Check out this story from CBC’s The National on the recent controversy over the scheduled National Energy Board Enbridge hearings in Bella Bella – featuring footage shot by Damien Gillis. (April 2, 1021)
Watch video: http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/TV_Shows/The_National/1233408557/ID=2218694750
The Heiltsuk First Nation learned late Monday that scheduled National Energy Board hearings on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline will resume Tuesday in Bella Bella, following their cancellation Monday in the wake of a peaceful demonstration to which the Joint Review Panel overreacted. Heiltsuk Chief Marilyn Slett is, however, concerned that the panel will not be adding extra hearing days to make up for Monday’s lost testimony time. Meanwhile, students from the community embarked on a hunger strike to protest proposed oil supertankers which threaten their traditional marine food resources.
Read this report from CBC on the National Energy Board’s decision to cancel the first day of the Joint Panel Review hearings on Enbridge in Bella Bella after the panel was greeted by a demonstration at the local airport – featuring images and commentary by Damien Gillis. (April 2, 2012)
A public hearing for the Northern Gateway Project has been unexpectedly cancelled after panel members were met by protesters at the Bella Bella airport in B.C. on Sunday afternoon.
The review panel was scheduled to hold four days of hearing in the remote community to gather local concerns about the controversial proposal to build a crude oil pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast.
A large crowd greeted the panel members when they arrived in Bella Bella, but later on Sunday afternoon, Monday’s hearing was cancelled. Some high school students in the community reportedly began a 48-hour hunger strike after the panel arrived.
Heiltsuk First Nation Chief Marilynn Slett told a community meeting that the review panel had sent a notice that it would not be proceeding with the sessions because of security concerns.
“It was their perception that it wasn’t a very secure or safe environment,” Slett told CBC News on Monday morning.
But Slett says the protest and the community are peaceful…
…Documentary filmmaker and environmental activist Damien Gillis said the protesters were not threatening anyone.
“The RCMP was in attendance, I’ve spoken to the detachment commander. They are baffled at this reaction. They didn’t observe anything unlawful or remotely threatening.”
North Coast NDP MLA Gary Coons arrived on the plane with the panel members and said all he witnessed was a peaceful gathering.
“It is insulting to the Heiltsuk community and those that were there that they would feel that way. The members of the joint review panel have been welcomed in respectful ways to every First Nations community that they have gone to and this would be no different.” said Coons.
Both Coons and Slett are hopeful a meeting with panel members on Monday morning will help resolve panel’s concerns and get the public hearings back on track.
Read full article and listen to audio clip: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/04/02/bc-bella-bella-gateway-hearing.html
Read this story form the Hill Times on the Harper Government’s intention laid out in its recent budget bill to go after charities who are critical of its oil and resource development plans. (March 29, 2012)
PARLIAMENT HILL—Opposition MPs say a surprise allegation in the federal budget that Canadian charities are violating federal rules limiting their political advocacy is retribution for widespread opposition from environmental groups to the massive Northern Gateway oil sands pipeline across British Columbia.
The obscure provision in the budget Thursday to beef up the Canada Revenue Agency’s “enforcement tools” to monitor political activities of charities demonstrates the partisan nature of the Conservative government, opposition MPs said.
NDP MP Megan Leslie (Halifax, N.S.) told The Hill Times the measure is one of several provisions that show the budget, aside from its main thrust of public service spending cuts, is all “pipeline, pipeline, pipeline.”
“The over-arching theme here is this is a budget for the great pipeline to China,” Ms. Leslie said. “This is about pipelines, pipelines, pipelines, and at any cost.”
“Whether it is going after charities, who might have a different opinion, cutting the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy and cutting Environment Canada and not relying on science and evidence, or whether it’s going after the Environmental Assessment Act and weakening it, that’s what this budget says to me, it’s all about pipelines,” Ms. Leslie said.
