CAPP And The Museum Of History

Will you sign this petition? I did.

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

Don't Let A Culture Of Defeat Hold You Back

That's right, folks. There are untold opportunities to enhance both your gross domestic product and your wallets through the scourge gift of oil spills, as oil pipeline company Kinder Morgan recently explained. But of course, that 'leftie' Rachel Maddow looks a gift horse in the mouth as she continues to spread her dangerous ideas:

The CBC Responds To My Complaint About Rex Murphy

I received the following email yesterday from Jack Nagler, Director of Journalistic Public Accountability and Engagement at the CBC, regarding my conflict of interest complaint about Rex Murphy. Because the review is ongoing, I am treating this only as an interim response. I therefore present the letter with no commentary on my part, but please feel free, as always, to express your own views here.

Thank you for your Feb. 5th email to the CBC Ombudsman about Rex Murphy. There have been suggestions he is in a conflict of interest because he has given paid speeches to groups supportive of the oil industry, and suggestions that the CBC should have disclosed this fact when he addressed the subject of Neil Young’s anti-oilsands initiative on The National last month.

While I don’t believe there is a conflict of interest, there is a serious issue about transparency, one that we are reviewing at the moment.

But let me address both concerns.

On the question of Mr. Murphy and the alleged conflict of interest:

First, Mr. Murphy is not a full-time employee of CBC News He is a self-employeed freelance. He does some work for CBC. He also does outside work, including speaking engagements.

Second, -- and I want to emphasize this -- the very reason Mr. Murphy appears on The National is to do analysis and express his point of view – he is not a regular reporter. We even call his segment on the program “Rex Murphy’s Point of View" to distinguish it from regular reports. His perspective on the oilsands, whether viewers agree with it or not, is an analytical argument based on facts, and is perfectly valid commentary.

He has been utterly consistent in expressing those views for a long time, and he makes the same broad points whether he is talking on The National, in a newspaper, or in a speech at a public event. We have no reason to question the independence and integrity of those views. That is important. Yes, Mr. Murphy holds an opinion that people in the oilpatch may like and agree with. But it is a considerable leap in logic to suggest that he is therefore in the pocket of this industry.

There is much more detail on all this included in a recent blog post by CBC News General Manager and Editor-in-Chief Jennifer McGuire, which I encourage you to read at: http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/community/editorsblog/2014/02/a-question-of-conflict.html

You might also be interested in what Mr. Murphy himself had to say in response to the critique of his ethics. He wrote an op-ed piece this past weekend in The National Post that you can find at: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/02/22/rex-murphy-speaking-my-mind-no-matter-the-issue/

Third, the most important consideration for us is whether we are providing our audience with a varied and balanced perspective on an issue as important as oilsands development – and I believe we are. You may note that Mr. Murphy’s “Point of View” segment criticizing Neil Young was a response to a feature interview The National aired with Mr. Young two days earlier. There’s no other national newscast that gave Mr. Young and his views that kind of platform. It’s all part of us fulfilling our mandate as the public broadcaster to reflect diverse opinions and to offer Canadians the opportunity and the information they need to make up their own minds.

The other question, as I noted at the beginning, is that of disclosure: what information can and should we share with the audience about the outside activities of freelance contributors to on CBC News?

In policy and practice we support the idea of transparency, not just for Rex Murphy but for all of our contributors. But implementing this is not always as simple as it sounds.

There are a set of complicating factors, ranging from how much we can legally demand of our freelancers, to privacy rights of our employees, to what constitutes “full disclosure”. Is it only paid speeches we should disclose? Or do we need to be concerned about journalists who attend charity events, or moderate a public forum? Does the content of a speech matter, or does the mere act of getting in front of a lectern make it a question of public concern? And finally, how do we share the disclosure so the audience can properly judge for themselves what’s appropriate?

All are good questions. In light of your concerns and those of others about Mr. Murphy, our senior editors are reviewing the way we deal with the issue to ensure we are appropriately transparent with our viewers. I expect that review will be completed in the next few weeks. When it is we’ll be sure to post it. In the meantime, we thank you for your patience.

You should also be aware that the CBC Ombudsman has already launched a separate review of this subject. The Office of the Ombudsman, an independent and impartial body reporting directly to the President, is responsible for evaluating program compliance with the CBC's journalistic policies. When that review is complete, it will be posted on the Ombudsman's website at www.cbc.ca/ombudsman.

I hope this response has reassured you of the integrity of our news service, as well as our willingness and desire to serve Canadians properly.

Sincerely,

Jack Nagler

Director of Journalistic Public Accountability and Engagement,

CBC News

For What It's Worth

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield, January 1967

After reading this post by Alison at Creekside, and this one by Doctor Dawg, both dealing with Chuck Strahl and CSIS, and the latter's collaboration with Enbridge in spying on Canadians exercising their democratic rights, please enjoy the entire song:




As well, the CBC's Kady O'Malley weighs in here.