Oil - Pipelines

OTTAWA - Stephen Harper slammed the door on unilaterally regulating Canada's oil and gas sector Tuesday even as four provincial governments, representing almost 80 per cent of Canada's population, were pledging to go further and faster in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Environment ministers from British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec signed what they're calling a compact in Lima, Peru, where an international climate conference is underway.

OTTAWA — A private member’s bill backed by the minister of justice taking aim at industrial thieves could be used to punish environmental protesters, lawyers say.

The bill, introduced by Conservative MP Wai Young on Wednesday, would slap harsh penalties on anyone who damages or interferes with “critical infrastructure.”

Over a year ago, a colleague at the University of Waterloo, Thomas Homer-Dixon, penned a compelling opinion piece for the New York Times in which he addressed, from a Canadian perspective, the debate surrounding the future of the planned Keystone XL Pipeline. If built, this pipeline would transport unprocessed, environmentally toxic Alberta tar sands bitumen to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, Illinois and Oklahoma.

It would be hard to invent a more destructive ritual of national self-punishment. Year after year, we hand oil companies gigantic tracts of pristine land. They skin them of entire ecosystems. They vacuum billions of dollars out of the country. Their oversized power, sunk into lobbying and litigation, upends government law-making.

RED EARTH CREEK, ALTA.—The Alberta Energy Regulator says close to 60,000 litres of crude oil have spilled into muskeg in the province’s north.

An incident report by the regulator states that a mechanical failure was reported Thursday at a Canadian Natural Resources Limited pipeline approximately 27 kilometres north of Red Earth Creek.

The City of Burnaby's latest attempt to throw a roadblock in front of Kinder Morgan's survey work was turned down Thursday.

Burnaby had wanted to appeal a September B.C. Supreme Court decision denying it an injunction that would have prevented the pipeline company from carrying out its study work on Burnaby Mountain.

But the B.C. Court of  Appeal wouldn't allow the appeal to go ahead.

Kinder Morgan has begun dismantling its drilling site on Burnaby Mountain and will not complete the planned testing on a second bore hole, a company spokesperson told CBC News Friday.

CBC full coverage | Kinder Morgan protests

Ali Hounsell said that it had taken several days for the company to helicopter in the heavy equipment, and that removal work needed to begin now in order to be off the site by Monday's deadline.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has dropped civil contempt charges against dozens of protesters who were arrested at an anti-pipeline protest near Vancouver.

The order came Thursday after Kinder Morgan acknowledged it had used incorrect GPS co-ordinates when it sought an injunction related to its Trans Mountain pipeline.

More than 100 people have been arrested on Burnaby Mountain, including Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, who crossed the police line earlier Thursday.

An application by Kinder Morgan to extend an injunction keeping protesters away from two drilling sites on Burnaby Mountain was rejected by the B.C. Supreme Court Thursday, meaning the site must be cleared of excavation work by Dec. 1.

In denying the company's request to extend the injunction to Dec. 12, the judge also ruled that all civil contempt charges against those arrested so far have been thrown out due to errors in the injunction.

Earlier, anti-pipeline protesters had locked themselves to the front doors of the court in an attempt to block Kinder Morgan's access.

Are Stephen Harper's pipeline policies beginning to boomerang back at him?

On the West Coast, 78 people have been arrested (so far) over the past week on Burnaby Mountain, protesting Kinder Morgan's proposal to triple its pipeline capacity to transport Alberta oil to British Columbia.

From an 84 year-old retired librarian to 11 year-old girls, people are being hauled away and charged with "civil contempt" for obstructing surveyors for the Kinder Morgan pipeline.