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Mair & Gillis Take Back Our BC in Port Alberni Feb 19

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From the Alberni Valley Times – Feb 1, 2011

On what is being called a Townhall Tour for Common Sense Canadians,
Rafe Mair and Damien Gillis will visit Port Alberni to help educate
residents on issues faced by the province.

Mair and Gillis are
the founders of the popular new online journal, The Common Sense
Canadian – a voice for the public and environment.

Salmon,
rivers, oil tankers, democracy and the local Raven Coal mine and port
proposal are the subjects of the rousing tour Gillis and Mair are
making across B.C.

As a part of this tour of some 30 communities around the province,
Mair and Gillis are coming to the Alberni District Secondary School
auditorium on Saturday, Feb. 19 from 1 to 3 p.m.

They will be
joined by local host Stacey Gaiga of Coal Free Alberni and guest
speaker CoalWatch president John Snyder, with an update on the proposed
Rave Coal mine issue and actions citizens can take to help put a stop
to it.

The two-hour town hall event will feature Mair’s new short
documentary on the proposed Enbridge pipeline to B.C.’s North Coast,
“Oil in Eden,” and a key-note speech by Mair, plus the opportunity for
the audience to ask questions and discuss these issues with our
speakers.

The tour is designed to inform and empower British Columbians, while growing The Common Sense Canadian.

For
more information, please contact Stacey Gaiga at 250-723-1243 or by
e-mailing staceygaiga@shaw.ca. There is also a Facebook group, “Take
Back Our B.C.: Rafe Mair & Coal Port!”

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Pinocchio Campbell - detail of Common Sense Canadian cartoon by Gerry Hummel

BC Liberals’ Four Big Lies & Why the Media Ignore Them

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From my present vantage point a very long way from home the news briefs and emails I receive are very disturbing. It seems pretty clear that the next premier will bear no scars from his/her involvement with the Campbell administration. Indeed, it almost seems as if the media are already looking back at the Campbell times with a melancholy longing for those great days.

One expects that sort of rubbish from the Liberal Party itself, but from the media?

In due course, before the new leader is nominated, there will be a big banquet for Campbell as if he deserved honour instead of contempt. He will be the man that brought the economy back from those bad old days of socialism and marshaled our resources, blah, blah, blah…

As has been well said, one is entitled to one’s own opinion but not to one’s own set of facts.

Let me try using the truth, leaving the benefits of policy open to everyone’s own opinion. I say to you, however, that on four material issues – issues that go, as the lawyers say, to the root of the matter – the government, either through ministers or the Premier himself, lied. I know that’s a harsh word but how else can one describe falsehoods in the face of clear evidence to the contrary?

Let’s start with BC Rail. The lies are firmly on the record. Campbell, in the 1996 election, to try and save his electoral bacon, promised not to privatize BC Rail. He made the same solemn vow when he was elected in 2000. Not only did he lie, the deal does not, to say the very least, pass the smell test.

Now let’s look at the Campbell lies during the 2009 election about the financial affairs of the province. By almost every reckoning the figure is much higher, but out of caution, the difference in the state of affairs between the 2009 budget and the reality was at least $1 billion and both his toady Finance Minister, Colin Hansen, and the Premier stated that they didn’t have any idea that such was the real state of the province’s finances during the election when they were telling the voters that they were superb trustees of the public purse. This is as impossible to believe as any little boy who’s stolen a candy bar and, with chocolate all over his face, denies it. If the Deputy Finance Minister and his crew of able economists did not know by the time of the 2009 budget that the province was in trouble big time they should all have been sacked. Never mind the subtleties, a look at tax figures, which are readily available on a current basis, would have set alarm bells ringing. I know that from personal experience when my colleague, Finance Minister Hugh Curtis, correctly predicted a year or more in advance the recession of the early 1980s and demonstrated to Cabinet the evidence, which was not rocket science.

The lies by toady Hansen and Pinocchio Campbell on the HST scarcely need repeating. The evidence that they had decided to implement the HST long before they were denying it on the hustings is blatant.

Campbell and Hansen have also lied through their teeth on the broad issues of energy and the environment. I think one reason these bastards are getting away with it is because the series of falsehoods is so egregiously corrupt that normal people have trouble believing it.

Many environmentalists, closer to issues than I, have spoken out on the assault on the Agricultural Land Reserve, the desecration of wilderness, and consequent massive assaults on the atmosphere. Donna Passmore has been tireless and we can only thank providence that she and others like her have their health and dedication.

Rex Weyler, one of the most respected environmentalists on earth is leading a fight against Tar Sands Oil being piped to our South Coast into supertankers. A punctured pipeline or wrecked tankers are not acceptable “risks” – they’re not “risks” at all, in fact, but mathematical certainties. Rex has the full support of The Common Sense Canadian on this front. Our allies on the North and Central Coast, such as the tireless Ian McAllister, are waging a similar battle against the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline from the Tar Sands to Kitimat.

I have no idea how Alexandra Morton keeps going as she fights huge international corporations, both senior governments and an industry that spends millions on sugar-coated lies as she carries on her fight to save our precious salmon from destruction from the impacts of lice and disease infected fish farms. We at The Common Sense Canadian have fought shoulder to shoulder with Alex and the fight goes on.

How to begin the defence of our rivers and the saving of BC Hydro?

Colin Hansen is a good place to start. A particularly telling interview of his is still online.

This is the senior cabinet minister we’re dealing with and every statement he makes in this 1:51 interview is false – I would accuse him of lying but I don’t want to deprive him of the defence of being a damned, easily led fool.

