British Columbia

Canada’s energy sector is more at risk from domestic environmental extremists than from religiously inspired terrorist organizations like Al Qaida, warns an RCMP report recently obtained via an Access of Information request.

“The Canadian law enforcement and security intelligence community have noted a growing radicalized faction of environmentalists who advocate the use of criminal activity to promote the protection of the natural environment,” alerts the document written by the RCMP’s infrastructure intelligence team. The 22-page report from 2011 was only recently released.

. . Drastic action needs to be taken to reduce human caused greenhouse gas emissions, which are the primary driver of increased global temperatures. An article in Nature, published Jan. 8, stated: “ ... globally, a third of oil reserves, half of gas reserves and over 80 per cent of current coal reserves should remain unused from 2010-50 to meet the target of two degrees C”, a target identified by scientists to avoid the worst ravages of global warming.

. . . .But as the society points out in its report, A Cold Wind Blows, poverty remains one of the biggest barriers to children learning.

The Aboriginal Care Society’s report is not as blunt as Turpel-Lafond’s assessment of government failures.

But its assessment of why it is happening in British Columbia is brutally frank.

Another court challenge involving Enbridge’s $7.9-billion Northern Gateway oil pipeline project was filed Tuesday, bringing the total to 19.

The suit in B.C. Supreme Court by the Coastal First Nations group (representing several First Nations including the Haida and the Metlakatla) and the Gitga’at First Nation was added to a growing list of court challenges over the controversial project, which received federal approval last June.

All the other court challenges have been filed with the Federal Court of Appeal.

Industry Minister James Moore who represents the Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam riding engaged in blatantly false fear mongering last week. He threatened a Lac Megantic disaster if we don’t accept Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. In order to springboard from a disgusting reliance on a horrific tragedy to reach his ridiculous conclusion, he had to make stuff up.

A proposed network of pipelines from natural gas fields in British Columbia’s northeast to liquefied natural gas export plants in the northwest will not be permitted to pump oil and diluted bitumen, the provincial government says.

The Natural Gas Development Ministry said a new regulation prohibits the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission from allowing any conversion of a natural gas pipeline supplying an LNG facility.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

05 January 2015

UNIVERSITY WAKE-UP CALL: PETITION DEMANDS CLOSURE OF MINING INSTITUTE

VANCOUVER, BC – Over 1000 individuals and civil society organizations are signatories to a letter petitioning coalition universities to dissolve the mining, oil, and gas think-tank headquartered at UBC.

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s B.C. lieutenant said he’s confident a new oilsands pipeline will eventually be built to the West Coast, and one of his key arguments for such a megaproject is public safety in the Lower Mainland.

Industry Minister James Moore raised the spectre of the deadly Lac Megantic rail disaster that killed dozens in an inferno of blazing oil that engulfed the Quebec town in the summer of 2013.

“The people of Lac Megantic wished they had pipelines instead of rail,” said Moore, who represents the Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam riding.

Despite environment minister's claims, it won't displace coal in Asia.

World leaders gathered in Lima, Peru, this month for global climate change talks. British Columbia's Environment Minister Mary Polak was among them. She shared the province's successful experience in implementing commendable climate policies, like B.C.'s carbon tax -- a policy that the president of the World Bank hailed as a "powerful example" of carbon pricing.