British Columbia

A large US energy company has bailed out of a proposed LNG project in Kitimat.

Apache Corporation, based in Houston, Texas,  says it's leaving the project -- which was a joint development with Chevron -- even though more work has been done on this proposal than on any other natural gas export facility planned for the West Coast.

Site clearing is already underway on Haisla land at Bish Cove.   It was to be supplied by the proposed Pacific Trails Pipeline.

Not a week goes by, it seems, that Premier Christy Clark doesn't talk, yet again, about the vast riches that lay in B.C.'s path if only a liquefied natural gas industry gets off the ground in this province.

It's a theme that began before the last election, and one that helped carry her to a surprising victory with the voters. People seem to at least want to believe the fairy talelike talk about billions of dollars coming our way to help eliminate the provincial debt and even the sales tax.

We’re told that LNG is needed to keep growth and progress alive. The planned development of LNG would lock BC into fifty more years of increased fossil fuel production. Although the LNG story is attracting votes from believers, some see this as the future of fracking:

The power mavens have already pronounced its energy too costly to warrant construction. You’d think that would be the end of it. But no. BC Hydro and its masters in Victoria remain doggedly committed to the construction of the Site C Dam to power the export of Canadian energy.

A recent BC Hydro poll suggests British Columbians are split on the issue. More correctly, British Columbians are in the dark when it comes to the public policy implications of Site C.

It’s time to start using the F-word. The F word is food.

VANCOUVER — The Canadian Press’s list of charities being audited for political activities by the Canada Revenue Agency reads suspiciously like a Who’s Who of the Canadian left.

There’ll be 272 new seats in trades programs at the B.C. Institute of Technology this September, and the provincial government says they’ll help equip students to work in the proposed liquefied natural gas industry.

Advanced Education Minister Amrik Virk said Monday the Burnaby, B.C.-based institution will receive a total of $1.35-million to pay for the new positions and some minor equipment, and there’ll be similar announcements in the coming weeks across the province as the government rolls out its Skills for Jobs Blueprint.

In the transition towards a post-carbon future, infrastructure built today for fossil fuels could easily become stranded assets which burden investors and taxpayers with sunk costs. The proposal to build coal shipment facilities at Fraser Surrey Docks and Texada Island for U.S.-mined thermal coal is at risk of becoming B.C.’s version of Mirabel Airport in Quebec ­ underused infrastructure built for a future which never arrived.

Enbridge is facing a startling number of new First Nations lawsuits, challenging the constitutionality of the Harper’s government decision in June to approve the controversial Northern Gateway pipeline.  

Eight First Nations -- from Haida Gwaii to Yinka Dene territory west of Prince George – have launched legal challenges, since Friday.  Nine more, were launched earlier this year, said the West Coast Environmental Law organization.

The B.C. government has written directly to about 60 hereditary chiefs of the Gitxsan First Nation, outlining a multimillion-dollar gas-pipeline benefits deal.

In the letter, the government offers the Gitxsan about $12-million, plus a signing bonus of over $2-million, if it will allow two pipelines to cross territorial lands.