Another Reason To Vote

If you know any young people looking for a reason to vote, please pass this on to them:

National Pipeline Approval Board

Posted by Robin Chat on Saturday, August 15, 2015

This From Adbusters

Enjoy:

Canada's Outlier Status

Well, this is bauble budget day, the day the Harper regime makes its big pre-election push to convince us that all is right with the world, and that our natural selfishness is something we should revel in, not revolt against. It is a day in which further plundering of the federal coffers is presented as a triumph of respect for all "hardworking Canadians" who deserve to keep more of their "hard-earned money." It is a day in which the collective needs of the country and the world are ignored.

Fortunately, not everyone is so easily distracted by the promise of shiny new things. One such individual is Omar Aziz, who, writing about climate change, says that Canada, under Stephen Harper,

is an international pariah. Among rich world countries, Canada is the largest per-capita emitter of GHGs, according to the World Resources Institute. The advocacy group Climate Action Network ranks Canada’s climate strategy as the fourth-worst in the world, ahead of only Iran, Kazakhstan, and Saudi Arabia.

There seems to be no prospect of improvement on this sorry record:

Ottawa will fail to meet the emission targets it pledged at the Copenhagen conference in 2009, just as it failed to meet the UN’s March 31 deadline to submit its emission targets ahead of the upcoming climate change conference in December.

Increasingly, our country is becoming an international pariah:

Having met U.S. President Barack Obama’s Envoy for Climate Change, I am certain that Washington is taking the Paris negotiations very seriously. Canada, meanwhile, looks like it will show up to the Paris conference with almost nothing to offer but talking points, despite the fact that Canadians consume more energy per capita than Indians, Chinese or Americans. This is both a shame and a sham.

Compounding Canada's inexcusable inaction is the heavy hand of Harper censorship:

Ninety per cent of government scientists feel that they are not allowed to speak to the media about their research; almost as many fear retaliation if they do. If you are wondering why climate change reporting in Canada has been so vacuous over the last few years, it is because new rules put in place by Stephen Harper in 2007 limit what Environment Canada scientists can say. The position of National Science Advisor was eliminated in 2008. It should come as no surprise then that media coverage of climate change has been reduced by 80 per cent. If the brilliant government scientists working on this issue are muzzled, the public has little access to the very people it should be hearing from.

Mind you, that hardly excuses the ignorance that many embrace on this subject, given the wealth of information that is available literally at our fingertips. If we are oblivious to the coming peril, it is by our own choice.

The heavy lifting being done by other provinces and countries puts the Harper inaction to shame:

British Columbia has put in place a carbon tax, Quebec has a cap-and-trade system, Ontario announced a similar policy earlier this month, and Alberta has an imperfect but necessary regulatory scheme. The European Union has an ambitious emissions trading program and the United States and China signed a major climate accord last year. China is also piloting seven cap-and-trade programs, including one in Shanghai.

Aziz notes the irony of a federal regime so obsessed with security that it ignores the threats posed by climate change:

Climate change is not simply an environmental concern; it is a national security concern, which is precisely what the Pentagon now calls it.

The effects of climate change will permanently damage wildlife, agriculture, oceans, coastal inhabitants, transportation systems, disease prevention efforts, food and water supplies, public health, and nearly every facet of modern life. The poor and disadvantaged will face the harshest consequences, both in rich countries and in developing ones.

Back in 2009, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called climate change the greatest challenge facing the world. Nothing has changed in the intervening six years other than even more egregious contempt for action from a federal government locked in an ideology for which we, our children and our grandchildren will pay a very grievous price.

Oil Spills And The Harper Brand

Time for a brief follow-up to Elizabeth May's fine dissection of how Harper environmental cuts contributed to the slow response to Vancouver's English Bay oil spill. In today's Star, Tim Harper repeats and reflects upon the facts May addressed.

Denunciations are flying fast and furiously from the likes of May, B.C. Premier Christie Clark and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson. Of course, predictable denials of culpability are coming from the likes of Industry Minister James Moore (“Politicians piling on by spreading misinformation is unhelpful,’’) and Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford (“I won’t engage in speculation,’’ “it’s not helpful to finger point,” “I think we should all concentrate on the cleanup").