He tells us BC is a net importer of power – we aren’t. Sometimes BC Hydro imports power from its neighbours in Alberta and Washington State, only to sell it back to them at a profit soon thereafter. The fact is that BC is as a rule a net exporter of power. Hansen claims private power plants are little operations that don’t impede the flow the river – it’s “run of the river”. I’m tempted to call this one as it is, a goddamned lie!

These are small sort of Mom and Pop undertakings! Right, Colin, like General Electric, Ledcor and the Dupont family!

This private power will help BC be energy self-sufficient. Honestly, folks, it’s getting very hard to keep my pledge! The short answer to this is that private power is for the most part generated during the Spring run-off when there is sufficient water for them to produce. This is precisely the time BC Hydro doesn’t need power yet they must take it anyway under the agreements they’ve been forced to sign.

Here’s the skinny. BC Hydro must take private power on a “take or pay” basis, meaning it must pay for power it doesn’t need. Now here comes the neat part – the price BC Hydro must pay is 2-3 times what it can export it for! Or about 12 times what it costs them to make it themselves!

I must move on but here’s a little cherry for your martini. Traditionally BC Hydro has paid a dividend to our government to build hospitals, schools and so on. Now they will have no profit so no dividend because all the profits are going to large corporations. Now, even of you still believe the Campbell/Hansen bullshit – try this. BC Hydro has applied for a rate increase, out of your hides so they can give some of it back to you by way of that dividend!

Why has all this happened? God knows – so does Wendy! – how often I’ve asked myself that question. It’s sheer madness! No man or government would do this to their province, would they?

Only one answer makes sense – political philosophy can account for this. This is Milton Friedman stuff. It’s Fraser Institute holy writ! (Fazil Milhar, former senior fellow of The Fraser Institute is the Editor of the editorial page of the Vancouver Sun, which may help us understand the media’s role in this).

It’s Bilderberger, Davos stuff. It’s the New Order, Corporate World. It has nothing whatever to do with the good of the people. The same people bundling sub-prime mortgages, going broke, taking government handouts then paying themselves million dollar bonuses are running things all over the world.

Re-read or read for the first time Thomas Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree which explains what has happened and did it before it happened.

We have only one chance left – we must throw this government out at the earliest opportunity! No ifs, ands, or buts – this rotten bunch has to go.

It will be tough because they have a strategy – don’t answer any questions by The Common Sense Canadian, Donna Passmore, Rex Weyler, Alex Morton, The Wilderness Committee. Ignore them as if they didn’t exist! Fight the next election on other issues and remember that the folks in the media who used to ask tough questions aren’t asking them any more. Read Vaughn Palmer, Mike Smyth, listen to Bill Good or Christy Clark and tell me when over the past decade any of them covering BC affairs as an editorialist have truly held the government’s feet to the fire on the issues I’ve raised here.

There are only two answers – either all the fighters I’ve mentioned are full of crap, or the fix is in.

The next British Columbia electorate will decide, and for a very long time, whether the province is to be run by corrupt corporate boards with a bought-and-paid-for government or by us.

 

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Why Christy Clark Sees no Need for Railgate Inquiry

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There’s the old saw, “if a husband sends his wife flowers for no reason, there’s a reason.” So be it with the BC Rail scandal – if Christy Clark, Deputy Premier at the time of the “negotiations,” or “fix,” choose to suit, sees no reason for a full-fledged investigation into the mess, there’s a reason. The same applies to the other candidates for Liberal leader who were in cabinet at the time.

The reason an investigation must take place is to see if there was a crime, or more than one crime committed. I do not say that there was criminal activity, besides those of ministerial aides – but to discover the truth is critical so that if there was a crime it is disclosed and disposed of, and to remove the stain of suspicion that presently exists and may or may not be unfair.

Take for example this salient fact that arose out of the Basi-Virk case – two men close to a minister and reporting to him have admitted that they committed a crime. The logical question to arrive at is simple: if these aides committed crimes while doing work on a minister’s instruction, did that minister commit a crime?

The minister, of course, was Gary Collins, then Minister of Finance. Mr. Collins was not given the opportunity to clear his name because Crown Counsel, Bill Berardino, QC, settled the case on the eve of Mr. Collins’ appearance on the witness stand. Presumably Mr. Collins was on the list of ministers for a reason and one can assume that the Crown didn’t want him to demonstrate the innocence of the two accused.

You will remember the Sherlock Holmes story where he mentions to Watson about the dog barking at the scene and when Watson says, “but Holmes, no dog barked,” and Holmes replies, “Quite. Why didn’t the dog bark?” One can apply this to Gary Collins. For several years, whenever BC Rail was mentioned, Mr. Collins’ name came into the conversation as the minister responsible. Why did he never deal with the suggestions that he may have been up to no good? Isn’t that what you would do in his place?

And, when Mr. Collins was spared the witness box, why wouldn’t he then make it clear that he personally was clean, even though his employees weren’t. Isn’t that the natural thing to do? Isn’t that what you would do?

The same applies to the Premier, who was scheduled to give evidence after Mr. Collins. He might be forgiven for refusing to talk earlier – though I don’t see why – but surely he owes it to his colleagues, his supporters and, yes, the public to demonstrate that he’s not, well, a crook.

Cabinet has been silent. I don’t listen to kissy-ass radio so I’m not sure what Ms. Clark has said, but I’m advised that this has not been a big time topic on her show (though I am told her replacement Mike Smyth is taking up the issue and has given his predecessor a thorough grilling in her old time slot).

The media has a huge amount to answer for. People like me can do editorials based upon suspicions, but we have no large newspapers, TV, or radio stations to do investigations for us. I ask the columnists in this province if they applied the same standards of accountability to the Campbell government as they did to the NDP governments of the nineties. I don’t expect any answer much less an honest one.

