British Columbia

13/10/16
Author: 
Carol Linnitt
Emergency responders inspect oil spilled from a ruptured Enbridge pipeline in Minnesota in 2002.

October 13, 2016 

The B.C. Oil and Gas Commission describes its vision as providing “oil and gas regulatory excellence for British Columbia’s changing energy future” and lists its values as “respectful, accountable, effective, efficient, responsive and transparent.”

Carrying out those lofty goals is difficult, however, when the commission’s main public accountability portal for its more than 43,000 kilometres of pipelines — an online ‘incident map’ — has been offline for more than a month.

13/10/16
Author: 
Scott Brown
FILE PHOTO: The Nathan E. Stewart/DBL 54 is an articulated tug/barge" (ATB) that travels back and forth up the B.C. Inside Passage carrying petroleum products to Alaska. JOHN PREISSL PHOTO / SUBMITTED

A tug and barge that carries petroleum products to and from Alaska through B.C.’s Inside Passage has run aground near Bella Bella. 

The Canadian Coast Guard confirms the Nathan E. Stewart, an articulated tug/barge owned by the Texas-based Kirby Corporation, ran aground at Edge Reef in Seaforth Channel just after 1 a.m. Thursday.

The coast guard says the 287-foot long fuel barge was empty, but the 100-foot tug itself is leaking diesel fuel. People on the scene at noon said that the tug was half under water and on its way to sinking completely.

11/10/16
Author: 
CBC staff
Becky Big Canoe, co-founder of Water is Life: Coalition for Water Justice, says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been 'walking backwards' in terms of Indigenous and environmental issues. (CBC)

As many Canadians celebrated Thanksgiving, Idle No More demonstrators gathered in Yonge-Dundas Square on Monday said they have "little to be thankful for" and urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to keep his election promises to protect Indigenous rights and the environment.

Becky Big Canoe, co-founder of Water is Life: Coalition for Water Justice, said while Trudeau has vowed to support Indigenous people across the country, he's already reneging on some election promises.

10/10/16
Author: 
Konrad Yakabuski

Oct 10, 2016 - Canada’s hydropower producers cheered in June when the leaders of Canada, the United States and Mexico committed their countries to raising the portion of continental electricity generated by clean-energy sources to 50 per cent by 2025, from the current 37-per-cent level.

10/10/16
Author: 
Chelsea Nash
Helen Knott, of West Moberly First Nation, stands in front of Parliament during a February visit to Ottawa in which she tried to meet with cabinet ministers about her concerns over the Site C development project. The Hill Times photograph by Chelsea Nash

Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2016 12:00 AM

Indigenous leaders and activists who oppose pipelines and other natural resource development projects, such as the proposed Pacific NorthWest LNG project recently approved by the federal government, say they are not being heard by the federal government.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, who is president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, said there is a distinct difference between listening, and hearing, and that the federal government is failing at the latter when it comes to the concerns of indigenous people.

06/10/16
Author: 
Carol Linnitt
Image: Christy Clark, one time when she was in Victoria. Photo: Christy Clark via Flickr

Christy Clark doesn’t like Victoria. At least, she said as much in an interview with the National Post: “I try never to go over there. Because it’s sick. It’s a sick culture. All they can think about is government…”

06/10/16
Author: 
Geoff Olson
Jody Wilson Raybould

It’s easy to make virtuous statements when you’re not even the official opposition.

“The Great Bear Rainforest is no place for a pipeline,” Justin Trudeau tweeted in 2013. Now that the Liberal leader is prime minister, apparently the GBR is just the place to slap down an LNG pipeline.

04/10/16
Author: 
Stephen Hume:
The face of the tailings dump of a long-abandoned mine near the Jordan River is crusted with green scabs. PNG

The site where the Pacheedaht people originated — their Garden of Eden — is stunning.

The Jordan River exits a 500-metre-deep canyon, then tumbles toward the sea through a jumble of immense boulders polished as smooth as beach pebbles.

It was here, about 70 kilometres west of Victoria, in a past so ancient it predates legends of a great flood that inundated the world, that the Pacheedaht took their name from foam on the river.

Today, there’s still foam on the river. It signals not the birth of a people, but the death of their river.

04/10/16
Author: 
Bob Weber

EDMONTON — First Nations and environmental groups want the federal government to revisit its approval of British Columbia’s Site C dam which they worry would threaten a national park that is a World Heritage Site.

Groups including the Mikisew Cree and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society say the risk to Alberta’s Wood Buffalo National Park from the dam and upstream oilsands development is so dire that they will ask UNESCO investigators to put the area on its list of threatened sites.

03/10/16
Author: 
Mark Hume and Brent Jang
Ellis Ross, former chief councilor of the Haisla First Nation, is opposed to the proposed Northern Gateway oil pipeline, but he supports plans to export LNG. BEN NELMS/BLOOMBERG

Multi-year benefit agreements have convinced some First Nations to back the project and pipeline, but some indigenous communities are still opposed, report Mark Hume and Brent Jang

By promising hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits, the B.C. government has won wide First Nations support for the Pacific NorthWest LNG project and the pipeline that will supply it.

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