British Columbia

A treaty signed 116 years ago promising First Nations the right to pursue traditional lives is a key part of a legal challenge to the B.C. government’s approval of the Site C dam.

The Prophet River and West Moberly First Nations, along with the McLeod Lake Indian Band, opened arguments in the Supreme Court of B.C. on Thursday, saying that if BC Hydro’s $8.8-billion dam goes ahead, it will have devastating impact on their ability to hunt, trap and fish, which is already compromised because of resource developments in the Peace River region.

Redacted entries in Mike Duffy’s diary suggest he was in regular undisclosed contact with pipeline giant Enbridge during the height of the federal government's scorching attacks on environmental activists and charities in 2012.

The suspended senator’s journal shows a flurry of conversations and emails with or about top-level Enbridge executives, then PMO chief of staff Nigel Wright and the Prime Minister between January and June of 2012, just as the National Energy Board started its hearings on the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline proposal.

Metro Vancouver is bracing for protests in regional parks such as Colony Farm and Surrey Bend after negotiating a deal with Kinder Morgan granting its crews access to plan the route of the proposed Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion.

Regional district staff outline the agreements in a briefing note that will be before Metro mayors at a meeting Friday.

Once again, local MP James Moore and his constituency office in Port Moody were targets of a petition, this time over last week’s oil spill near Vancouver.

On Friday, a group that included First Nations leaders and representatives from organizations like Leadnow and Council of Canadians, delivered a petition to Moore’s office on St. Johns Street calling on the federal government to reopen the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station, reverse cuts to marine communications centres in B.C., and ban increased tanker traffic on the coast.

Many Vancouverites are quite rightly enraged by the sight of oil-soaked birds struggling to survive around English Bay.

First Nations worry about the impact of the M/V Marathassafuel spill on the fishery.

For environmentalists, the recent accident confirmed their worst fears about the dangers associated with the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline project. If approved, it will triple shipments of diluted bitumen from the Alberta oilsands to the Lower Mainland and bring a massive increase in tanker traffic to Burrard Inlet.

Several hundred people marched through Fort Langley Saturday to oppose the expansion of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline that runs through Langley.

Organized by groups including the Pipe Up Network and the Kwantlen First Nation, the march headed from the Kwantlen reserve to the Fort Langley Community Hall.

The march paused in the center of the Jacob Haldi Bridge that connects MacMillan Island to the village of Fort Langley. Above the Fraser River, Kwantlen members drummed and sang before the march continued.

Following is an email synopsis of a Sooke, BC, Council meeting with Kinder Morgan by a Dogwood Initiative organizer:

The toxic bunker fuel that leaked from a ship into Vancouver's English Bay has washed up on the city's popular beach in Kitsilano.

Vancouver police told CBC News that there are visible clumps of oil on the shore at Kits Beach.

What is bunker fuel?

The Canadian Coast Guard said it was notified about a spill generated from an anchor point in English Bay at about 5 p.m. PT Wednesday.

Glaciers will be largely a thing of the past in Western Canada by the end of the century, placing stress on fish such as salmon that thrive in cold water and affecting hydro generation, according to a study by two B.C. researchers.

The recent Vancouver panel discussion on Naomi Klein's new book, This Changes Everything, from which this article took form, was organized weeks before a local Blockadia event took place. By the time the five panelists came together, two had been arrested for defying a court injunction and two were named in a $5.6-million lawsuit for objecting to Kinder Morgan's (KM) planned pipeline through a municipally designated park on Burnaby Mountain.