British Columbia

There's nothing more unambiguous in the battle against global ecocide than placing one's body between the fertile earth and a giant fossil fuel company. This is why when one spends a few minutes with the caretakers of Burnaby Mountain, one develops a genuinely abiding allegiance to their cause. This is direct witness to the existential immediacy of the climate crisis that threatens the future of our planet. This is appropriate response to the danger climate change entails.

An injunction and a $5.6-million civil suit in damages is what corporate energy giant Kinder Morgan is seeking against blockaders at a court hearing this week.

Since August of this year, a determined group of Burnaby residents have been stopping Kinder Morgan work crews at a designated conservation area within Burnaby Mountain. SFU professor and defendant Stephen Collis explains, "Many of us are increasingly concerned about climate change, issues relating to Aboriginal title, and the erosion of our democratic rights."

You would think that, in the name of public relations, somebody at Kinder Morgan might take a clue from the company’s name to work on its image.

It could do with some “kinder.”

But no. Quite the opposite. In its clumsy handling of its proposed pipeline expansion to bring diluted Alberta bitumen to Vancouver, Kinder Morgan — through its pipeline subsidiary Trans Mountain Pipeline — has alienated the city of Burnaby, the city of Vancouver and, well, me, for one. As part of its survey work, it took down trees in a public park.

Recent revelations that the RCMP spied on Indigenous environmental rights activist Clayton Thomas-Muller should not be dismissed as routine monitoring. They reveal a long-term, national energy strategy that is coming increasingly into conflict with Indigenous rights and assertions of Indigenous jurisdiction over lands and resources.

Marc Eliesen has withdrawn as an intervenor in the federal government’s review of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline and oil tanker expansion project, detailing his reasons for quitting in a scathing 1,500 word letter to the National Energy Board.

Eliesen is the former CEO of B.C. Hydro and the former Chair of Manitoba Hydro. A deputy minister in seven different federal and provincial governments, Eliesen has forty years’ executive experience in the energy sector, including as a board member at Suncor.

A 135-metre container ship laden with hundreds of tonnes of bunker and diesel fuel is adrift off the west coast of Haida Gwaii, says the Canadian Forces' Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Victoria.

The Russian container ship Simushir is about 25 kilometres off Tasu Sound, according to the centre. 

The Canadian Coast Guard says the ship was incapacitated in gale force winds early this morning around 1:30 a.m. PT.

In response to the announcement of the approval of permits for the shipment of US thermal coal through Greater Vancouver, the Fraser River, and up the Salish Sea to Texada Island, residents in the region protested by occupying the Sabine Channel on Saturday, October 4.

The company, Imperial Metals, asked the courts for an injunction to force the group to stop its protest.

On Wednesday, the courts agreed, but ruled the injunction would be only temporary and that it couldn't be enforced until Oct. 14.

Rhoda Quock, spokeswoman for the Klabona Keepers, called it an incredible victory, not only for those blockading, but for all indigenous nations facing similar situations.

Speaking at a packed university forum last week, long-time energy journalist Andrew Nikiforuk warned British Columbians to be wary of the “extreme energy” of LNG – a fossil fuel that is environmentally reckless, of dubious benefit to B.C., and financially risky to pursue, he argued.

Yet the Clark government is wrongheadedly pushing it, said the author, with serious consequences to B.C.'s wilderness, water and climate.

“You need a public inquiry.  You need to slow down and rethink this whole thing,” urged Nikiforuk at Quest University on Thursday.

Running small non-profit organizations in British Columbia will become much more difficult if the government proceeds with a proposed change that will make it easy for opponents to tie them up in court, say critics of the province's direction.

"They are making life for organizations like ours more complicated," said Jim Wright, the president of the Garden City Conservation Society in Richmond.