The sale of BC Hydro in itself was a disgrace. The dream of WAC Bennett that we the citizens would get ferry service even though our community was too small to make a profit, rail service to open up the province, postponing profit, and a power company that would provide cheap power domestically and industrially has been shattered by this government.

The very least the public can expect is that these rotten decisions were made and administered honestly.

BC Rail simply doesn’t pass the smell test.

There must be a royal commission and one suspects that the politicians who resist the notion because there is no reason to, like the husband, don’t want us to put that decision to the test.

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An open net fish farm in BC's Broughton Archipelago

Making the Environment a Key Political Issue in 2011

Canada, Energy and Resources, Politics, Tar Sands, Western Canada, , ,
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A new year and I enter the last year of my youth – I just celebrated the 40th anniversary of my 39th birthday. This is the year for my first great grandchild – a daughter will be born to my grandson Ty and his lovely wife Rhea in April. And it has all seemed to happen so fast.

This year will be a very important one for us who love our province and want it to be saved from those who, in Oscar Wilde’s words, “know the price of everything and the value of nothing”.

Why is this such a special year?

Because it’s one that will be chock-a-block with electioneering as the two major parties in BC select new leaders, we see if a third middle party may emerge, and the feds almost certainly will have an election.

We have a critical job to do – and an unusual one.

Let me explain.

Until recent times, the public could rely upon the media to present them not only with issues but points of view surrounding these issues. There was always a debate going on and there was a reasonably informed voting public. Since 2001, when the Campbell government took over, the media have been, for one reason or another, defanged pussy cats. You only have to look back at the great work Vaughn Palmer did on NDP Premier Glen Clark’s “fast ferries” issue to see how a public could be informed very much against the wishes of the government. The NDP government of the day pulled out all the stops and had people like me, in the media, pressed to come and see these magnificent vessels that so clearly were the wrong boats for the waters they were to ply. All to no avail – not just because of Palmer but because the full media coverage made it a large and legitimate issue.

It was scarcely just fast ferries – the media made the government’s life miserable, which is what they did to the government I was in. And they were right to do so.

Of course there were excesses – that’s what democracies are all about. That’s the premium we pay for free speech.

Since 2001, the government has got away with whatever they wished to do and in 2009 we saw what that meant – a 50% turnout at the polls. And what should have been a huge issue – the environment in general and a disgraceful handling of fish farms, highways, and rivers in particular – simply wasn’t because these issues didn’t seem to be real. How could they be real when Tony, Vaughn, Mike, and especially Christy didn’t talk about them? How could they be issues when the opposition who followed the poll numbers instead of making them hadn’t the foggiest idea what was going on and campaigned in slogans, as so long has been their wont? I campaigned around the province for the NDP – not, for God’s sake, because I had become an adherent to that party but because I wanted to see the environment saved and they were the only possible alternative to the Liberals.

Most NDP stalwarts will now agree with me that their campaign, especially on the environmental issues, was appalling. We, the members of the voting public now have the solemn obligation of making sure that this doesn’t happen again.

The “environment” isn’t a non-issue because it isn’t an issue, but because both political parties, for one reason or another, haven’t made it one. In other words, it’s like the tree in the forest – if no one’s there to listen, there’s no noise when it falls.

As many of you know, I’ve been asking people to pass on that which I circulate and other stuff that comes to my attention. While I believe that what I say is right, that scarcely makes me right. What I do say with more confidence is that it is an important part of the debate that ought to be. And this is what we must, in my opinion, concentrate on – namely making the environment not just a real issue but one which will decide the government at election time.

Forgive my repetition on this point but if a government screws up the economy, a new government with time can make it better. What we cannot ever do is get back our rivers, our fish, or our farmland once destroyed.

Please, then, for the sake of those to come, get behind us at The Common Sense Canadian and help us make the environment the #1 issue such that political parties no longer can avoid.

Let me close by telling you one of the reasons we call ourselves “The Common Sense Canadian.”

Both Damien and I, the founders, are huge fans of Thomas Paine, the failed customs official from England who was both catalyst and chronicler of the American Revolution, starting with his blockbuster bestselling pamphlet called Common Sense.

With this and other pamphlets, he circumvented the censorship of the aristocracy and reached the “common man.” Google it and read it yourself – it makes damned good reading today.

With TheCanadian.org, we are trying to follow Tom Paine’s example. For 2011, please resolve to help us do that – by sharing our work with others and getting involved in your own way in these vital issues.

I have full confidence that if the public of BC is fully informed on the issues at hand, we shall see justice and common sense prevail.

Happy New Year!

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Where We Stand on BC Politics & The Environment

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Our readers should know the position of The Common Sense Canadian. In a word, the environment is the #1 issue before the people of British Columbia, indeed the world. If we lose our farmland, our precious salmon, and our rivers, what’s left?

Money?

How do you make money out of farms that aren’t there any more so you have to import your food?

How do make money out of salmon that are killed by lice from fish farms? Especially when all the profit goes out of province, mostly to Norway?

How do you make money destroying rivers and the delicate ecosystems they’re part of, to make power we don’t need, especially when we subsidize out-of-province companies who take all the profits and much more elsewhere?

How do you make money with a pipeline with someone else’s oil-or black sludge as The Tar sands produce – across delicate wildlife habitat, 1000+ rivers streams and agricultural land when a rupture would wreak incalculable damage-knowing that the pipeline company, Enbridge, is notorious for its negligence?

How do we profit from exposing our delicate coast to tankers carrying this stuff? Have we learned nothing from the Exxon Valdez?

