Tag Archives: BC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers

A Warning From the People to Christy Clark

Canada, Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, WATER, Western Canada, , ,
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This is not a threat – just a warning to both senior governments. Something is happening in this province that I’ve warned about for a couple of years – let me explain.
 
For years governments have brought in environmental policy, especially as it relates to fish, rivers, wildlife areas and the like which divides the environmental community.
 
In the fishing area, the federal government, in particular, has encouraged all manner of interest groups – some based upon geography, some on species of fish, some professional fishermen, some sports, and on it goes. Divide and rule.
 
With wildlife issues, it’s been much of the same approach.
 
Starting about five years ago something happened that I and others in the environmental field noticed and reported on – a great number of what I will call well-off people from West Vancouver who had fought to save Eagleridge Bluffs from the rape the tractors of the uncaring and stubborn Transportation minister, Kevin Falcon; who went en masse to Delta to help local people fight the desecration on their area, also by the same Transportation Minister who, incidentally, has complained that we’re not like China, which couldn’t care less about the environment and brooks no dissent.
 
The “better-off” communities getting seriously involved in environmental issues was demonstrated by the good citizens of Tsawwassen fighting the overhead power lines, a battle that again brought people from other communities into the ring. These were not the first times environmental groups have helped one another but it showed that environmental concerns had crossed, for want of a better word, “class” lines.
 
Then, Delta did the unbelievable – it voted in an independent MLA who defeated the Attorney-General of the province – didn’t you notice that, Premier?
 
The good folks in the Kootenays have risen as one against the Glacier-Howser private river power project and have made it plain that it just is not going to happen!

All around BC, people are rising against their political masters and saying, “No damned way.”

The BC government has seemed anxious to piss off as many citizens as they can, as their policies destroyed our salmon and traumatized our rivers. They clearly didn’t give a fiddler’s fart for our wilderness or farmland – our precious “Supernatural BC”, as Grace McCarthy aptly named it.
 
In my travels around the province doing speeches, I noticed people there I would not have expected. The mail I get is short on the old chants of days of yore and long on impatience with both senior governments – and they’re deadly serious about stopping them.
 
Now we have both senior governments in favour of pipelines across our wilderness, carrying Tar Sands sludge, called “bitumen” in polite society, and putting this highly toxic petrochemical into huge tankers to move it down the world’s most dangerous (and perhaps most beautiful) coastline.
 
Very early we’ve seen how the feds will fight – as dirty as the shit in their much loved pipelines. They have set up a federal panel review but, get this, you only have until next week to file your intention to attend but they’re not going to tell you when and where the hearings will be held until sometime in 2012! This is the sort of merry little trick the Private Power bastards work – hold the obligatory, fixed, in-advance hearing at as inconvenient a time as you can, in a place too small for the expected crowd and as far as possible from where most people live.
 
Now let’s issue the fair warning to both governments. Premier Photo-op and Prime Minister Harper – he who so nicely rewarded the worst polluter in BC history with the softest and most pleasant diplomatic post in the world – listen carefully!
 
The public of BC is no longer disputing amongst themselves. All of us now support one another, speak at each other’s gatherings and in every way possible, help each other fight our battles, shoulder to shoulder. We will no longer be divided and, to put it plainly – there’s going to be hell to pay.

Yes, there will be civil disobedience and lots of it if these pipelines are approved or there is one more river dammed. For example, with the Enbridge Pipeline, if the governments are sufficiently unfeeling and arrogant to proceed, there will be agro virtually every meter of the way.
 
It’s clear that BC First Nations, many of them hard-up, will be a huge part of the battle.
 
I might just add for Premier Clark: You’re toast unless you have a Damascus-like conversion – and I say that without a care about when you hold the next election. I also warn you that the polls you will get do not ask the right questions – I know because I’ve been questioned. You and your economic pals at the Fraser Institute are passé – you’ve disgraced yourselves from that deadly day in 2001 when you were elected, and unless there is a miraculous change, you will get your comeuppance on the next chance we have to send you back into radio, where you won’t have a government’s ass to kiss as before.
 
