Tag Archives: Enbridge

Disgraced Gitxsan Treaty Negotiator Rewarded with Appointment to Prince Rupert Port Authority

April 22, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, PoliticsBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Gitxsan, Oil and gas, PoliticsDamien Gillis

Read this story from the Vancouver Sun on the controversial paid appointment by the Harper Government of Elmer Derrick – the former Gitxsan treaty negotiator who was fired for cutting an unauthorized deal with Enbridge behind his nation’s back – to the board of the Prince Rupert Port Authority. (April 20, 2012)

The northern B.C. first nation chief who signed a controversial deal to support Enbridge’s $5.5-billion oil pipe-line has been appointed by the federal government to the Prince Rupert Port Authority.

As a director of the board, Gitxsan hereditary chief Elmer Derrick will receive payment, although it is not clear exactly how much.

“It’s a strange appointment. It raises the possibility it’s a quid pro quo for supporting the pipeline,” said NDP Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen, whose riding includes a large stretch of the Northern Gateway pipeline route.

Cullen noted that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is a supporter of the pipeline, meant to open up new markets in Asia for crude from the Alberta oilsands.

When Derrick, who is the chief negotiator with the Gitxsan Treaty Office, announced he had signed a pipe-line ownership deal with Enbridge that would provide $7 million over a 30-year period, it sparked an immediate battle with other leaders in the community who said they don’t sup-port the project.

In the face of the opposition to the deal from dozens of Gitxsan hereditary chiefs, Enbridge pulled out of the ownership agreement.

NDP Byelection Wins Bad News for Both Liberals and Conservatives; Good for NDP, Environment

April 22, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Western CanadaAdrian Dix, BC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Christy Clark, Enbridge, KinderMorgan, Oil and gas, Politics, rafe mairRafe Mair

The two by-elections are very bad news for the Liberals, not much better for the Tories and excellent news for the NDP.

Let’s start with the last first.

The loyal opposition is now in the position where a couple of Liberals crossing the floor can bring the government down. I don’t believe that will happen but it’s a worry for the Liberals. Mostly this confirmed Adrian Dix’s leadership. Any time you have a contested election, the losers and their supporters have a death wish for the winner – more about that in a moment. Dix is firmly in control. The NDP made a brilliant move in saying that while they oppose Enbridge and coastal tanker traffic they promise a local referendum for Kinder Morgan. One of the moves of the Campbell/Clark government was to extinguish the right of local governments to pass judgment on environmentally sensitive projects and the NDP understand that the late US Speaker, Tip O’Neill, was right when he said “all politics is local”.

For the John Cummins Conservatives this by-election was a bitter blow, for if the Tories can’t win a by-election – governments usually have trouble with them – in a staunchly “conservative” riding, what chance do they have in a general election. This hardly enhances the opportunity for a new party along the Socred lines since Cummins brings nothing to the table.

For the Liberals, these votes can’t be put down to the usual anti-government pissed off voters. Premier Clark’s leadership was on the line and the Liberals know it.

Going into the by-elections all but one caucus and cabinet minister wanted someone else. She has stumbled from one gaffe to another since she took office. She must go and soon; if she stays, it will be the best news the NDP could get. She’s like Bill Vander Zalm was in 1991 – a loser brought to his knees as much by cabinet and caucus disloyalty as personal stupidity.

When a premier is in trouble he/she must be able to rally the troops – this Ms. Clark is utterly unable to do. She must go, with a temporary leader in place pending a leadership convention, for which time is very short.

Never mind the weeping that a split vote cost them Chilliwack and a turncoat won in Port Coquitlam – the fact is that the government lost two elections which were referenda on the Liberals and their leadership.

There was another winner – big time: the environment. In Chilliwack, the Kinder-Morgan pipeline was a big issue – to my memory, the first time the Environment was a large issue there.

These by-elections did more than alter the make-up of the Legislature; they altered politics in BC – Big Time.