The reference to political activities of charities was a needle in the haystack of the budget’s total $5.2-billion in broad spending cuts the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) is proposing for the next three years, with a projection that the spending reductions, combined with other economic forecasts, will result in a surplus by 2015, the next federal election year.
But the measure was so unexpected at the traditional pre-budget lockup for journalists that Reuters news correspondent David Ljunggren asked Finance Minister Jim Flaherty (Whitby Oshawa, Ont.) about it at a news conference before Mr. Flaherty tabled the budget in the Commons, asking Mr. Flaherty why the budget was putting the “tax police” on charities.
“We’re not making any changes in the rules relating to charities, we are providing some resources, some additional resources for enforcement of the rules by the Canada Revenue Agency,” Mr. Flaherty said.
“Quite frankly, we’ve had a lot of complaints and concerns expressed by Canadians that when they give money to charities they expect the money to be used for the charities purposes, not for political or other purposes,” he said.
“This not black and white, because the Canada Revenue Agency permits a small percentage of dollars to be used for advocacy and other purposes, but there is clearly a need, in our view, for more vigilance, that charities obey the rules as they are now,” Mr. Flaherty said.
The main budget document noted charities are allowed to engage in political activities, centered primarily on advocacy, as long as the activities are related to their charitable goals and represent a limited portion of their resources—no more than 10 per cent for larger charities.
Watch this new CTV First Story investigation of the debate over the proposes Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, “Crude Awakening.” The 23 min documentary examines the conflicts within coastal communities over the promises of jobs from the pipeline vs. the very real threat of an oil spill disaster.
Watch “Crude Awakening”: http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20120321/bc_ctv_first_story_1404_crude_awakening_120322/20120325?hub=BritishColumbiaHome
The resignation of John Van Dongen from the Liberal caucus to become an instant one-man Conservative caucus has, for me at any rate, put the focus on John Cummins.
Let’s look at Mr Cummins’ record and positions.
Mr. Cummins’ claim to fame is his integrity – his record of standing up for BC and his constituency in the House of Commons and paying for this integrity by permanently putting himself offside with Stephen Harper thus disqualifying himself from cabinet.
What was the issue that came up time after time in Cummins’ parliamentary career?
No prize for saying BC’s wild salmon. He flouted the law in the cause, risking jail. He fought against First Nations accusing them of illegal fishing. Whenever the subject of BC salmon was raised you would find John Cummins fighting for the symbol and very soul of our province – our wild salmon. I shared platforms at protests with him. On the question of fish farms Cummins stated that there were serious problems that had to be addressed.
This raises two questions – the first was raised by Charlie Smith in the Georgia Straight in the March 27 edition which I sent in a mail-out and is posted on Facebook, namely, how does Mr. Cummins welcome to his new caucus a man who was so steadfast in his defence of fish farmers he even warned them when the enforcement officers were coming and had to resign in consequence?
Is that the Cummins integrity we hear so much about?
I go further, why didn’t either Cummins or Van Dongen deal publicly with this apparent major conflict on a huge issue – why was it left to Smith?
This is small potatoes and will no doubt be brushed aside by noting that fish farms are now a federal matter.
Let’s go to the main issue that will keep Cummins contained within the boundaries of the far right – the Enbridge pipeline and the consequent tanker traffic down our beautiful yet extremely hazardous coast as well as through Vancouver.
Some questions for Mr Cummins:
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:
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.
On the question of damage Mr Brajcich says:
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.
Do you accept that evidence, Mr. Cummins? If not, where do you quarrel with your fellow commercial fisherman’s evidence?
Let me be blunt.
With the forgoing, how can you possibly support the Enbridge pipeline and tanker traffic of more than 200 per year out of the port of Kitimat?
How can you possibly expect the public of BC to vote for a man and a party that approves the certainty of massive damage to our beautiful wilderness accompanied by huge, irreparable damage to our coast and destruction of hundreds of thousands of BC wild salmon – likely permanently.
Let me tell you this, Mr. Cummins – you are a man I’ve long admired for the courageous stands you have taken on the preserving and enhancing of our BC salmon.