And where’s the profit in taking a huge ever-increasing risk in piping oil to Burnaby to be taken thence, through the two dangerous narrows in Vancouver harbour out through the Salish Sea and through the treacherous Juan de Fuca?

There is no amount of money in the world that makes these risks, indeed certainties, worthwhile.

We stand firmly for help to the disadvantaged, improved healthcare, aid to the homeless, and better education-but how can we do that if we have to import more and more of our food?-if we toss away not only the commercial sale of fish but the significant domestic and tourist use of that resource?-if we subsidize foreign companies to provide electricity for themselves, bankrupting our jewel, BC Hydro, in the bargain?

The long and the short of it is we cannot prosper by wiping out our natural resources-in fact we commit fiscal suicide and abandon our children’s heritage.

This means that The Common Sense Canadian will support candidates or parties based not on their political philosophy, but on their commitment to saving our environment-not just because it’s beautiful but because to do otherwise is fiscal madness.

Does a labourer, a small business person, someone in need, the sick, the elderly, the unemployed-or even the well off for that matter-win if the party they support ruins our environment?

No matter how smart you are with money, you can never make up fiscally or spiritually for the loss of the environment.

It’s not too soon to be looking ahead to the May 2013 election. We at The Common Sense Canadian are already campaigning and will do so full time until the election.

In the next few months we’ll learn a lot about who is going to be promising what.

With the Liberals it’s hard to see who can pull them out of their political quicksand. Will Carole Taylor be dragooned into seeking the leadership? Will it be Christy Clark? Mike DeJong? Kevin Falcon? George Abbott? An unknown?

Carole Taylor can’t escape responsibility for the disastrous Liberal policy towards farmland, fish farms, and energy. She would have to make pledges that would cost her support from industry and Ms. Taylor knows something about money matters and that you don’t get campaign funds unless you’re prepared to pay the piper.

Christy Clark is more to blame than Ms. Taylor, for she, after all, has had three years with her own talk show to support our environment before a large, daily audience. Rather than holding the Campbell government accountable, she has uncritically supported her old cronies the Liberal Party to which she’s joined at the hip. As for all other cabinet ministers, they, too, supported the utter desecration of our environment for the profit of their political friends.

The NDP is in the process of devouring each other but then it’s always been a nest of adders that rarely sheath their fangs. Even at the testimonial to Dave Barrett last Saturday you could sense the unsettled conditions. The question in the NDP, in case you’ve been on Mars for the past couple of years, is whether or not Carole James can win. It never seems to dawn on them that she might lose because they can’t get their act together.

The Carole James I saw in her press conference last week when she took the best the media could throw at
her and batted pitch after pitch out of the park, showed toughness not much seen before. It was the same at the tribute for Barrett-she didn’t beat about the bush and made it clear that she was in the fight to stay.

If she can maintain that steely determination and get her venomous adders targeted on Liberals rather than themselves, she could be tough to beat.

There are deep rumblings of a third party to take the place of the old Socreds, a party which under the Bennetts, père et fils, staked out the middle ground where most of the people of BC are politically. If it happens, it will badly hurt the Liberals by capturing the “centre” (abandoned by Campbell), while helping the Conservatives to steal their “right wing” support. The two we hear most about are Gordon Wilson and Chris Delaney, both decent men with an excellent grasp on issues-the edge perhaps going to
Wilson because of his electoral and cabinet experience.

What then does The Common Sense Canadian look to?

Four things:

1. A re-commitment to protecting
farmland, a “commitment that commits them to keep to their
commitment”.
2. A closure of all fish farms in
our oceans especially near routes of migrating Pacific salmon while encouraging
dry land operations.
3. A commitment to keep our precious coast free of Tar Sands oil supertankers from the proposed Enbridge pipeline and Kinder-Morgan expansion

4. A commitment to end all
licensing of private power construction, PLUS-and this is critical-making
public all private power contracts in existence, coupled with a flat refusal to
honour any which are unconscionable.

Carole James has shown a lamentable reluctance to pledge this in the name of “sanctity of contract” and
no doubt out of fear of losing support from business.

We put it to her and other political hopefuls this way: suppose you were running for mayor in a town run by a “Boss Tweed” on a ticket of cleaning up the city. If you won would you continue the unconscionable deals the old council had made with the mayor’s brother-in-law and other cronies which screamed of lining the pockets of friends and supporters? Of course not!

These private power contracts can’t pass the “smell test”-can they pass the “unconscionable” test?

How can it be conscionable to force our own power company, BC Hydro, to buy power that they don’t need, meaning that they must either sell it at a 50%+ loss or use it at 12 times the price they can make it themselves?

Surely these private power so called “contracts” must be made public so that we can see just what Campbell & Co. did, and if they’re unconscionably unfair to the public, be able to rescind them.

We always hear from the corporate giants that if we as a province don’t honour contracts with foreign investors, they won’t come to BC.

Really? Are they saying we should, in order to have their business, let them fleece the taxpayers? Is it their
position that crooks are welcome?

No one is saying that if the private companies simply got a better deal than we would have made that they should be rescinded. But if, as we suspect, BC Hydro is forced to buy power at twice or more what it’s worth, or 12 times as costly as Hydro can make it for itself, does this mean we can’t state the obvious, namely that we were cheated?

Shouldn’t any companies wanting to do business in BC know, right up front, that we will not put up with any more
“sweetheart deals” made by corrupt governments?

Surely even the Fraser Institute, that rightwing “think” tank whose advice Campbell uncritically
accepts, would agree that these contracts should see the light of day, and surely the captains of industry don’t beleive that anyone, a person, a company, or a crown corporation, should be bound by an unconscionable contract
forced upon them.