Here are the facts that set the rhetoric into perspective:

The Conservatives closed the Kitsilano Coast Guard station.

The city of Vancouver says it was not informed of the leak until 12 hours after it was detected, but the federal government disputes that.
It took six hours for the Coast Guard to get booms in place in response to the leak, but a former commander of the closed station, Fred Moxey, told the Vancouver Sun the response would have been six minutes if the station was still open.

The closed station was within hailing distance of this leak, something that should have been so easily contained, occurring in calm waters in an urban area.

Conservatives also closed the Vancouver Environment Canada station of Environmental Emergencies and the Marine Mammal Contaminants Program within the department of fisheries and oceans.

Conservatives also closed regional offices of the emergency in Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Dartmouth, N.S., and St. John’s. It has been replaced by a 1-800 number which rings in Gatineau, Que., and Montreal, says Green Party Leader Elizabeth May.

We can, of course, look forward to a full-court press from the Harper regime in order contain the damage to its brand the anemic and belated response is causing.

One can only assume that will take the usual form: vilification of all Harper critics, the only strategy this hateful regime seems to know.

Got An Oil Spill? Call This 1-800 Quebec Number

Every time I hear Elizabeth May speak, my respect for her deepens. Watch as she explains how the response time to Wednesday's oil spill in English Bay was hampered by Harper cuts and that fact that cleanups has been privatized.

More On The Harper Record Of Contempt

H/t Peter Ormond

And For Those Who Think Bill C-51 Is A Good Thing

Think again.

The RCMP has labelled the “anti-petroleum” movement as a growing and violent threat to Canada’s security, raising fears among environmentalists that they face increased surveillance, and possibly worse, under the Harper government’s new terrorism legislation.

In highly charged language that reflects the government’s hostility toward environmental activists, an RCMP intelligence assessment warns that foreign-funded groups are bent on blocking oil sands expansion and pipeline construction, and that the extremists in the movement are willing to resort to violence.

The report, dated January 24, 2014, was obtained by Greenpeace and uses the kind of language one would expect from a police force that has become deeply politicized.

[M]ilitants and violent extremists who are opposed to society’s reliance on fossil fuels, and violent environmental extremists are but two of the phrases that should give all of us pause.

The RCMP issued their usual disclaimers, averring that they do not surveil peaceful groups. Said RCMP spokesman Sergeant Greg Cox:

“There is no focus on environmental groups, but rather on the broader criminal threats to Canada’s critical infrastructure. The RCMP does not monitor any environmental protest group. Its mandate is to investigate individuals involved in criminality.”

Yet, perhaps tellingly,

... Sgt. Cox would not comment on the tone of the January, 2014, assessment that suggests opposition to resource development runs counter to Canada’s national interest and links groups such as Greenpeace, Tides Canada and the Sierra Club to growing militancy in the “anti-petroleum movement.”

For a force whose mandate is public safety, the report veers into areas that can only be described as economic and political:

The report extolls the value of the oil and gas sector to the Canadian economy, and adds that many environmentalists “claim” that climate change is the most serious global environmental threat, and “claim” it is a direct consequence of human activity and is “reportedly” linked to the use of fossil fuels. It echoes concerns first raised by Finance Minister Joe Oliver that environmental groups are foreign-funded and are working against the interests of Canada by opposing development.

Just coincidence that the language echos that of Joe Oliver?

“This document identifies anyone who is concerned about climate change as a potential, if not actual – the lines are very blurry – ‘anti-petroleum extremist’ looking to advance their ‘anti-petroleum ideology,’” said Keith Stewart, a climate campaigner for Greenpeace.

Greenpeace, and the rest of us, should be very, very concerned.


Are these the faces of the new terrorists?

The Harper Attack On The Environment - Part Three

H/t Michael Nabert

Never should one industry get to write Canada's environmental law. Never should one industry get to rewrite Canada's treaties. Never should one industry be listened to over the voice of tens of thousands of protesting citizens.

Yet that is exactly what has happened, according to Yan Roberts and others who have studied the systematic dismantling of tough environmental regulations under the Harper regime.

