COASTAL FIRST NATIONS RENEWS CALL FOR OIL
TANKER BAN ON BC COAST IN AFTERMATH OF BELLA BELLA SPILL
Vancouver, BC (October 14, 2016) – Coastal First Nations renews its call today for a ban on crude oil tanker traffic and says First Nations must be at the table to determine what went wrong in Thursday’s diesel spill near the Heiltsuk First Nation of Bella Bella, BC.
"President Ian Anderson said Kinder Morgan Canada has been in “deep” conversations with policing authorities, including the RCMP."
Oct 12, 2016 - Major pipeline companies are grappling with blockades and repeated disruptions to operations as hardline activists demand an accelerated transition away from fossil fuels.
A massive chunk of ice – thought to be the largest iceberg to ever break off a glacier in Canada – fell into a lake in British Columbia this summer and no one noticed until a U.S. scientist saw it on a NASA photo.
Dr. Mauri Pelto, professor of environmental science at Nichols College in Massachusetts and director of the North Cascade Glacier Climate Project for more than 25 years, said the Porcupine Glacier retreated nearly two kilometres in one leap when the iceberg broke off.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…”
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.