No one I know in the environmental movement wants trouble but that can’t and won’t stop us if you don’t stop ravaging our province. People now understand that pipelines and oil tankers are not risks at all but dead certainties.
 
You see, Premier, no one believes a single word you or the corporations say.
          
 

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Cartoon: Enbridge Showdown in Kitimat

Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Tar Sands, , , ,
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Check out the latest from our cartoonist and Kitimat resident, Gerry Hummel. The town’s council recently hosted a public forum on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, which would end its 1,100 km journey from the Alberta Tar Sands at the Port of Kitimat – where supertankers would be loaded with bitumen, en route to Asia and the United States. The elusive Enbridge VP for the project, John Carruthers, was there representing the company – which heard not one iota of positive feedback from the community all evening.

 

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Clark’s Answer to Deepening Debt: Pretend Shipping Tar Sands to China Means “Jobs” for BC

Canada, Energy and Resources, Fracking, Mining, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Water and Hydrocarbons, Western Canada, , , , , ,
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Christy Clark, aka Premier Photo-Op, has a big mess on her hands – but, fear not, she’ll let us all muck about in it.
 
The government is in deepening debt and Ms. Clark can’t pretend that it’s a mystery how that came about. While there are many causes the principal one is that the government didn’t see the Recession coming and, when it came, went into denial. The budget of 2009 with which they proudly went to the polls was an utter and deliberate sham. Ditto the HST.
 
How is Clark going to deal with this?
 
Easy – Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!
 
And where will those jobs come from?
 
In part from exports to China. Apparently Premier Clark hasn’t heard that China has its own Recession going, Big Time. Their banking system is essentially the government and only looks good on paper because the US owes them so much. Their mega-projects, especially the Three Gorges Dam, have become serious fiscal problems.
 
What is truly worrying is that Ms. Clark will try to create employment, preparatory to election time, on her own mega-projects such as the proposed Enbridge pipeline to Kitimat and the related tanker traffic down our treacherous coast. Environmental rules, such as they are, will become a chimera – a cynical gesture of contempt to citizens who put protection of our environment ahead of Ms. Clark’s election prospects. Fracking, the natural gas extraction which pollutes huge amounts of water, will be hugely encouraged.
 
The entire policy of the Campbell/Clark government will be to have in place a policy which she believes will mesmerize the public into believing that prosperity is just around the corner.
 
If the genie gave me but one wish it would be that everyone understands that pipelines and tanker traffic don’t pose risks but certainties. We must hammer this home as the corporations move into high gear with their high paid flacks to convince the public that they really do care about the environment. The fact is that they couldn’t care less about the environment or any social values. Oil spills are not seen for the ugly destruction they bring but merely the cost of doing business.
 
We environmentalists have to face facts – we haven’t the money to match the outputs of both government and industry. We must get down to basics – the issue is not money or jobs but the preservation of our very soul. We must care for our fish not because we fish but because when we lose them we lose a part of us. When we lose our wilderness we don’t do so just in some sort of abstract way but in the real sense that we, each and every one of us, have sustained a wound that will never go away.
 
There is no “safe” way you can construct and maintain pipelines or transfer oil on tankers. You can’t, in that most weasely of weasel words, “mitigate” the damage. We have to understand that from the moment you start the first pipe installation, the first step on the road to certain environmental devastation has been taken. When the first barrel of oil starts through the pipe, catastrophe has become merely a question of “when”.
 
The arguments we make are never met head-on. The answer will be, “aw hell, you don’t really believe those eco-freaks, do you?” “Jeez, this is the 21st century, sure we can do these things with little or no risk these days”, “Let those goddam tree huggers talk to the guys out of work”. “If you don’t move forward, you’ll end up going backwards”. There are plenty more one-liners.
 