In this third part of a series exploring the devastation that the Harper regime has wrought on the environment, I am departing from Elizabeth May's book to examine the consequences of Bill C-45, one of the regime's infamous omnibus 'budget' bills that carried within its bulk all kinds of non-budgetary items.

One of the biggest of those non-budgetary targets was the Navigable Waters Protection Act, since changed to the Navigation Protection Act. The omission of waters in the act is a clue as to what happened as a result of lobbying by the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association which, some claim, in fact dictated the terms of the changes.

Two years ago The Toronto Star reported the following:

The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association met with senior government officials in the fall of 2011, urging them not just to streamline environmental assessments, but also to bring in “new regulations under (the) Navigable Waters Protection Act,” a CEPA slide presentation shows.

A copy of the Oct. 27 presentation made to then-deputy minister of trade Louis Levesque was obtained by Greenpeace Canada and shared with The Canadian Press.

These were their demands:

•Regulatory reform so that each project goes through just one environmental review;

•Bolster the Major Projects Management Office (tasked with steering resource projects efficiently through the bureaucracy);

•Speed up permitting for small projects;

•Make government expectations known early in the permitting process;

•Support an “8-1-1” phone line to encourage construction companies to “call before you dig”;

•Modify the National Energy Board Act so it can impose administrative penalties, in order to prevent pipeline damage;

•New regulations under the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

It seems the Harper enablers responded quickly to most of these 'troublesome' regulations:

The first budget omnibus bill [C-38] in June contained a replacement for the Environmental Assessment Act and also a provision to remove pipelines and power lines from provisions of the Navigable Waters Protection Act. [Emphasis mine.] Predictably, reaction from environmentalists was negative, while business and the natural resource sector reacted positively to the changes.

But the Harper wrecking crew was not yet finished:

...the government surprised many close observers by going even further in a second omnibus bill, C-45. The Navigable Waters Protection Act was changed to the Navigation Protection Act, significantly reducing its scope over Canada’s waters.

As Yan Roberts points out,

This new acts leaves 99.9 per cent of our rivers and 99.7 per cent of our lakes without basic protection.

And, as Fasken Marleau made clear in an environmental bulletin,

...the government will limit the application of the new law to the three oceans flanking the Canadian borders as well as 97 lakes and 62 rivers that have been qualified as important commercial and recreational water courses. The building of works on any body of water not mentioned in Schedule 2 of the new legislation will no longer be governed by federal law.

Perhaps the clearest sense of the potential consequences of this legislation is imparted by Vancouver - West Coast Environmental Law Executive Director and Senior Counsel Jessica Clogg:

Bill C-45 transforms the Navigable Waters Protection Act into the Navigation Protection Act. Historically, the Navigable Waters Protection Act protected the right to navigate without interference from logging operations, bridges, pipelines, dams, and other forms of industrial development. In this manner it provided an indirect tool to protect water and the environment.

Now only water bodies specifically listed in a schedule to the act are protected. The Navigation Protection Act excludes 99.7% of Canada’s lakes and over 99.9% of Canada’s rivers from federal oversight. Pipelines are also specifically exempted...

How did we come to this terrible state of affairs, where the gutting of environmental regulation is directed by oil lobbyists whose activities are largely hidden from public view? It would certainly be easy to blame it solely on the Harper regime's unethical use of omnibus bills. It would be easy to blame a regime that is so ideologically driven that it recognizes value not in our natural capital, but only the capital that accrues from destroying that heritage.

But that would be only part of the truth. The other part resides with all of us, too busy 'getting and spending' to take note of or care that the ephemeral is no replacement for the deep natural riches our country has been bestowed with, riches that are being systematically destroyed by the philistines among us.

For Further Reading:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/yan-roberts/omnibus-harper-oil_b_2474752.html

http://davidsuzuki.org/media/news/2012/11/how-bill-c-45-weakens-our-environmental-laws-and-democracy/

http://www.macleans.ca/tag/c-45/

http://www.fasken.com/en/omnibus-bill-c-45-amendments-to-the-navigable-waters-protection-act/

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/02/20/pipeline_industry_drove_changes_to_navigable_waters_protection_act_documents_show.html

The Harper Attack On The Environment - Part Two

Continuing the series I started the other day, here is another excerpt from Science Under Attack, a chapter in Elizabeth May's memoir Who We Are.