But that’s before you looked just like the political phoneys you used to fight so hard when you had a halo.
Eleven year-old Ta’Kaiya Blaney of the Sliammon First Nation sings her hit song “Shallow Waters” to some 2,000 people outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. She tells the audience one year ago on this day she was chased from Enbridge’s Vancouver office when she tried to present her song to company officials.
World renowned climate activist Bill McKibben of 350.org lent his voice to the “Our Coast, Our Decision” rally in Vancouver Monday. McKibben told the crowd of close to 2,000 outside the Vancouver Art Gallery, “This is one of these great moments in human history and you guys are absolutely at the white, hot centre of it.”
Listen to this interview of Damien Gillis by CKNW’s Simi Sara on recent revelations that so-called run of the river projects are killing fish. The two also discuss Provincial Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Steve Thomson’s appearance on Sara’s show this past Friday and the complete lack of penalties or enforcement by either DFO or the Province on these blatant violations by several private power operators. They also touch on the Harper government’s plan to gut the Fisheries Act and how that benefits Enbridge and the private power industry. (March 20- 12 min)
With all the recent controversies and media attention surrounding the proposed Northern Gateway and Keystone XL pipelines, you would not be remiss in thinking that these are the only projects currently being considered to get tar sands crude to foreign markets. But you would be wrong.
It seems the Canadian government is quite serious about plans to triple production of tar sands bitumen and would not be satisfied even if they were somehow able to bulldoze public opposition to Keystone and Gateway. Although the project has not been officially confirmed, plans are in the works to pump bitumen from northern Alberta through Montreal to the Atlantic coast city of Portland, Maine, where tankers would then transport about 200,000 barrels a day of the heavy crude to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries and foreign markets.
This so-called Trailbreaker project would appear to present fewer regulatory obstacles, as it would not require construction of a new pipeline. Instead, the flow of the existing Portland-Montreal pipeline, which currently brings oil from Africa and the Middle East into eastern Canada, would simply be reversed.
According to the Portland Daily Sun, David Cyr, treasurer of the Portland Montreal Pipeline Company, is on the record recently as saying, “We do not have an active project…in terms of bringing western Canadian crude here.” While it may well be true that there is no “active” project, Cyr’s comments hardly amount to a rigorous denial and they fly in the face of active rumours I have been hearing out of Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
Indeed, as recently as last summer Mr. Cyr was quoted in The Globe and Mail as saying, “We’re still very much interested in reversing the flow of one of our two pipelines to move western Canadian crude to the eastern seaboard. We’re having discussions with Enbridge on their Line 9 and what it means to us.” Moreover, other insider industry sources have previously confirmed that discussions are underway to expand the Enbridge proposal to carry tar sands bitumen to the Atlantic.
Enbridge, the company behind both Trailbreaker and Northern Gateway, has already requested fast-track approval from the National Energy Board of their $16.9 million plan to reverse the flow of tar sands crude from western Canada to Montreal. Yet according to Dylan Voorhees, Clean Energy Director of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, this is merely phase one of a plan that would then be followed by a reversal of the Portland Montreal Pipeline. The NRC believes that by splitting the project into pieces, Enbridge is attempting to bypass full regulatory and public scrutiny.
Enbridge had secured permission in 2010 from the Quebec Commission for the Protection of Agricultural Land to build a pumping station near the town of Dunham, Quebec. Just last month, however, the environmental group Equiterre and a citizen from Dunham won a Quebec Court ruling by arguing successfully that the issues surrounding the pumping station were not fully aired at the commission. This ruling would appear to stall, for the time being, an attempt to ship oil from Montreal to Portland.
The NRC recently joined three other environmental groups in Portland to educate the public on the dangers of transporting tar sands bitumen. “The larger context is that there’s a large effort of getting tar sands crude oil out of Canada,” said Voorhees. “It doesn’t seem prudent on us to wait until there’s an application to start learning about this because it’s very clearly on the radar.”