There is no doubt that society must change; our ambitions must take into account a different society. For if we permit the destruction of our environment, what do we have left of the beautiful province we all love so much. The unemployed are not so because of environmentalists but because of a society that finds it easier to destroy than create.

While I do not let religion get in the way of rational debate, surely it’s utterly apropos to remember Jesus’s words, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

And, folks, it’s our soul that’s at stake here.

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Clark, Big Oil Want BC and Alberta’s Raw Resources Open for Business to China

Energy and Resources, Fracking, Mining, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, WATER, , , , , , ,
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Read this report from the Province on the Business Council of BC’s annual economic forum in Vancouver, where industry leaders and politicians joined arms in calling to make BC’s raw resources open for business with the growing Asian market.’

“‘We need to open up the B.C. gate more fully,’ said Lorraine
Mitchelmore, president and county chair of Shell Canada Ltd. ‘Canada
really needs to diversify its customer base for energy products and
create access to global energy markets. This is a real time of great
opportunity for Canada.’ Lindsay Gordon, president and CEO of HSBC
Bank of Canada, echoed these sentiments, and added that British
Columbians need a ‘wake-up call’ of the importance of Asia to ‘their
future and prosperity.'”

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HSBC: BC Pipelines More Strategically Important than Keystone XL

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Read this article from the Vancouver Sun on the president of HSBC Canada’s comments at a recent conference in BC, suggesting that oil pipelines from the Alberta Tar Sands to BC’s coast are of greater strategic importance for Canada’s energy industry than the controversial proposed Keystone XL pipeline to the US Gulf Coast.

“Citing Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s statement that U.S. approval
of the Keystone pipeline linking Alberta’s oilsands to U.S. markets is a ‘no brainer,’ HSBC president Lindsay Gordon said a pipeline to the West
Coast is more important. ‘I’m not suggesting that pipelines to
the West Coast across British Columbia are a no brainer, but I would
certainly argue in terms of the strategic importance to Canada and
B.C.’s future, they are actually significantly more important than
pipelines to the U.S., including Keystone.'” (Sept 24, 2011)

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Public Can’t Rely on Government Processes to Stop Tankers and Pipelines

Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Tar Sands, , , , ,
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This is the third part of a three part series from Rafe Mair on civil dissent.

In the last article I discounted the possibility that any hearing into the Enbridge pipelines or tanker traffic, to and out of Kitimat and Vancouver would dare stop these projects. I considered and rejected, without saying so, any intervention by the federal procedures, specifically the National Energy Board’s Federal Panel Review which held against the Taseko proposal at Fish Lake. I don’t believe for one moment that this Panel would put an end to the pipelines permanently but at most would attach conditions. Since there are no environmental conditions that would prevent horrendous and permanent damage to our environment, the NEB, will, at most, be a slowing down process.

Assuming that the pipelines and tankers are supported by both the federal and provincial governments I don’t believe that any review panel would have the jam to reject the projects outright (nor can it, in fact – it only has the power to make recommendations to the Minister of Environment, who has the final say) but most surely would use the weasel word “mitigation”, where no mitigation is possible or acceptable.

A far better bet is that the Federal cabinet will, as it did with the original Kemano II project, waive the requirement for such a hearing or any other.

Consider the Harper government’s position – to reject the pipelines and tankers would be to reject the Tar Sands, especially if the US Keystone XL pipeline is rejected by President Obama. Even if it is passed by Obama, the heat from China, the projects themselves, plus the pressure of the business community that finances the Tory government will be too strong for Harper & Co. to resist. In fact the approval of environmental destruction comes naturally to right wing governments so that, in my view, the issue moot. When it comes to fighting these projects, the public of BC will be on its own.

What about majority rules? Isn’t that the end of the matter? Both senior governments have mandates so they can do as they please?

This simply is not so. Neither government has faced this as an issue and there have been no referenda. There will not, in my opinion, be any meaningful forum for popular opinion. But the critical question is this: the proposals will do permanent and egregious harm – what government ever has the moral or even legal right to make such a decision without direct citizen approval?