Much of that chapter is devoted to the science of climate change, a science that, although constantly under attack by the ignorant and the well-funded climate-change denial industry, is essentially irrefutable. The foundation of its credibility, of course, is research. It is that research that the Harper regime has been systematically hobbling since it came to office:

March 2012 marked the end of all funding for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (now the Canadian Climate Forum). The funds put in place in 2000, $110 million over ten years for autonomous research funding in Canada's major universities, had been spend expanding our understanding of the climate crisis in its multi-faceted disciplines of inquiry.

As reported in The Star at the time of its closure,

the Harper government promised a new program to replace the foundation. It committed itself to delivering $35 million to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada over five years...

But, for reasons that were never explained, that funding never materialized. The result?

The ensuing funding gap has caused many university-based climate and atmospheric science activities to collapse. With scientists already reeling from draconian cuts to Environment Canada, widespread layoff notices have resulted in a brain drain the like of which has not been seen for a generation. Rather than “attracting world-leading talent,” Canada is quickly divesting itself of its best and brightest.

Stay tuned for the next installment on the Harper wrecking crew.

The Harper Attack On The Environment - Part One

I am currently reading Elizabeth May's Who We Are: Reflection On My Life And Canada, a political memoir in which her love for her adopted country, Canada, is apparent on each page.

Since we are now in an election year, I believe it incumbent upon all of us to remind as many as possible of the terrible record of the Harper rule these past nine years, a record that should alarm everyone for so many, many reasons. To this end I plan to regularly post small excerpts from May's chapter entitled Science Under Attack. Although most of what I will use is likely well-known to progressives, the abuses of the regime are so numerous that it is sometimes hard to recall all of them. Hence, this ready reference. As well, each post will include some relevant links.

The Attack Begins In Earnest

The position of science advisor to the prime minister was eliminated in 2008. By 2012, the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) was also eliminated...it was the last governmental advisory body on science, nature, or sustainable economics. Ironically, after Brian Mulroney established the NRTEE, its existence was used as an excuse to eliminate the Science Council, the Canadian Environmental Advisory Council, and the Economic Council. When Harper killed the NRTEE, his environment minister, Peter Kent, said it had been rendered unnecessary by the advent of the internet.

There is, of course, much, much more to come.

If We Want To Save The Planet...

We have to be prepared to leave most of the world's fossil fuels in the ground. So says a new published report.



Expect none of us, neither our political 'leaders' nor our fellow citizens, to rise to the occasion.

Please Pass it On

... to anyone who you think might need a reminder:

Harper Exposed Once More

Those of us who follow politics closely and with a critical eye have long seen through the myth his handlers have perpetuated that Stephen Harper is a wise and reliable steward of the economy. Doubtless that gross mischaracterization will continue to be applied, and with greater frequency, as we move closer to next year's election. Happily, more and more people are recognizing the fallacious and fatuous nature of such claims.

In her column today, The Star's Carol Goar offers ample evidence that this emperor has no clothes by examining his 'crazy' approach to our economy and his obdurate refusal to take meaningful action against climate change:

It would be “crazy economic policy” to regulate greenhouse gases in the oil and gas sector with petroleum prices dropping, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Parliament last week. “We will not kill jobs and we will not impose the carbon tax the opposition wants to put on Canadians.”

About as crazy as putting all the nation’s eggs in one basket: Canada becoming a global “energy superpower.”

About as crazy as ignoring the boom-and-bust history of the oil and sector.

About as crazy as assuming people will allow pipelines to snake under their land, carrying bitumen from Alberta’s oilsands to refineries in Texas and tankers on the Pacific coast.

About as crazy as forbidding federal scientists to say anything about climate change and threatening to revoke the charitable tax status of voluntary organizations that seek to protect the environment.

About as crazy as neglecting the price Canadians are already paying for climate change: power outages, damaged homes, spoiled food, lost productivity, higher insurance premiums, the cost of stocking up on everything from generators to non-perishable food.

