Green politicians voice opposition to Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion

Publication Source: Georgia Straight Source Link: View the full original article >> Author: Yolande Cole Representatives of federal, provincial and municipal Green parties voiced their collective opposition today (September 12) to plans to twin the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline between Edmonton and Burnaby. “This proposal would dramatically increase the number of super tankers carrying bitumen ...

British Columbia “firewall” anyone?

For anyone familiar with Stephen Harper’s role as a provincial rights advocate, the federal posturing on the Enbridge risky tanker and pipeline scheme is more than ironic. It is a 180 degree about face. Back in January 2001, our future Prime Minister sent a letter to Premier Ralph Klein in which he called for Alberta ...

When it Comes to the Pipeline, Harper Talks in Circles

Yesterday in British Columbia, Prime Minister Stephen Harper tried to sound a note of reason on the subject of the increasingly unpopular proposal to build 1,100 kilometres of pipeline through the northern British Columbia wilderness between the Alberta oil sands and a proposed super tanker port in Kitimat, B.C. Here is what he said: “The ...

National energy strategy possible, federal leadership missing

For decades, the legacy of the National Energy Program left politicians so shell-shocked and risk-averse that they were unwilling to even moot the need for a national energy policy. Now that the Senate of Canada, the corporate lobby in the Council of Chief Executives, and the premiers are all willing to talk about the need ...

Canada still has no plan to address climate change

There is no shortage of compelling issues to discuss in a Hill Times Environmental Policy briefing.  Even listing, without describing, the catalogue of assaults on environmental law and policy by the prime minister in the last 12 months is enough to occupy the whole issue. Canada undermined global climate negotiations in Durban in December, negotiated ...

Values that rub off

Canada has two approaches when dealing with totalitarian regimes. If they have no money or inclination to invest, we are quick to condemn and to shut such nations out of the room (as in the case of Cuba in the meetings of the Americas Summit) or to storm dramatically from any room into which the ...

We are an ocean nation, with a land-locked Prime Minister

Canada is truly an ocean nation.  Our long coastline touches on three oceans, Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic, and hundreds of communities and tens of thousands of jobs are dependent on marine health.  We have benefitted from our marine regions through the wealth gained through the fisheries and tourism as well as traditional aboriginal activities.   ...

More Cuts to Capacity to Handle Oil Spills on BC Coast

The curtailment of the Department of Fisheries and Ocean’s Centre for Off-shore Oil, Gas, and Energy Research (COOGER) is a dangerous setback for the safety and integrity of the coastline and environment of British Columbia, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, MP Saanich-Gulf Islands warned today.   “Curtailing COOGER is especially shocking given the Harper Conservatives’ ...

Ottawa sinks pollution checks

Publication Source: Victoria Times Colonist Source Link: View the full original article >> Author: Cindy E. Harnett Nine marine scientists and staff in North Saanich will lose their jobs as the federal government cuts almost all employees who monitor ocean pollution across Canada. Green Party leader Elizabeth May, representing Saanich-Gulf Islands, said it’s shocking to ...

Budget 2012: environmental laws run over by an omnibus

Since my last article for Island Tides, Parliament has been dominated by the March 29 Budget and the April 26 budget implementation bill, Bill C-38. The first set out the fiscal plan with a heavy dose of promised laws to reduce/fast-track environmental assessment; the second went far beyond the words of the budget itself, to ...