British Columbia

Professors at the University of Victoria (UVic) are demanding the school’s administration freeze all new investment in fossil fuels and initiate a three-year divestment of all fossil fuel holdings. The university endowment fund has approximately $21 million currently invested in fossil fuels.

The actions of a young, tough-talking First Nations leader in northeast B.C. last week, that sparked the embarrassing reversal of a cabinet decision to fast-track natural gas plants, appears to be rallying province-wide Aboriginal opposition to Liquified Natural Gas plans. On April 16, 33-year-old Fort Nelson Chief Sharleen Gail held up an eagle feather at an LNG industry summit in her territory as she emotionally ordered B.C. government officials to exit the conference, to the sound of Dene drummers.

District of Kitimat Council voted four to one Monday night to officially oppose the Northern Gateway pipeline, terminal and tanker project. After a lengthy debate, Mayor Joanne Monaghan, Councillors Phil Germuth, Mario Feldhoff and Rob Goffinet voted in favour of the motion. Councillor Edwin Empinado voted against the motion. Councillors Mary Murphy and Corrine Scott were absent due to illness.

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The decision removes a major legal hurdle that the environmental group Ecojustice said stood in the way of the $7.9-billion Northern Gateway pipeline project that would bring 550,000 barrels of diluted bitumen crude from Alberta to Kitimat.

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The movement, organized on campus by the group UBCC350, got a boost in January when the student body voted 77 per cent in favour of urging divestment.

This week, UBC’s Board of Governors approved a new policy that responds to the divestment debate but UBCC350 says the new rules won’t go far enough.

'Oil, tar sands, coal, natural gas: What's behind the expansion drive of Canada's and North America's fossil fuel industries?' talk by Roger Annis of Vancouver Ecosocialist Group, at University of California Santa Barbara, April 11, 2014

As the climate crisis intensifies it is getting harder for those who benefit from fossil fuels to shirk any and all responsibility for the climate damage that results. The greater the climate damage the more extreme the measures are becoming to avoid taking any responsibility. Such is the case with Kinder Morgan's recent push to build a gigantic new Trans Mountain XL (TMX) pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta to the Pacific Ocean shoreline at the Port of Vancouver.

Members of the Fort Nelson First Nation, led by the strong words of their chief councillor, Sharleen Gale, literally drummed out government and industry representatives from a conference the band was hosting on liquefied natural gas (LNG), Wednesday afternoon. The 3-day conference, titled “Striking the Balance”, was designed to discuss both the economic opportunities and potential environmental impacts of increased fracking in the nation’s territory to supply a gas-hungry, proposed BC LNG industry.

On Saturday, April 12, a number of VESG members participated in the walk, rally and flotilla opposed to Kinder Morgan’s plans to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline carrying tar sands bitumen to the Burrard Inlet. The day was organized by the Burnaby Residents Opposing Kinder Morgan Pipeline Expansion (BROKE) and North Shore NOPE. Below is a collection of news stories related to the event.

On Saturday, April 12, a number of VESG members participated in the walk, rally and flotilla opposed to Kinder Morgan’s plans to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline carrying tar sands bitumen to the Burrard Inlet. The day was organized by the Burnaby Residents Opposing Kinder Morgan Pipeline Expansion (BROKE) and North Shore NOPE. Below is a collection of news stories related to the event.