British Columbia

For Immediate Release

As dawn broke one day last summer, I approached a quiet White Rock railway crossing beside the beach. The only sounds at this early hour were a seagull's cries and the fluttering of sheets of paper taped to a post waving like small flags in the quiet before a battle: a judge's injunction. Shortly, the first of several coal-laden trains were scheduled to lumber north across the U.S. border, headed as they do each day to the Westshore coal terminal at Roberts bank near Tsawwassen, and on to Asian buyers.

Environmental groups in British Columbia are fully mobilized in the fight against Enbridge Inc.'s Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan's TransMountain oil sand pipeline proposals. But it might surprise many here to learn that just across the B.C.-Washington border, plans to move an older and even dirtier kind of fossil fuel are the focus of heated environmental concern, economic lobbying, and rising controversy over Canada’s role. That product is coal -- and active plans would see millions of tons of the black stuff shipped through the Salish Sea from U.S. mines to Asian buyers.

In the Kispiox Valley 650 km north of Vancouver -- where “No LNG” lawn signs seem to be everywhere -- rancher Gene Allen had strong words for TransCanada pipeline contractors.

After persistently prodding the National Energy Board, pipeline critic David Ellis finally got a report on Kinder Morgan's two oil spills along the Trans Mountain pipeline route. The spills happened last June, and had temporarily shut the pipeline down for investigation. What he saw on page two of Kinder Morgan's Engineering Assessment floored him.

Conservative political activist and Sun News broadcaster Ezra Levant stirred a hornet’s nest of attention at a Vancouver “No Enbridge” rally on Saturday -- perhaps the largest ever such gathering. The author of Ethical Oil and host of The Source worked his way through a crowd of an estimated 5,000 with his cameraman, putting his microphone to citizens opposed to oil pipelines – first asking questions, then making accusations. “You guys are hypocrites,” said Levant.  “China is the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world.  And you don’t care.”

A 16-year-old is betting that motorists will take note when their hands pull back on gas nozzles bearing graphic reminders of what fossil fuels are doing to climate change, and she’s persuaded councillors in West Vancouver to investigate the idea. If local officials find they have the authority to require service stations to install the warnings, the posh district would be the

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu is scheduled to appear at a conference in northern Alberta to discuss aboriginal treaties and the oilsands.

The B.C. government and Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas have reached a deal designed to provide lift-off to a liquefied natural gas project. B.C. Premier Christy Clark and Petronas chief executive officer Shamsul Azhar Abbas signed the letter of intent Monday as a B.C. delegation led by Ms. Clark launched an Asian trade mission with the first stop in Malaysia. Petronas has asked the province to hammer out details of a tax to be levied against proposed B.C. LNG export terminals while the government has requested that the Malaysian firm ramp up efforts in the race to export B.C. LNG.