’s Trans-Mountain Pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands to tankers in Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet.

“The survey, conducted by the Mustel Group and financed out of the
office budget of Burnaby-Douglas NDP MP Kennedy Stewart, also found that
35 per cent of respondents support keeping the existing single oil
pipeline. Eleven per cent of respondents favoured removing all Trans
Mountain oil pipeline infrastructure and 22 per cent didn’t have an
opinion. ‘What seems to be front and centre in people’s minds is
that we seem to be taking all the risks without getting any of the
benefits,’ said Stewart. The newly elected MP, one of the NDP’s
natural resources critics for Western Canada, said that the twinning of
the pipeline will increase the risk of an oil spill on the south coast ‘because you will have more oil tankers and larger ones too.'” (Oct. 11, 2011)

Share