Friends – we must face the fact that neither government will stand in the way of these projects.

I must be careful with my next point. First Nations have, thus far, made it clear to Enbridge that they will not accept the projects. They have recently refused a bribe of 10% of the action. Careful though I must be, it must be recorded that some First Nations have accepted financial inducements to permit fish farms, although most First Nation have opposed; more tellingly, perhaps, some have been induced to supported Independent Power Producers (IPPs) ravishing their rivers. Indeed, in the Klina Klini project, First Nations have sued the provincial government for nixing the project.

One must ask, then, is First Nations rejection of the Pipelines an outright refusal or just part of a negotiation process?

We must prepare for the worst. We must assume that the projects will be approved and, govern our actions accordingly. Clearly, then, we must be ready for civil disobedience.

This, in my view, means three things:

  1. There must be an obvious flouting of the public will. In the absence of a public referendum on the matter, the flouting of public will becomes clear.
  2. We must understand that civil disobedience carries with it penalties. Even though these penalties will involve the governments and corporations subverting justice by proceeding criminally in a civil matter, we must realize that this is a penalty we will pay and be prepared to pay it.
  3. The Civil Disobedience must be on a large scale. We must have leadership and we must provide that leadership with our support and enough money to stand behind those who are fined, go to jail, or both. People’s savings will be attacked and their families will suffer. We can expect no mercy from companies or our very own governments.

The notion of lawbreaking does not come easily to me, a lawyer. The fact remains that the great United States Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was right when he said that the courts decide the law, not justice.

The cause of preserving our province is too important for us to meekly accept a judge’s finding that prevention of that cause is to be supported by jail sentences. As Justice Holmes so tartly observed, law and justice are not synonymous.

Our question is simple to state: is it justice when any tribunal, parliament, legislature or court destroys our environment, not as a vital need of society but for private profit?


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Actress/activist Daryl Hannah being arrested at a recent protest in Washington, DC, to stop the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline from the Tar Sands to Texas

When Civil Disobedience is Justified

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Last week I advised that we must be prepared to lie down in front of machinery aimed at creating the pipelines from the Tar Sands to Kitimat and, as I fully expected, got some heat.

We have to face this question before we get into morality and legality issues – why do you suppose that there is no public process dealing with the merits of this idea?

The answer is simple: the Campbell/Clark and Harper Governments know that we won’t try to physically stop the undertaking, so why bother holding meaningful hearings? To do so would raise the expectation that we care and would listen.

I realize that the above is cynical but cynicism has been Campbell/Clark’s hallmark since they took office in 2001, announced that the NDP had left us in penury and promptly gave over a billion in tax cuts to the well off.

(And let me set out once more the issue – building and using pipelines or tankers does not pose risks but absolute mathematical certainties of catastrophic consequences. If you take a “risk” without any limit on how often or how long you will run this “risk”, that risk becomes a certainty; the only question remaining being the extent of damage done).

When the public has no influence on the making of a law it has no option but to oppose it on the ground.

Let me make something clear that I omitted in my last article: the defiance must be peaceful. The example of Mahatma Gandhi must be the by-word. Such violence as may occur must be by the authorities, not the protesters. Please take what I just said as being in deadly earnest.

Moreover, any who disobey the law must be prepared to accept the consequences.

To the morality. Civil disobedience must be in consequence of a wrong being done, not a political whim. There is a large difference between protesting and active flouting of a law and one crosses the Rubicon with very great care. CD must be in response to a serious change in policy not warranted by any public approval. It is not enough to say that a free government approved the project because in our system, parliaments (legislatures) are not free agents voting the wishes of their constituents. Moreover our governments don’t even trouble themselves with legislatures – it’s just time wasted on getting a rubber stamp. As Finance Minister Kevin Falcon has remarked, it would all be so much easier if we were like China and didn’t trouble ourselves with tiresome procedures in such matters and just let the government get on with it.