Harper, Oliver Take Control of Pipeline Approval Over Environmental Regulators

April 19, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, PoliticsBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gas, Politics, Stephen HarperCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from the Globe and Mail on the Harper Government’s assertion of ultimate control over the approval of the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline and other major industrial projects. (April 17, 2012)

The federal government is asserting its control over pipelines – including the proposed Northern Gateway oil-sands project – taking from regulators the final word on approvals and limiting the ability of opponents to intervene in environmental assessments.

In proposed legislation unveiled by Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver on Tuesday, the Harper government will clear away regulatory hurdles to the rapid development of Canada’s natural resource bounty.

Ottawa is aiming to reduce the number of projects that undergo federal environmental assessment by exempting smaller developments completely and by handing over many large ones to the provinces. It will also bring in new measures to prevent project opponents from delaying the assessment process by flooding hearings with individuals who face no direct impacts but want to speak against the development.

At a Toronto press conference, Mr. Oliver said the proposed changes are aimed at providing quicker reviews in order to reduce regulatory uncertainty and thereby create more jobs and investment in Canada’s booming resource sector.

“We are at a critical juncture because the global economy is now presenting Canada with an historic opportunity to take full advantage of our immense resources,” he said. “But we must seize the moment. These opportunities won’t last forever.”

Resource-rich western provinces greeted the proposed changes warmly, saying they are eager to take over environmental assessments. Mr. Oliver said Ottawa will only transfer authority for project reviews to provinces that have similar standards as the federal government.

Provinces in central and Atlantic Canada were more cautious, wanting to know more details before drawing conclusions.

Environmental groups and some aboriginal leaders said the government is sacrificing environmental protection for development, and is intent on railroading all opposition to its vision of rapid development of oil sands and other resources.

Enbridge Pipeline: Radicals and Conservatives

April 16, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Water and Hydrocarbons, Western CanadaBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gas, Politics, Stephen HarperCommon Sense Canadian

Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, a $5.5 billion project that is intended to move the crude from Alberta’s tar sands to BC’s West Coast for shipment by supertankers to Asia and other parts of the world, is providing illuminating insights into the gulf of differences separating proponents and opponents. Perhaps this is most clearly expressed by Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, Joe Oliver, whose recently released letter (January, 2012) accused “environmental and other radical groups” of attempting to “hijack our regulatory system” to achieve “their radical ideological agenda.”

His accusation may be true. But his terminology is reversed. The so-called “radicals” are really “conservatives” while those in government and industry favouring the pipeline are the “radicals”.

Those attempting to halt the pipeline and slow development of the tar sands are trying to restrain the ideological mania for resource extraction that is ripping across the provinces and country these days. Their objective is not only to protect the natural environment that is the fundamental source of our wealth, but to conserve our non-renewable oil and gas — not to mention the minerals, trees, water, fish and other resources that identify Canada’s natural riches — for a more cautious and careful future use. They are keen to remind Canada’s government that the country has no national energy policy and, therefore, no way of anticipating the effect of present extraction on future energy security, economic opportunity and social impacts. To the opponents of the Northern Gateway pipeline, today’s wholesale extraction and export of raw resources poses innumerable environmental threats but also robs tomorrow of possibilities. This is hardly the position of “radicals”.

With a perspective that is longer than the next election cycle, the 4,300 people who are registered as speakers during the proceedings of the “regulatory system” — most of them will be opposing it — are using the only avenue available to them to indicate their concern for a project that will inevitably cause an oil spill in pristine rivers and valleys, not to mention an ocean coast that is noted world-wide for its marine bounty and wild beauty. If this concern is a “radical ideological agenda”, then their critics must surely be possessed of a reckless irresponsibility that is truly menacing.