About as crazy as pledging to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent at a 2009 climate change conference in Copenhagen without any plan to limit the carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide spewed into the atmosphere by the oil and gas industry.

To complicate the web of lies regularly spun by the regime, Goar points out some other inconvenient truths:

Public opinion is shifting. More than half of Canadians expressed deep concern about climate change in a poll conducted by the Environics Institute in October. Three-quarters said they were worried about the legacy they were leaving for future generations.

The provincial premiers, tired of waiting for leadership from Ottawa, have hatched their own plan to build a low-carbon economy by putting a price on pollution, developing renewable energy and capping greenhouse gases.

The central pillar of Harper’s economic strategy — being an aggressive fossil fuel exporter — has crumbled in a world awash with petroleum. Investors are cancelling their commitments. Employment in the oil and gas sector is shrinking. Government revenues are dropping.

It is to be hoped that as we move into 2015, more and more Canadians will realize that on these and so many other fronts, Stephen Harper is clearly yesterday's man.

Where Some Truth Resides

A friend of mine sent me the following. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did:

Prime Minister Harper took an aerial tour of the proposed pipeline route through BC earlier this week.

When he returned he said he thought it went reasonably well.

What If?

Last evening, I was watching the 6o'c lock news, distracted and perturbed by the howling winds (up to 100 kms. per hour) buffeting our windows. Here in Southern Ontario, about 100 kilometres from the snowstorm that has devasted Buffalo, I can perhaps be forgiven for feeling especially sensitive to increasingly frequent bouts of extreme weather linked to climate change.

Then I was overcome with a real anger whose origin I couldn't immediately identify. But as I thought about it, I realized that it was in part related to the prospect of a power outage, something we seem to experience here at least three or four times a year. There is nothing like a power outage to reduce us to an almost primal state, a state in which our facade of mastery of the universe is brutally stripped away. It is always a sobering and humbling opportunity to realize that, vis-à-vis nature, we are nothing.

Then I realized the real basis for my anger: all of the corporate and federal poltical hostility to taking meaningful action to try to keep the global rise in temperatures within 2 degrees Celsius, the uppermost limit that science tells us might prevent runaway and irreversible climate change.

While our overlords may safely (but temporarily) ensconce themselves as the worst comes to pass, the rest of us will be left to contemd with an increasingly harsh environment, all so that corporate entities can continue to amass record profits, taking all they can before the world as we know it disappears.

Then a thought occurred to me. The Salamander has frequently commented on how we need some powerful symbols, metaphors, and imagery around which opposition to the Harper agenda can coalesce. What if, for all the increasingly volatile weather, for all of the power outages, for all of the floods, for all of the "100-year storms," and for all of the other frequent natural disasters we are facing, Canadians place the blame where it belongs: let us affix pictures in our public consciousness (and in our advertising) that expose the corporate giants and their chief Canadian aider and abettor, Stephen Harper, for what they are: Protectors of a monied status quo that is dooming the rest of us to a life soon to become nasty, brutish, and perhaps short.

What if, when the next wallop of nature visits us, we think of it this way:

This storm is brought to you by Stephen Harper, who refuses to lift a finger to mitigate climate change.

Just a thought.

And Now, A Word From David Suzuki's Grandson

Tamo Campos, David Suzuki's 24-year-old grandson, was arrested Thursday for defying an injunction granted to Kinder Morgan, which is currently conducting drilling tests in preparation for the much-contested proposed Trans Mountain pipeline.

Back at the site on Friday, at the base of Burnaby Mountain Campos gave an impromptu speech, the highlights of which follow:

“This is insane, why are we putting our economic system – the market – above the very ecology that we all depend upon? We’re more dependent on clean water, fresh air and clean soil, than the market! It’s the thing that keeps us alive!”

“We have to stand up to unjust laws – to make those the laws, because those are the laws that have always governed our lives. And indigenous people have had natural laws that pre-date colonial laws by thousands of years, and we need to respect that.”

David Susuki is undoubtedly proud of his grandson, writing a letter to and about him. Here is a brief excerpt:

All over the world, local citizens and communities are standing up to protect their ecological, social and economic interests against these invading entities that behave like thugs, intimidating with SLAPP suits and using every legal tool, anything to keep on their destructive path while avoiding the important issues like climate change and threat of spills being raised by protesters.