Let’s get down to principles and morality. If a government, with its friendly construction companies, decides to irrevocably destroy large tracts of wilderness, exposing it to the absolute certainty of ongoing catastrophes, can they do this at their pleasure? Must the public be content with their right, several years down the road, to throw out the government after their policy is a fait accompli?

All of what I argue prevails with equal if not even greater impact against oil tankers down our coast.

Have we not got the right nay, duty to do all within our power, save violence, to stop this from happening? Are these not, in Tom Paine’s words, ”times that try men’s souls”?

Where is the illegality, the immorality here? Is it immoral, should it be illegal for citizens to stand against a tyrannical government which, hand in hand with its bankers, destroys our wilderness, ruins our rivers and the ecologies they sustain and poses the never-ending threat of horrific oil spills on land and in the oceans?

How can the people be wrong to reject the outright lies of government and industry flacks? What is the only option left a citizenry when a dictatorial government demolishes our land for all time?

How can citizens be wrong to stop, with their bodies and freedoms, the ravishing of nature’s bountiful and precious endowment so that world’s filthiest energy source can be spread like black ooze across one of the last wildernesses on earth?

I suppose it gets down to this: is it a sufficient answer for generations to come that we tried to stop the carnage they see by sending letters to editors and carrying placards?

I think not.

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Yinka Dene First Nations Reject Enbridge’s Financial Incentive Offer

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Read this story in the Vancouver Sun on the rejection by the five First Nations that make up the Yinka Dene Alliance of financial incentives offered by Enbridge in an effort to secure  support for its proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline.

“In its response to Enbridge, the Yinka Dene Alliance called the
Calgary-based company’s offer a ‘desperate and disrespectful attempt to
buy our support for this pipeline.’ Enbridge’s one-page offer to
the Nadleh Whut’en First Nation, one of the members of the alliance,
said ownership would provide an estimated $7-million profit over the
30-year pipeline life. The offer was described as time sensitive. ‘Consequently, we strongly recommend that you meet with our aboriginal
relations team at your earliest opportunity to receive the agreement,’
Enbridge said in the letter obtained by The Vancouver Sun.” (Sept 9, 2011)

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/First+nations+group+rejects+pipeline+ownership+offer/5374046/story.html#ixzz1XVjGhQxN

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Sign of the Times: A placcard from the recent rally against expanded oil pipeline and tanker traffic through Vancouver

Tar Sands Pipelines: Our Moment of Truth

Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Tar Sands, , , ,
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I’m writing this in Bergen, Norway, after a cruise from Leith (Edinburgh) Scotland that took us past many oil rigs – giving pause to remember that we’re as dependent on oil as we ever were – in fact, perhaps more so. A day or two ago I read in an article in the Guardian Weekly how the US, by growing corn for methane gas for cars, was contributing to starvation in the Horn of Africa. I thought of the passionate embracing of weaning ourselves off carbon fuels done by our governments as they rush to help Alberta further screw up the environment. While this is going on, I watch as president Obama wrestles with the long Trans-Canada pipeline from the Tar Sands to the Gulf of Mexico as celebrities march their way into jail in protest.

I reflect. We are, I think, at the moment of truth. Either we stop these pipelines or the environmental movement becomes like unions were under communism – pallid burlesques of what we once were, now reduced to patronizing speeches by corporations and governments when they feel the need for some fuzzy warmness from the inert masses that now do precisely as they are told.

Of course there is no environmental movement as such. I can’t even define what an environmentalist is when you have turncoats calling themselves environmentalists as they figuratively peddle their ass to corporate interests while pocketing huge bucks in the bargain.

I think I’m an environmentalist and place my record in government and in the media out for scrutiny, but I’m sure many would disagree. No matter, because what does count is how we all comport ourselves from this moment forward.

We are facing massive corporatist takeovers of our societies and the governments that are supposed to be our protectors. It scarcely needs demonstration in BC where, hand in hand, our governments have helped rapacious corporations ruin our fisheries, wreck our environment, make power we don’t need which our own power company must buy at a loss, while we cede our farmland and nature preserves to huge interests which have no stake in preserving our precious resources.