Unfolding events suggest that this may be the case. The same established thinking that wants to build the Northern Gateway pipeline has recently engineered the near-collapse of the world’s entire financial system. It is also busily dismantling the fundamental ecological structures that allow for a diversity of life on Earth. The traumatic effect of massive greenhouse gas emissions on climate and weather should give any thoughtful person nightmares. And the eventual consequences of ocean acidification has implications for the planet that are obscene and dire — a similarly acidic ocean once caused 95 percent of marine and terrestrial species to disappear from existence. Anyone who is aware of these prospects and is not taking immediate and drastic remedial measures must be deemed “radical”, if not irresponsible and ideologically dangerous.

Some informed economists question the wisdom of unrestrained resource extraction. Without long-term planning and the accompanying processing infrastructure that benefits a country’s entire economy and society, the end result of an export policy of raw resources will be, as one economist aptly phrased it, an impoverished country “with a lot of holes in the ground” — not exactly a promising prospect.

Such a prospect is worrying an increasing number of people these days. They perceive a hyper-active system of excessive production and consumption that is functioning beyond sustainability and headed for a crash. Some of these worried people are economists, politicians and philosophers. Others are bankers and industrialists. Even those who don’t have the sophistication to articulate their apprehension can sense trouble. And they are becoming increasingly cynical. The Occupy Movement wants financial reform and a re-evaluation of our entire economic system. And the environmental community, in all its many forms, wants the destruction of nature to stop while viable remnants of it still exist. They are “conservative” in the sense that they want to “preserve” the ecosystems that sustain us, hardly the “radicals” of Joe Oliver’s designation.

The real “radicals”, it might be argued, are those with an ideological compulsion to pillage the planet — to drill and mine, to frack and pump, to build and extract, to cut and burn, to take and level with an obsessive abandon that history will deem pathological. An ideology that holds nothing sacred but money and profit is doomed to fail. “The catch with a growth economy,” as the film The Great Squeeze points out, “is that there is no stopping point.” It continues to grow until it self-destructs.

This explains why the Northern Gateway pipeline project has become so important. It is now iconic, a symbol to its opponents of a system out of control, of an ideology on a destructive rampage, blindly undeterred by fatal risks to a primal wilderness and a treasured coast of virgin rainforest. The system is not even deterred by a living planet besieged with life-destroying gases. If such an economy is not stopped here, where will it be stopped?

The language in Joe Oliver’s letter is ideological and challenging. But he has his terms reversed. The “radicals are the “conservatives” and the “conservatives” are the “radicals”.

William Housty Addresses NEB on Heiltsuk Culture, Threat of Oil Spill

April 14, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gas, VideoDamien Gillis

30 year-old William Housty’s powerhouse presentation to the National Energy Board’s Enbridge hearings in his community of Bella Bella. William describes the history, language and culture of his people in fascinating detail – and how the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline and Tar Sands supertankers transiting the waters of his people’s territory would destroy their traditional way of life. A must-watch!

Some Journalists Still Buying the Line that Technology Will Save Us from Oil Spills

April 9, 2012Energy and Resources, Fisheries, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gasRafe Mair

Craig McInnes of the Vancouver Sun today has an article essentially supporting the Enbridge Pipeline and the tanker traffic down our coast. His position is that with all the science available these things can be done safely. Craig deserves a trip to the woodshed or, as also happened in my young days, to have his mouth washed out with soap. This usually careful journalist ignores two essential points: the mathematical certainty of accidents and the appalling consequences that will follow.

With the pipeline, no amount of surveillance will prevent ruptures, leaving aside the possibility of vandalism. As we know, this modern, scientifically savvy company, Enbridge, has had 811 accidents since 1998. Craig seems to forget that we’re dealing with an 1,100 km pipeline through both the Rockies and the Coast Range thence through the Great Bear Rainforest and over 1,000 rivers and streams, including several that are vital salmon spawning locations. This means that even when a leak or rupture occurs, the only way to get to it is by helicopter. Surveillance may be state of the art, indeed, way ahead of its time – but what’s the good of surveillance if you can do nothing?

The tanker situation is brushed aside with the notion that double hulling will end problems. Craig doesn’t seem to know that there have been several major double hulled catastrophes in the past couple of years and none of them hit rocks but other ships!