I say all this to set the action of Tamo and others in context. Tamo is fighting for the world that will be left to his generation in the future. I believe what Kinder Morgan and companies like it are doing is an intergenerational crime but there are no legal precedents to pursue criminal charges on that basis.

The following video contains Campos' speech:

Putting Us In Our Place

Pit the arrogance of humanity against the power of nature, and nature prevails every time. A pity that those who are determining earth's fate refuse to acknowledge that simple truth.

I See That Rob Anders' Replacement Is No Prize Either

I'm sure some hoped that when Rob Anders, the Conservative MP for Calgary Signal Hill and national embarrassment, lost his riding's nomination to run in the 2015 election, he might be replaced by someone with at least a modicum of balance and rationality. Alas, the new torchbearer for the riding, Ron Liepert, is proving such hopes were futile.

An appearance on the CBC's The Current the other day amply demonstrates that while he will fit in well with the ethos that dominates the Harper regime, his 'logic' and his contempt for opposing views will prove to be a deep affront to those who favour reasoned argument over ad hominems:

Debating the Keystone pipeline with Greenpeace Canada's Keith Stewart, Liepert repeatedly complained of "extreme environmentalists" with "extreme arguments" waging "extreme environmental attacks on Alberta's oil industry" for calling for a transition to renewable energy sources.

After labelling critics of unsustainable oil and gas development as "extremists" several times, Anna Maria Tremonti finally interrupted Liepert and asked him point-blank: "Why do you call them 'extreme environmentalists'?"

"Because individuals like your guest would like to see fossil fuels eliminated across the world. That is simply not going to happen. You know, he lives in this dream world where somehow airplanes are going to fly with solar power, how transit in his city is going to be powered by renewables from wind. This is just a dream world that these extremists live in and we have to face reality. If you were to shut down the oil and gas industry in Canada today -- I don't have the statistics in front of me -- but our unemployment rate would probably be pushing 20% in this country. And we'd be living in a dream world that simply cannot exist."

As you will hear in the following excerpt, Stewart responded to Liepert's ranting calmly and rationally, two qualties that I am sure were completely lost on the political aspirant.

Just a Little Reminder

While the right enthuses about Dear Leader's performance on the G20 world stage, here's something to bring everyone back down to earth:



And letter writers also have some thoughts to share on the issue.

This from The Globe:

Yes, the U.S.-China climate deal is a really, really, really big deal (Yes, This Is A Really, Really Big Deal – editorial, Nov. 13). Climate change is not just one of the greatest threats facing humanity, it is the greatest threat. With a carbon fee and dividend, we can have a carbon-reducing mechanism, plus more jobs. Since B.C. introduced its revenue-neutral carbon tax, its clean technology industry has been flourishing and emissions per capita are down sharply.

I have conservative values, but Stephen Harper’s closed-minded approach to this issue does not resonate with these values. One hopes the China-U.S. emissions agreement will force him to do something.

Sharon Howarth, Toronto

And from The Star:

Before he became prime minister, Stephen Harper famously said that climate change was a “socialist plot.” Now that we have the new U.S.-Chinese climate agreement, perhaps our Petro State leader will say, “This is just another plot. Canada sells oil. Let others worry about the planet’s future.”

Anthony Ketchum, Toronto

More Of The Same

In today's Star, Thomas Walkom explains why the U.S. China climate deal is not likely to have any impact whatsoever on Harper's ongoing and egregious contempt for all things related to climate change:

For this prime minister, only one player in the climate change debate matters: the petroleum industry.

When Harper talks about dealing with climate change in a way that protects jobs and growth, he means jobs and growth in the Alberta tarsands.
In part, this is sheer politics. Alberta is the Conservative heartland. If Harper were to be seen as neglecting Alberta, he would risk triggering the same kind of rebellion that destroyed the old Progressive Conservative Party of Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark.

But in part, it is based on Harper’s theory of the Canadian economy. The prime minister views resources — particularly energy resources — as the driving forces of the entire economy.

Under this logic, whatever is good for oilsands producers is good for Canada.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose