Energy

It was quite a sight: The CEOs of Alberta’s oilsands projects stood with NDP Premier Rachel Notley to announce Alberta’s climate plan before the climate talks in Paris. The CEOs had the widest smiles.

A hard cap on oilsands emissions that became part of Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s climate change plan was the product of secret negotiations between four top oilsands companies and four environmental organizations, the Financial Post has learned.

The companies agreed to the cap in exchange for the environmental groups backing down on opposition to oil export pipelines, but the deal left other players on the sidelines, and that has created a deep division in Canada’s oil and gas sector.

With work already under way on the banks where the dam is to be built, it might seem as if Site C is a done deal.

Premier Christy Clark certainly hopes so. She views the start of the $9-billion project as one of her two greatest accomplishments (the other being an agreement in principle with Petronas for proposed development of an $11-billion LNG plant).

But despite all the activity by contractors building access roads and clearing land for work camps, tunnels and dam foundations, BC Hydro’s Site C project could yet be brought to a halt.

On November 10, newly-elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met in Ottawa with the leadership council of the Canadian Labour Congress, the federation of trade unions in English-speaking Canada. Amazingly, this was the first meeting of a Canadian prime minister with a national labour body since 1958. The event was very cordial, according to a report published in the Globe and Mail. The CLC group numbered some 120 delegates.

[Webpage editor's note: One business writer who doesn't let the hype obscure the facts.]

ROME -- Beware environmental announcements that the oil industry likes, and the Alberta oil industry certainly liked Alberta Premier Rachel Notley's response to her province's delinquent status on the climate file.

With the Paris climate conference only days away, a Canadian climate action strategy is now urgent and overdue. The CCPA’s Climate Justice Project has been researching climate solutions for the past seven years. We conclude that an aggressive approach to tacking carbon emissions can also be a good employment and industrial strategy for the nation – a green industrial revolution that can improve well-being for everyone in Canada.

How times have changed in 2015. Just days away from the Paris climate conference, Prime Minister Trudeau met with the Premiers to talk about working together to make Canada a leader on climate. Compare this to PM Harper, who never met with the Premiers, championed the oil and gas industry, and if anything was a disruptive force in global climate negotiations. And leading the march to Paris?

A series of new aerial photographs show the massive scale of early construction work on the $8.8-billion Site C dam.

Victoria-based photographer Garth Lenz flew over what will be the dam site in June 2014 and returned Sunday to re-shoot the area. Lenz said even though he had flown over the site before, he was not prepared for what he saw.

“I was surprised at how big an area was being destroyed,” said Lenz, who photographed just a few kilometres of a flood zone that stretches more than 80 kilometres upriver.

BC Hydro’s decision to push forward with a $1.5-billion construction contract for the Site C dam megaproject has prompted an outpouring of opposition from First Nations and environmental and advocacy groups across British Columbia.

The Crown corporation’s president and chief executive officer, Jessica McDonald, announced on Wednesday that the utility is poised to sign the largest deal in its history with Peace River Hydro Partners as the preferred proponent.