It frightens me a little that Craig seems to brush aside the concerns of First Nations as if there concerns are of no moment but simply sentimental shots in the war against palefaces. The National Energy Board’s Joint Review Panel on Enbridge heard an earful in Bella Bella from experienced First Nations Mariners about the considerable dangers of navigating their coastal waters – watch video here. The Common Sense Canadian in its March 8 edition also published this must-read account on the topic from longtime coastal fisherman by John Brajcic (also pasted below in its entirety)

These First Nations have lived and fished this super hazardous coast for a millennium or more. Their forte is not the efficacy or otherwise of science but what happens when there is a spill which they and anyone else who has thought it through is a certainty.

Allow me to use my favourite analogy: Suppose you had a revolver with 100 chambers and only one bullet and you stuck it up against your temple. If you are only going to pull the trigger once, the odds are easily calculable. You can do the same with any number. If, however, you are going to pull that trigger with no restriction as to number of times, you are no longer looking at a probability but an explosion waiting to happen. It becomes a mathematical certainty.

Now let’s suppose that the bullet was a marshmallow. It wouldn’t matter because no harm would be done. Bitumen from the Tar Sands is not marshmallow!

Bitumen doesn’t mix with water and for all practical purposes doesn’t evaporate. What it touches it kills. Spills on land or sea are lethal, and here is the worst part – it is all but impossible to clean up. The July 2010 Enbridge spill into the Kalamazoo River, easily accessed, hasn’t been cleaned up yet and likely never will.

It is this fact that puts paid to arguments like Craig’s – the consequences of a spill are utterly devastating – this isn’t like the oil that spilled out of the Exxon Valdez but many, many times worse.

Craig does his readers much harm by not making an honest assessment of the risks involved (in fact they are certainties) and worse – not telling the horrible consequences which must flow.

Have you thought about whether or not there’s a soul? What about near death experiences? Should the Book of Revelation scare the pants off us? Find out what other religions and experts say with my new book The Home Stretch available online for your computer, kindle, kobo or iPad for the miserly sum of $9.99

John Brajcic’s must-read account of the navigational dangers of BC’s north and central coast

As a fisherman who has worked his whole life on the coast of BC, I have many concerns about oil tankers leaving Kitamaat (proper spelling double “a” and it means ‘people of the snow’).

All of the discussions, I have heard, have been about concerns regarding pipeline ruptures and what can happen on the land route. My concern is what will happen if there is a loaded oil tanker heading to sea and it hits a reef or shore or breaks up causing another Exxon Valdez.

Our family has a long history in the area. My father started fishing there in the 30’s and in 1949, at the age of 13, I went out on his seine boat. In 1957 I became a Captain of a seiner and I fished the area for over 50 years, usually from 5 -20 weeks per year. At present my son operates our family’s seiner and continues to fish this area. Our combined family’s presence in this area is over 80 years.

I have been hired by Fisheries and Oceans Canada to participate in stock assessments for salmon and herring. In 1968 we were hired by Shell Oil Company to assist in the positioning of Sedco’s drill rig in Hecate Straits.

We have spent so much time in Fisheries and Oceans Canada designated area 6 that lifelong friends – the late Alan Hall of Kitamaat and Johnny Clifton of Hartley Bay – were made. I have seen the waterfall at Butedale frozen solid, bone dry and running so hard you could not tie up your boat.

With our family’s 80 plus years of fishing in the Whale Channel area we have firsthand knowledge of tides, weather, types of fish and bird life. The area from Kitamaat to Hecate Straits is designated Area 6, by Fisheries and Oceans Canada and is the most consistent salmon producing region in British Columbia with runs in the odd and even years.

In Area 6 there is:

Within the Central coast area 128 salmon bearing streams
Kitasu Bay to McInnes Island is a major herring spawning ground
All 5 species of salmon, herring, crab, mussels, clams, abalone, prawns, eulachons, pilchards, hake, geoduck, mackerel, halibut cod, pollock, otters, eagles and many birds, plus whales and porpoises
Tides that fluctuate over 20 feet causing currents of up to 5 knots
Being a region of heavy snow and glaciers there are very strong freshets from May to the end of July
The outflow winds from Douglas Channel can be extreme during summer and winter
Weather in Hecate Straits – because of strong complex currents, waves have been recorded up to 30 metres. The highest wind gusts recorded for November, December, January, February and March is 180 -190-plus km per hour.

If a ship enters Laredo Channel from Hecate Straits at McInnes Island the tanker would have Lenard Shoal and Moody Bank at the bottom of Aristazabl Island. On the east side of Aristazabl Island there are 2 very dangerous rocks known as Wilson and Moorhouse. Campania Sound is also a very treacherous body of water from Dupont Island to Hecate Straits.

There are many rocks and to name a few, Bortwick, Cort, Ness, Evans, Cliff and Janion also Yares Shoal. This area is a minefield of reefs. These rocks are spread out between Rennison Island, Banks Island and Campania Island. This route would be extremely dangerous to tanker traffic. Using the Otter Pass route, Nepean rock becomes a very prominent problem for ships’ travel.

Should a major oil spill occur I feel an oil boom would not be able to contain it because of the velocity of the current in this area and the oil could travel 20-50 miles in one 6 hour tide. This area is not the Mediterranean or a lagoon.

If a spill occurred in Laredo Channel the herring spawning area at Kitasu Bay to Price Island could be totally destroyed, possibly forever. The eel grass which the herring need to spawn on could be wiped out. Some years over 10,000 tons of herring spawn in this area.

A spill at freshet time would be the most devastating. Due to the differences of its viscosity, salt water is heavier and would be lower and the fresh water being lighter, becomes a shallow layer at the surface. The juvenile salmon live in this fresh water layer as they migrate to sea. The juvenile salmon jump like raindrops and if they were migrating in a spill area the oil could wipe out an entire run. Some streams could become barren of salmon.

I have tried to point out, so people know, the dangers of the entire marine area and what could happen if there is ever a spill. I have spent my entire life around Princess Royal Island and the vicinity. I personally am totally opposed to the Kitamaat terminal for oil tankers.

John Brajcich and his family have been commercial fishermen on BC’s north and central coast – where oil supertankers would pass – for some eighty years.

Watershed Sentinel Reports on Enbridge Hearings, Rally in Comox

April 8, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gasDamien Gillis

Read this report from the Watershed Sentinel on last weekend’s National Energy Board hearings in Comox on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline and supertankers on BC’s coast. In addition to the consistent testimony in opposition to the plan, over 2,000 people rallied outside the hearings to say no to Enbridge. (March 31, 2012)

Speaker after speaker poured out their passionate pleas to an impassive panel at the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline hearings in Comox, BC, March 30 & 31. Some described in loving detail their ocean-side worlds and the terrible weather on the north coast. Others discussed the economics (risk versus benefit) of the 1,170 kilometre pipeline from Alberta to Kitimat BC, where the diluted bitumen would be loaded on tankers to travel the narrow passages of BC’s west coast Great Bear Rainforest. A few short-term construction jobs, no royalties, and the enormous financial and ecological risk of oil spills on land and sea, in order to provide oil to Asia do not add up for British Columbians of most walks of life.

Brian Voth, a forest worker from North Island, described the beauty of San Josef Bay: “If it was fouled by an oil spill, that would break my heart,” and concluded, “If there was an oil spill, the broken hearts would be piled higher than high.”

The reasoning was exquisite. Kathy Smail from Cortes Island pleaded: “The environment is not a stand-alone subject. As we all know, shifts in the environment alter everything around us. Our economies, our health, our social well-being, our cultures. As our earth warms and our weather changes and our propped up economic house of cards collapses, what we could have left is the safety net of a relatively intact environment that shelters and nourishes us. It is hopelessly optimistic of me to even wish for such things but I am compelled by my grandchildren, my community, and the uncertain future for all creatures to strive for this. I implore you to do whatever you are able to halt the Northern Gateway Project.”

Outside the hearing room on a chilly Saturday afternoon, over 2,200 islanders rallied, cheering, singing, and promising that their resistance and support of First Nations would be strong. They came from one end of Vancouver Island to the other, Port Hardy to Victoria, to be a part of the “Our Coast, Our Decision – No pipelines, No tankers”rally. They drummed, they cheered the dancers from the Ko’moks First Nation, they stood in awe listening to Ta’Kiaya, the 11-year-old singer from Sliammon across the water in Powell River. Their signs expressed the same range of thoughts and feelings as the speakers inside. Many protested the threat of oil spills. One sign read “Big Steve, Keep your Pipeline in your Pants.” Artists from the community had spontaneously pitched in with beautiful signage and some people unconnected to the rally organizers hung a 30-foot banner at the bridge to Comox, “No Pipelines, No Tankers”, write it here along with giant cut outs of local animals.

Video by the Peaceful Direct Action Coalition, Comox Valley, BC:

Budget 2012: At Least the War on the Environment is Going Well

April 7, 2012Canada, Climate Change, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Western CanadaBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, climate change, Enbridge, Oil and gas, Politics, Stephen HarperMark Brooks

Until this year, the purpose of the annual Canadian federal budget was to project government revenues, lay out spending priorities and forecast economic conditions for the upcoming year. Reading Budget 2012, announced last week by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, it soon becomes clear that this government has no intention of being encumbered by pedestrian fiscal objectives. The Harper government has instead opted to present what is first and foremost a policy document – one that brazenly asserts the government’s ideological agenda for the coming three years.

If the overriding economic policy goal of this government was not apparent previously, with the release of Budget 2012, there can no longer be any doubt. The Harper gang has dispensed with even the pretense of meeting its basic environmental fiduciary responsibilities in favour of the almost totally unimpeded exploitation of Canadian resources. As Green Party leader Elizabeth May told me this week, the government is effectively telling the Canadian people that they plan “to eviscerate existing laws. This isn’t really a fiscal statement. They’ve used the budget as an instrument of massive overhaul of environmental law and policy and the overriding directive is oil and gas at all costs – the environment be damned.”

Should you happen to belong to the unlucky (and clearly misguided) lot with the audacity to be concerned about the proposed Enbridge and Kinder Morgan pipelines, this is not a budget for you. In fact, perhaps the best we can say about Budget 2012 is, as Rafe Mair put it, at least “we now have it in writing what the bastards are up to!”

Just how bad is it? Well, don’t take my word for it. Last week on CBC, the respected columnist Chantale Hebert of the Toronto Star, hardly an eco-zealot, said this was the most anti-environment budget she had seen in her 20 years covering Parliament Hill. Even the very moderate, if not conservative, editorial board of the Globe and Mail singled out the environmental provisions in the Budget saying “The Conservatives are continuing their dishonourable attack meant to intimidate environmental groups, in a budget item that stands out for adding a needless new cost.”

Steven Guilbeault of the NGO Équiterre said that the budget “seems to have been written for, and even by, big oil interests…the Harper government is gutting the environmental protections that Canadians have depended on for decades to safeguard our families and nature from pollution, toxic contamination and other environmental problems.” And true to form, reaction from oil and gas companies, mining and pipeline companies has been predictably jubilant.

So just what does the Harper government plan to do? First, in what appears to be a return to the glory days of McCarthyism, the Harper gang plans to launch an $8 million campaign at Revenue Canada to investigate and crack down on environmental groups that the government deems are engaged in activities that are too political, including the extent to which these groups are funded by foreign sources.

There is no new funding for climate change programs. In fact the words climate change are mentioned only twice in passing in the entire 498 page budget plan .

The Conservatives will eliminate the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, which was a panel of business and environmental leaders who made policy recommendations on a variety of sustainability issues. A widely respected, non-partisan agency, the Roundtable was founded by the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney in 1988. Its reports of late, however, had annoyed the government as they were mildly critical of their plans to achieve its stated objective of reducing Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. The result? The Harper government has killed them.

Environment Canada’s budget is being cut again, this time by 6%, along with grants for scientific research in universities.The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (or CEAA) is in line for a 40 per cent cut. Touting a ‘one project, one review’ principle, CEAA will be overhauled with federal responsibilities being downloaded on provinces; newly imposed timelines, and a limiting of the scope of reviews. Joint panel environmental reviews are to be limited to 24 months, National Energy Board hearings to 18 months and standard environmental assessments to one year. All this will be imposed retroactively, thereby impacting reviews, such as Northern Gateway, that are currently underway. The changes could jeopardize the capacity of people to participate in reviews and it further undermines the ultimate goal of reviews in ensuring environmental protection is a priority in all projects.

The budget does not renew funding for the popular EcoENERGY energy efficiency program. Minimal tax support will be given to ‘clean energy’ and energy efficiency, but only to the tune of $2 million – a tiny drop in the bucket in a multi-billion dollar budget.

Finally, some changes are planned for subsidies to the oil and gas industry on Canada’s East coast but tar sands subsidies remain untouched. Currently, $1.38 billion a year is allocated to energy development through subsidies.

Although not specifically mentioned in the Budget plan, the government is also widely suspected to be planning to gut key conservation provisions of Canada’s Fisheries Act, the nation’s most significant and oldest piece of environmental legislation. The Aboriginal People’s Television Network has also learned that that the Harper Conservatives are changing Canada’s mining regulations so that prospecting companies could soon have free-reign on reserve lands.

So what to make of all this? If the stakes weren’t so high, we may otherwise see this Budget as an unfortunate aberration, a government that clearly has an axe to grind or some kind of vendetta against environmental groups. Yet it’s important to appreciate the significance of what the Harper gang is trying to accomplish: namely, to clear the way for resource development projects that will not easily be undone. The environmental legacy of this government will be felt for a long time to come if they are permitted to implement their agenda unimpeded.

A prestigious conference was held last week, at which some of the world’s leading scientists and academics called for the official designation of a new earth epoch: the Anthropocene. Addressing the ‘Planet under Pressure’ gathering in London, England, scientists said that one species has left an indelible mark through climate change, dwindling fish stocks, continued deforestation, rapid species decline, and human population growth. Anthony Giddens, the British political scientist known for his holistic view of societies, described the Anthopocene as a “runaway world” in which we have unleashed processes more powerful than our attempts to control them.

It is against this dismal backdrop that our federal politicians have unleashed the anti-environmental provisions of Budget 2012 upon the Canadian people. I’ve recently been seeing a bumper sticker that captures quite nicely the priorities of our current federal government: “At least the war on the environment is going well.”

Respecting the Power of the Sea – Testimony From Enbridge Hearings in Bella Bella

April 6, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Tar Sands, Western CanadaAlberta Tar Sands, BC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gas, Politics, VideoDamien Gillis

Highlights from this week’s National Energy Board hearings in Bella Bella on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline and supertankers on BC’s coast. Powerful testimony from three members of the Heiltsuk First Nation, sharing their experiences with the sea. “I’ll never forget it,” said Josh Vickers recounting to the NEB panel a memorable herring fishing trip as a boy. “We were coming back in 40 to 50 foot seas…Our boats were like corks going way up and way down. We couldn’t even see each other – that’s how violent and rough the sea was.”

Watch Global TV story on Bella Bella Enbridge Hearings

April 5, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gas, VideoDamien Gillis

Watch this video news story from Global TV on this week’s National Energy Board hearings on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline in Bella Bella – with footage by Damien Giilis. (April 3, 2012)

http://www.globaltvbc.com/video/enbridge+hearings+resume/video.html?v=2219206168&p=1&s=dd#news+hour+final