If these private energy deals are like those given to “Boss Tweed’s” brother-in-law, would any decent person of whatever political stripe or walk of life say that a new, honest government must bankrupt its prize possession because the previous government made a corrupt deal?

We, at The Common Sense Canadian (www.thecanadian.org) ay an emphatic NO! font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-

There we have it-The Common Sense Canadian says simply this: While we support all who fight to save our environment, to use the business term, the bottom line, is that in addition to our moral responsibility to leave our environment to generations to come, risking our environment is the height of fiscal irresponsibility.

*Boss Tweed-was an American politician most notable for being the “boss” of Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party political machine that played a major role in the politics of 19th century New York City and State.

 

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Glacier Creek, in the Kootenays - spared for now from destruction by Axor Group's proposed private river power project

Glacier-Howser Contract Cancellation Highlights Important Fish Values

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This story was in the Nelson Post for November 15:

BC Hydro and AXOR, the company behind the Glacier/Howser power project, no longer have a power purchase agreement. Just what that means for the controversial hydroelectric generating project is unclear, but the Nelson-Creston MLA says it’s “great news.”

Michelle Mungall, MLA for the Nelson-Creston riding, says she heard the news after she received a copy of an email from a source. The email, sent by a BC Hydro employee, reads: “‘BC Hydro no longer has an electricity purchase agreement with AXOR for the Glacier/Howser project,’” says Mungall, reading directly from the email sent on Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2010.

When I first read the story I was tempted to defy my age, bad knees, and avoirdupois and do some handsprings! For if the story is true, this is a huge decision and is bound to have a serious ripple effect throughout the province. But it quickly dawned on me that  there must me much more to the story than meets the eyes. 
 
Who cancelled the contract – was it BC Hydro or the company? On what grounds?
 
We soon learned from a representative of the company that as a result of delays to the project – the contract for which has been in place since back in 2006 – Axor was looking at hefty fines for failing to meet the terms of its contract and be delivering power by now, when the project is mired in the environmental assessment process and bogged down by massive public opposition.
 
Whatever the case – and BC Hydro has not been forthcoming with these answers – the fact remains the project wouldn’t have been delayed this long and the company wouldn’t have anything more to do before screwing up the Glacier-Howser rivers had it not been for the folks in the Kootenays who rose as one against this project and made it clear that they will do damned near anything to stop this project. Kudos also to West Kootenay EcoSociety, the Wilderness Committee, and MLA Michelle Mungall. For what’s worth, Damien and I, then with Save Our Rivers Society, were involved in this issue.
 
I’m going to conclude the piece with my educated guess as to what really happened and what will happen now. But first, a very important principle, no matter where the project is, has been underscored here. This principle affects every project in line for approval and this concern for the Bull Trout in the watersheds of the proposed Glacier-Howser project is a clarion call for us to emphatically state this principle as guiding all applications.
 
It is the question of “fish values”. The BC Environment Assessment Office, which has never denied a license, did send this matter back to Axor (the Dupont family) for further review because of the threat of the Glacier-Howser project to Bull Trout.
 
This is critically important because applicants have hitherto assumed and stated the assumption that all they need worry about is migrating Pacific salmon. Not that they worried very much, but let’s take a look at why the EAO’s now concerned about Bull Trout, which don’t migrate, and thus are what’s known as “resident fish”. That the EAO has made this issue a substantial part of their concerns here has implications that are immense.
 
The question of “significant fish values” (the term BC Hydro uses) in our rivers and streams is confusing to many and one can understand this.
 
Salmonids contain three principal branches and what’s confusing is that the popular names are often not the same as their real names.
 
Under the appellation “Salmo” are the Atlantic salmon and Brown Trout (some of which go to sea and are called Sea-Trout).
 
Then there are the Pacific salmon which carry the Latin name “Oncorhynchus” which include Chinook, Coho, Chum, Sockeye and Pink (there is another species, Masai, confined to Asia) and for the last couple of decades, the Rainbow (Steelhead when it goes to sea) and Cutthroat which (are you ready for this) were for a very long time styled as Salmo (I, personally, can’t understand how these two species can be Oncorhynchus when unlike the others, don’t die after spawning and can and do interbreed unlike the rest but a fish biologist I’m not). These salmon, along with steelhead, all migrate to the ocean and return to their home rivers.

Then there are Char which, to add to the confusion, are often called trout. They include the Brook Trout, the Dolly Varden, and Bull Trout amongst others. And the latter two are found throughout BC and are often confused with each other because they’re similar in appearance.
 
Just to hopelessly confuse, there are often strains of these fish groups which, while biologically the same as others, have differences in appearance, such as the Gerard Rainbows of Kootenay Lake, sea going Rainbows (Steelhead), and Kamloops Rainbow trout; as with the Bull trout of the Pitt River system and those in Glacier-Howser.

I make this point to demonstrate that Bull Trout are as critical to the ecologies of which they are part as any other salmonid by whatever name they are called, whether they migrate or not.
 
The significance of the EAO’s Glacier-Howser decision, is that it recognizes that it isn’t only the Pacific salmon you look to in determining “significant fish values”, for it follows that the Bull Trout and its cousin Dolly (Varden) which abound in most rivers and streams in BC must be included; thus it also follows that resident salmonids, not just migrating salmonids, must be part of any environmentalist assessment of every river.

It should be noted that their decision to send Axor back to the drawing board with their proposal had much to do with the record-breaking thousand-plus written submissions that followed these fabled public meetings – one of which was jointly authored by DFO and local First Nations, raising these very concerns about unique blue-listed Bull Trout populations threatened by the project.
 
Up until now private power developers (IPPs) have been able to say that either there were no fish values because there are no migrating Pacific salmon (almost impossible in BC rivers and streams) or if there are, assure us that these migrating fish in the river they’re damming don’t return as high as the diversion stretch (also often demonstrated to be untrue), shows their deep and abiding love of the environment. Not only is this dangerous nonsense, now they must deal with resident fish such as resident Rainbow, Cutthroat, Rainbow/Cutthroat Crosses, Dolly Varden and Bull Trout. As well they should.
 
Quel difference! All rivers in BC finally are seen as having “fish values”. They all are centerpieces of ecologies, including fauna and flora, of which fish are an integral and sustaining part. I assert with confidence that there is not an IPP that doesn’t seriously and adversely affect the river, its fish, and its ecology.
 
IPPs are monstrous projects, no matter how you look at them, but I can assure you that as the Common Sense Canadian takes our message all around the province, we will raise the profile given to resident fish.
 
Under their secret contract with BC Hydro we must assume that failing to meet timelines means the contract is terminated or can be terminated. From the BC Hydro information we have, it would seem that the timelines, not having been made, Axor is toast.
 
But, sadly, this seems so out of synch with how these Liberal bastards behave towards large donor corporations we have to look at what else might be happening.
 
What if the deal is this?
 
Axor has lost this contract but has been told by Hydro, “nudge, nudge, wink, wink do you get my drift?”, that they can re-apply; start all over again. And what if this “nudge, nudge” is saying don’t worry, you will not have to go all through the process of the “Clean Power Call”, hardly open bidding process anyway, but can negotiate directly with Hydro and not only get your new contract without a hassle, but also negotiate the price up at the same time? 
 
I make this point about price because although these IPP agreements are as secret as a political leader’s mistress, they do have a form to follow including a full environmental assessment process, or better said, as full as such a sham can be.

With any government with an ounce of integrity, one would be loath to make this point. But this government is as crooked as the proverbial hind leg of Fido and simply could not care less about the environment.

Having lost their contract, should they not be able to successfully
negotiate a new one, will Axor also finally forfeit their licenses to
the rivers? They should.

And this raises another issue, doesn’t it? Could this be why licence granting has been taken away from the Minister of Environment and given it to a new ministry, Natural Resource Operations, under a nonentity, Steve Thomson, who is now also Energy Minister? I mean, how cosy can it get?
 
I think I’ll hold off those geriatric handsprings for awhile yet!

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Bon voyage, Pinocchio. It's been swell!

Campbell in Full Flight

Canada, Politics, ,
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I can only say this about Gordon Campbell’s resignation: if Damien and I did anything to assist this happening I’m only sorry that we didn’t do more and quicker. He was not only a bad leader – he disgraced himself and us. As an environmentalist I must also say that no matter who takes over as Liberal leader, they will need to do a massive 180 degree turn to even begin the recapturing of our province from the forces of greed and, yes, evil not just encouraged but paid off out of taxpayers’ money.

The only puzzle left about Campbell is what well paying job is waiting for him in the private energy world and what cushy directorships will he garner.

My guess as to who will take over at a later time simply hasn’t reached my brain yet, but even knowing what the Liberals think of my opinions, here’s another one for them.
 
Do not make the mistake the Socreds made when, in 1991, Vander Zalm resigned and Rita Johnston became premier.
 
Many in the cabinet thought that Ms. Johnston ought to turn the reins over to someone who would pledge not to seek the leadership, taking away the unfairness of Johnston running while she was premier. In fact a senior minister, Russ Fraser offered to do just that.
 
Johnston stayed and won the leadership in a fight with Grace McCarthy who, regrettably, took too much time to enter the race.
 
Most commentators who watch these sorts of things opined that had Grace won, she would probably have been defeated in the 1991 election but would have kept the party intact and there would have been no amazing rise of Gordon Wilson and the Liberals. This, it can be surmised, would have meant that the NDP would have been a one term government.
 
My point is not to speculate but to state that the Liberals would be wise to select a caretaker pending the outcome of their nominating convention. This might be a good time to drag perennial backbencher Ralph Sultan out of his hiding place in the corner.
 
Your guess is as good as mine as to who the new leader might be. The name most mentioned is Kevin Falcon which ought to bring joy to those who want the Liberals to go right into the ashcan. From my perspective as an environmentalist, he would be a terrible choice though he would present, with his appalling record, a fabulous target to shoot at.
 
So would Colin Hansen. His 1:51 blog (google Colin Hansen-private power) encapsulated the fact-free Campbell energy policy. It might seem unwise for me to recommend people watch this blog but every single point he makes is a falsehood and demonstrates that the Campbell energy policy is a collection of bare-faced lies.

Here are two consequences I see.

First, this opens the door for a centre party. Such a party with a recognized competent at the helm, with a mission statement like that of the old Socreds (minus all mention of God and Christianity) should recapture the majority of British Columbians who range from centre-right to centre-left; in other words, the people who supported the Socreds for 39 years.
 
Second, this is a huge wake-up call for the NDP. They cannot drift along with their leader speaking to service clubs and chambers of commerce. This is not the time to watch events but to take charge of them. Without a strong leader of the NDP, on the centre-left of the spectrum and the Liberals losing the centre-right, the opportunity for a new Socred-type party  is there – but not for long.

We at the Common Sense Canadian take this as the time we must press forward to ensure that whoever takes over, will do so with an aroused public, in full flight, on their case demanding that our province, with all its beauty, be rehabilitated and sound environmental initiatives put in place.
 
Please support us – and if you’re wondering how, this little story.

The great American trial lawyer, Clarence Darrow, had a happy lady burst into his chambers gushing “Oh Mr Darrow, How can I thank you for all you’ve done?”
 
Darrow replied – “Madam, ever since the Phonecians invented money, there’s only been one answer to that question.” Click here to follow Darrow’s advice.

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Successful HST initiative: What now?

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It appears that the anti-HST signatures may approach 1,000,000 before the final count is presented on July 5. It’s interesting to note that the Liberal party only got 750,000 votes in the 2009 General Election. Because it’s certain that the anti-HST committee will reach its statutory requirements, two interesting questions arise: first what the government will do; and second, if they don’t call a referendum, what will the “anti’s” do then?
The long and the short of it is that the government doesn’t have to do a damned thing. For the record, the petition is referred to a select standing committee of the legislature which has 4 months to sit on it and if they recommend that the draft bill proceeded the government need only introduce the bill in the Legislature where it can languish forever.

For all practical purposes we can assume that the referendum will never be called. This notwithstanding the solemn promise of Gordon Campbell to make the process easier. Since we all know what his word is worth we had to expect he would lie about this too.

What position does this put the Campbell government in politically?

Rotten. To be candid, compared to stonewalling, he would be better to let the referendum go ahead, take the position that because he loves democracy so much, he will abide the wishes of the public blah, blah, blah. This is a terrible option but the others are worse. He will have this bag of political stones to carry right into the next election as an issue and that he doesn’t need.

I don’t expect Campbell will do this and probably he’ll advise the select committee to move quickly to send the bill back to the legislature where he can table it, never call it for a vote and hope that the public will not see it as a big deal in May of 2013.

What then do the anti HST folks do then?

Their obvious weapon is recall and here the requirements are even tougher than the referendum rules.

Here is what the Act says:

Requirements for recall petition

23 (1) A recall petition must comply with the following requirements:

(a) the petition must be submitted to the chief electoral officer within 60 days after the date on which the petition was issued under section 20;

(b) the petition must be signed by more than 40% of the total number of individuals who are entitled to sign the recall petition under section 21.

The last subsection means 40% of the voters’ list as of May 2009, a formidable obstacle.

There is one thing I must make clear. No one in this province would like to see the back of this Campbell lot more than me but the fact is recall wasn’t intended to be used to bring down a government or a cabinet minister but to recall a MLA for not doing his job of representing his constituents properly. I agree that one can stretch that to say “Premier Campbell is not doing a proper job of representing his constituents because he won’t oppose the HST” but it is a stretch and will form a major part of any government opposition to recall.

The opponents have no choice in the matter because that is the logical next step unless they want to holler “uncle” and fade away. Having chosen to go the recall route they will have to take on the Premier – and remember they must get 40% of the 2009 voters list to sign the petition before a by-election must be held in a riding the Premier carried comfortably in ’09.

Here’s what they’ll do if they’re smart. They will form that famous “new third party” and combine recall efforts with a membership drive. That won’t hurt their Recall efforts and may enhance them but even if they fail in the recall they’ll walk away with a hell of a lot of support for the new party.

The new party idea is not an easy one to make happen. I’ll get more into that in a later column but let me close with this point: the very last thing a new party needs is to be led by Bill Vander Zalm, Chris Delaney, Gordon Wilson or Wilf Hanni. These are the ghosts of failures past.

It will be difficult to find a way to build a party from scratch but, in my judgment, attracting the public requires one thing – a solemn commitment to the public right to be heard. People understand that no government can do all things for all people but government can and must get public involvement, in a real way, in the decision making process when basic change is proposed.

I’ve seen the phony baloney Environmental Assessment hearings of the past couple of years where the people weren’t allowed to deal with the merits of the proposal in question. The anger at the sham was white hot.

We’ve all seen the energy policy of this government which gives away our rivers, our environment, our power and, yes, our money to foreign companies take place in secret without any public involvement permitted.

British Columbians, in the main, are neither right wing nor left wing but ordinary, decent people who want fair play with the government as well as the private sector playing a role. They liked owning BC Ferries and BC Rail before the Campbell government got rid of them and want to keep BC Hydro. That doesn’t make them socialists any more than their support for a healthy, vibrant private sector makes them right wingers. They see matters issue by issue, not in terms of dogma.

A party that can offer people the right to be heard has a great future if it can find a way to overcome inertia and the pangs of birth.

As always, the devil is in the details.

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Morton’s Telling Memo: Years of Government and Industry Secrecy on Salmon Farm Problems

Canada, Politics, Western Canada, ,
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The memorandum from Alexandra Morton which I circulated last Wednesday demands a deeper look into what the Campbell government knew when, in September 2002, they lifted the moratorium on fish farms. (For convenience I have pasted the Morton article below).

These documents arose in 1995 when the NDP were in power when they placed a moratorium on new fish farms.
This moratorium was lifted by the Campbell government and here is what then minister John Van Dongen had to say:

“… B.C. now has the most comprehensive regulatory framework in the world, including science-based standards to protect the environment.” (Emphasis added)

“… We’ve worked very hard on these regulations to ensure that they do a proper job of protecting the environment in British Columbia… we are confident the regulations will do that and we are confident we have a regulation in place that is leading edge in the world.“(Emphasis added.)

We must take Mr. Van Dongen at his word that “careful consideration” was given this decision and examine what even casual consideration would have disclosed.

Leaving aside questions of waste, drugged fish, coloured fish, the escape of farmed fish into the wild, and disease, what was the evidence the minister possessed on the question of sea lice?

There were, of course, the documents raised by Alexandra Morton in her memo. One would have thought that they alone would have convinced a careful minister that rather than permitting more fish farms, he should get rid of the ones that existed and at the very least force them to go to closed containment.

But, not only did Van Dongen have these remarkable memos to alert him of the sea lice issue, the facts available at that time show that the issue of sea lice from farmed fish cages destroying migrating smolts was a huge one in Norway, Scotland, Ireland and even New Brunswick. (It is important to remember that juvenile pink and chum salmon weighing less than half a gram are more than 10 times smaller than Atlantic salmon smolts, and thus much more susceptible to louse parasitism.)

What did the Campbell government know about the other jurisdictions concerning sea lice?

It can be said without fear of contradiction that even the most superficial look at the industry in Norway, Scotland and Ireland would have disclosed that the impact of sea lice from farmed fish on migrating salmonid smolts was a huge problem.

Norway had long recognized and attempted to minimize the sea lice threat enacting the Norwegian Action Plan Against Salmon Lice in 1997. Ireland and Scotland adopted similar sea lice reporting and control measures.

Ah, you say, but this is Norway, Scotland and Ireland, not BC!

Fair enough – let’s look at BC, though I don’t think that this would be Premier Campbell’s first choice!

In 2001, Alexandra Morton, then associated with The Raincoast Conservation Foundation (not to be confused with the Raincoast Research Society with whom Ms, Morton is now associated), identified the first epidemic of this lice species on juvenile wild Pacific salmon. Over 850 juvenile pink salmon, as well as chum, coho, and chinook salmon and adult local sea run cutthroat trout were examined in the summer of 2001. 77% of these fish were infected at or above the lethal level as defined by Norwegian scientists to be 1.6 lice/gram of fish. The epidemic’s epicentre was in the midst of active salmon farms, with very few to no lice where there were no farms. Far from showing the alarm one might have expected, the DFO wanted to charge Ms. Morton with “illegal testing”!

The fact is, that by September 2002, when the Campbell government lifted the moratorium on fish farms, Alexander Morton had clear evidence that sea lice were slaughtering wild salmon smolts as they migrated out to sea and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (Federal) and the provincial Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Fisheries knew of Ms. Morton’s findings and the Minister and the Campbell Cabinet ignored this clear evidence of the horrendous impact of sea lice on wild salmon and lifted the moratorium anyway!

It’s this that takes the Campbell government’s decision out of the possibility of error and firmly into the realm of deceit.

What has happened since the Van Dongen announcement should give us all further cause for extreme concern.

When Alexandra Morton made public her findings re: sea lice and migrating smolts in the Broughton Archipelago in 2002 she was mocked, derided, and threatened with arrest. Scientific study after scientific study, all peer reviewed, supported her findings yet time after time the Campbell government ignored these findings and declared that science was on their side.

Clearly, not only did the Campbell government know the truth about the impact of sea lice from fish farms on migrating salmon smolts from the outset and chose to ignore it, they have compounded their deception by ignoring scientific study after scientific study ever since.

I suppose it would be ridiculous to think that Premier Campbell would at least now have the decency and honour to admit the truth and do everything he can to redeem his government’s disgraceful behaviour and make every possible effort to restore the fisheries it’s done so much to destroy.

Morton memo

A series of government memos reveal a heated debate in 1995 over a sea louse outbreak on a farm salmon on the Fraser sockeye migration route (Okisollo Channel). In 1995, a salmon farm requested permission to use hydrogen peroxide to treat an extremely heavy outbreak of sea lice on their fish. When the Ministry of Environment, Parks and Lands (MELP) informed the company that their drug application would have to be released to the public, the fish farmer withdrew the request. When environmental groups found out about the sea lice outbreak, the BC Salmon Farmers Association called for an investigation of MELP and a guarantee that fish farmers had a right to secrecy in the future.

September 6, 1995 Don Peterson of MELP writes, “The company has withdrawn their application (for hydrogen peroxide) because they heard there was a requirement to advertise if a pesticide was going to be applied. I guess they were either afraid of the shareholders…or the public finding out… the company has asked that this request be kept strictly confidential and that all correspondence on the subject be destroyed.”

September 28, 1995 the BC Salmon Farmers Association criticized Minister Moe Sihota (MELP): “…government has an obligation to maintain confidentiality… Government is further prevented from unauthorized collection, use or disclosure of information…. puts at risk … capital investment of private citizens and individual companies…”

However, salmon farms operate in Canada’s public waters and impact a Canadian resource – wild fish.

On October 23 Earl Warnock of MELP writes, “I find it unconscionable that they (fish farmers) are only prepared to undertake measures appropriate to protect their stock health and the environment unless they can do it in a clandestine manner…. and for them and MAFF to ask us to operate with them in this way says something about the people we are dealing with.”

“MAFF” = Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, now Ministry of Agriculture and Lands (MAL).

Either the sea lice remained on the farm fish on the Fraser sockeye migration route or they were treated without permission from MELP.

November 03, 1995, Bryan Ludwig, MELP writes: “…we are in the difficult position of being concerned about use of pesticides for treatment of sea lice, but also wanting to ensure we avoid a severe outbreak for fear of transfer to wild stocks.”

These documents reveal heroes among our MELP bureaucrats who tried to protect our wild salmon from salmon farms. Gordon Campbell disbanded MELP as soon as he took office in 2001, and he renamed MAFF, MAL and gave them control of allocation of Crown Land. The fish farm industry did not develop a sea lice action plan, the public lost their government biologist advocates, sea lice outbreaks continue with lethal infection underway today rates on wild juvenile salmon on the Fraser migration route (Okisollo Channel) (photos available) and Fraser sockeye stocks migrating through Okisollo Channel are in steep decline.

October 23, 1995 Earl Warnock MELP: “If the truth harms their integrity perhaps they need to look at themselves…”

If we cannot save wild salmon in British Columbia, we do not live in a democracy.

All documents available at www.salmonaresacred.org, “Breaking News”

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