VANCOUVER — An annual Amnesty International human-rights campaign is taking aim at a Canadian project for the first time — the Site C dam.
The $8.8-billion hydroelectric dam project in northeast British Columbia was one of 10 global issues targeted by the Write for Rights campaign on Saturday.
The campaign involves events held across the world where people write letters petitioning leaders for action on human-rights causes.
Sometimes in this vast and complicated world, it's easy to feel a bit lost and hopeless. It can be hard to see progress or positives in the face of so much struggle. But I find if I focus things inward and think about the community with which I work to put renewable energy on the map, my mood changes. Drastically.
At a projected cost of $8.8 billon, the approved but yet-to-be-built Site C dam is the single most expensive public infrastructure project in B.C.’s history.
However, far more is at stake than just our pocketbooks when assessing the costs of Site C. So before returning to the appalling economics behind the project, consider the following:
From: Roland Willson [mailto:rwillson@westmo.org] Sent: November 18, 2016 2:51 AM To: Don Bain <donb@ubcic.bc.ca> Subject: FW: AN Op-ed regarding Senator Neufleds comments Importance: High
More than 1,000 early-career scientists from across Canada have written to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and key members of his cabinet urging the government to do a better job of assessing the environmental impacts of developments.
The scientists say they are “concerned that current environmental assessments and regulatory decision-making processes lack scientific rigour,” and that the health of Canadians and the environment are being put at risk.
Former New Democratic premier Mike Harcourt has called on the NDP to cancel the $9-billion Site C hydroelectric project if his old party defeats the Liberal government in the provincial election next spring.
Speaking at a clean-energy conference on Monday in Vancouver, Mr. Harcourt, who gave up his party membership after the NDP blew the 2013 election, said the dam project on the Peace River is damaging environmentally and economically and fails to respect First Nations rights.
[Webpage editor's note: Sharing energy infastructure for greater efficiency of supply is good, but not as part of expanding environmentally-destructive projects (like Site C) in order to power other environmentally destructive projects (like the tar sands).]
Nov 5, 2016 - The Trudeau government has sent a “quite positive” signal that it is prepared to help finance a new transmission link to ship clean B.C. hydroelectric power to Alberta, according to provincial energy minister Bill Bennett.
For weeks a lot of international attention has been focused on North Dakota, where hundreds of protesters backed by more than 1.4 million online supporters are supporting the Sioux’s bid to stop construction of a pipeline.
Arrests, tear gas, violence and even a herd of buffalo showing up may be the reasons behind the global interest. Because if the news hook is indigenous people defending their land from the impacts of resource development, there’s a much bigger story in northeast B.C.
[Webpage editor: The author below is not happy with a recent negative report (see here) about BC's carbon tax. A proposed carbon tax in neighbouring Washington has divided environmentalists in that state.