And now it’s pipelines across our wilderness and tankers down our priceless coastline. To rub salt in the wounds, we are asked to be prostitutes without pay – in fact, we are the legitimate hookers’ worst enemies, enthusiastic amateurs.

We must unite! This is the definitive fight. If we lose this, all is lost and we’ll be reduced to a land where there are a few “game” preserves to attract wealthy hunters and the occasional highly expensive streams where the rich can, after a lottery, fish at great profit to large international guide/outfitter companies. It’s as serious as that.

We first must know what we’re fighting – “who” doesn’t matter, for they all wear they same uniform and have the same mission. What we’re fighting for is simply stated: pipelines will burst and tankers will founder. We are not talking “risks” here but mathematical certainties. This is the truth of the matter and we must not be hoodwinked by talk of acceptable “risks”.

ONCE A ‘RISK’ IS TAKEN WITHOUT ANY LIMIT OF TIME OR EVENT IT IS NO LONGER A RISK BUT A CERTAINTY WAITING TO HAPPEN, THE ONLY UNCERTAINTY IS THE EXTENT OF THE DAMAGE.

Corporations spend huge amounts on “feel good” bullshit and the worse the polluter, the higher it’s piled. We must never lose sight of this.

What must be done?

I spoke of unity but fully acknowledge we can’t have a single coalition of all or even many environmental groups. Apart from the impossibility of such a merger, it would be a bad idea.

What must happen is that we all support those who have made the stopping of these pipelines their #1 priority. Such a group – led by the estimable author and co-founder of Greenpeace, Rex Weyler, is now active. What we all must do is multi-task and continue the battles we all wage, yet throw all the energy and funding we can into the fight against these pipelines and tankers.

I might as well spit it out. We must march and picket and refuse to give way – we will, then, be called upon to disobey the law. And, we must be prepared to go to jail.

The pattern will be the usual abuse of process practiced by the companies, fully supported by the governments they control. Picketers will be ordered by the court – which will issue injunctions turning civil protest into a crime – to cease by a judge from his lofty high paid perch, who will impress upon the sinner the need for the law to be obeyed even though it is a clear affront to justice. Picketers will refuse and will go to jail.

I offer this suggestion: We are up against a foe with a limitless amount of money, which, having obtained the law, not caring that justice was lost in the process, will continue to throw in jail for unlimited sentences decent citizens whose only sin is trying to protect their heritage.
 
We must also set up an ongoing fund to look after those attacked by the corporation/government. Not only will these folks lose their income, the companies will sue for damages and seize their assets, including savings and pension funds. This fund should start now and be set up with a trustee to look after those who will not only lose their freedom but also have their assets on the line for the common good.

Now…let us go to work, beat the bastards and save our heritage!


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Shades of Green: Pipelines and Tankers – the Building Pressure

Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Tar Sands, , , , , ,
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Anyone who is concerned about the arrival of pipelines and tankers to BC’s West Coast should be worried. The forces are mounting to make this province a bridge to an energy-hungry Asia. And the inevitable result will be – sooner or later – a ruptured pipeline despoiling pristine rivers and a broken tanker spilling millions of barrels of oil into one of the few undefiled ecologies remaining on our planet.

This scenario is being set by a dramatic change of circumstances in the last few years. Massive investments in the Alberta oil sands have created supplies of crude that must reach markets. To maximize profits, producers want more export options than the United States, the sole foreign recipient of this crude. As America’s economy slows and Asia’s booms, ocean access to the entire Pacific Rim becomes irresistible.

Meanwhile, the entire energy calculus has changed with the discovery of extraordinary quantities of shale gas in Canada and the US. America estimates it has enough gas to meet its domestic energy needs for 200 years. Canada’s supply, centred mostly in northern BC and Alberta, is similarly generous. Since the US will need less Canadian gas, the obvious place to sell it is to Asian markets. And that means pipelines and liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals for coastal BC.

All the pieces to support the arrival of such gas and oil terminals are falling into place. China has invested $10 billion in Alberta oil sands with the expectation rewards – oil in preference to profits. Royal Dutch Shell, Korean Gas, Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation and Malaysia’s Petronas are all urgently planning for shipments of LNG from BC’s West Coast to their markets. The Montney and Horn River natural gas fields in BC, responsible for making this province the third largest gas producer in the world, could be supplying 5.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day by 2020 – gas that needs to reach buyers. Shell and Mitsubishi are considering that floating off-shore LNG plants would be ideal for BC’s rugged coast. They and other investors are speculating about at least four coastal pipelines and terminals to tranship LNG and oil to Asian markets (Globe & Mail, June 14/11).

If any British Columbians are nervous that foreign energy corporations are planning our future and threatening our treasured West Coast ecology, they will receive no solace from Canada’s Harper government. Foreign Minister John Baird has recently been to China, calling it our “friend” (Ibid. July 19/11) and emphasizing the critical importance of China’s energy and resource appetite in Canada’s economic plans. In Shanghai he declared that Canada’s “relationship [with China] has entered a new era over the past few years” and that it is “the centrepiece of a larger picture of the priority that we want to raise with Asia-Pacific (Ibid. July 21/11). To reinforce this support, Harper’s Minister of Natural Resources, Joe Oliver, has endorsed Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline – a $5.5 billion project that would bring oil and gas through 1,172 km of BC’s wilderness to Kitimat – before the public environmental assessment has even started (ForestEthics, July 10/11).

Meanwhile, in a disquieting move that is clearly designed to erase some of the inconvenient environmental obstacles that lie between Asian energy hunger and Canada’s export ambitions, the Harper government is eliminating 776 positions from Environment Canada, with a further downsizing of 5 to 10 percent next year. These are the professional biologists, chemists and climatologists who determine the difference between careful and reckless plans, the science-based experts who advise that policy occurs within responsible environmental constraints – if no one knows about any unfolding ecological wreckage, then it obviously doesn’t exist.

Despite huge opposition to the Northern Gateway Pipeline project in British Columbia, Enbridge is sensing success and is massaging the public with a national advertising campaign designed to humanize its image from one of the least responsible of all pipeline corporations to one that cares for the public over profits. Its corporate slogan, “Where energy meets people” has been neatly spliced into nearly full-page colour newspaper ads depicting Canadians energetically engaged in activities that are supposed to connect human challenges to the importance of pipelines, to show that personal fulfilment cannot be separated from Enbridge’s crucial role in our lives. “Where Energy Meets Culture” shows ballet dancers in a dramatic pose on an open stage, “Where Energy Meets Pride” shows four aboriginal runners wending their way along a lonely bucolic road, and “Where Energy Meets Victory” shows a team of five bicyclists racing serenely along a long stretch of prairie highway.

The psychology of these ads is both oblique and devious, effectively designed so people will forget that Enbridge wants to pipe oil to a West Coast port, that oil sands crude is particularly corrosive to pipelines, that this pipeline must traverse hundreds of pristine rivers and streams on its winding wilderness course to Kitimat, and that such a pipeline will invite almost one massive supertanker per day – about 225 per year – to some of the most treacherous, beautiful and vulnerable coastlines in the world.

So this is the scenario being designed for British Columbia. It is to become North America’s western departure point for energy exports to China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and any Pacific Rim country that belongs to the distribution circuit. Huge profits are to be made by huge corporations. The Harper government’s plan for prosperity is founded on a view that disregards ecological concerns and forgets that all this gas and oil represents greenhouse emissions that are cooking our planet.

British Columbians who love our coastline, revere the Great Bear Rainforest and honour the wild majesty of our province had better gird their loins for a fight. It’s coming, it’s coming soon, and the enemy is amassing its forces. The outcome will determine BC’s future character, alter the world’s energy calculus and decide who is joining or resisting our drift toward environmental Armageddon.

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