On Wednesday, the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB), an offshore-extraction regulatory agency, issued a “Call for Nomination” for Newfoundland ‘s section of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, giving oil companies until October 15 to express their interest in exploring and exploiting parcels of the Gulf.

Incredibly, this is being done before the C-NLOPB has conducted its promised Western Newfoundland Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) to determine if it is appropriate to proceed with oil and gas development in Newfoundland ’s Gulf waters.

Meanwhile, today is the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) deadline for arguments against the elimination of oil and gas exploration activities as “designated projects” prescribed by the CEAA’s Regulations Designating Physical Activities.

“As Harper promotes extraction industries across Canada ’s north, concerted efforts are being made to push the same thing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence while Canadians aren’t looking,” Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, MP Saanich-Gulf Islands.  “At the same time, there’s today’s little-known deadline for saving assessments for destructive exploration processes.  From coast to coast to coast, this is a recipe for environmental disaster.”

The Save Our Seas and Shores Coalition has written to Max Ruelokke, Chairman of the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board, to express its shock and concern that the C-NLOPB would issue its Call for Nominations, especially before the Western Newfoundland SEA has even begun.

“The Board seems to be in complete denial regarding the damage seismic surveys, exploratory drilling, and offshore oil and gas development cause, especially to marine ecosystems,” said Mary Gorman, Save Our Seas and Shores Coalition.  “If the C-NLOPB isn’t prepared to assume a legitimate, precautionary and ecosystem approach as the alleged ‘regulator’ for safety and environment in our Gulf’s waters, then we should look into changing its mandate so that a genuine regulator can emerge.”

The International Ocean Noise Coalition (IONC) has written to John McCauley, Director, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, on behalf of more than 150 international non-governmental organizations concerned about the impacts of ocean-noise pollution (ONP) on marine ecosystems and their living resources.

“We urge you to include oil and gas exploration activities, including seismic surveys and exploratory drilling, as ‘designated projects’ prescribed by the Regulations Designating Physical Activities (CEAA 2012). To exclude these potentially damaging practices from environmental assessment would conflict with growing scientific evidence, as well as what is becoming standard practice by an increasing number of nations and inter-governmental organizations.

“Most scientists today recommend ecosystem-based management (EBM). The Canadian government has repeatedly expressed its support for an adoption of EBM, but it appears not to consider it when it comes to environmental assessments, particularly for seismic surveys.”

“Increasingly, with Canada’s offshore and other extraction processes, everything is open to development until citizens rise up to protect areas they hold dear,” concluded May.

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Canada undermined global climate negotiations in Durban in December, negotiated in bad faith, and immediately announced intent to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol when the Environment Minister touched down on Canadian soil. Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver kicked off the New Year with an assault on environmentalists and First Nations as “radicals.”  The Prime Minister attacked environmental groups for accepting foreign funding, even as he courted Communist Party controlled state operations from China as investors in the oil sands.  One Parliamentary Secretary said anyone opposed to pipelines and tankers was “against Canada.”  When asked to withdraw the remark as un-parliamentary, she refused.

The legislative juggernaut, C-38, repealed the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, replacing a coherent piece of legislation with a discretionary formula for confusion, conflict and court cases.  The gutting of the Fisheries Act raised the ire of four former federal Ministers of Fisheries.  Environment Minister Peter Kent insulted the four former ministers, suggesting they had not read the Act.  Mulroney era Minister Tom Siddon showed up to testify before the sub-committee on Finance and in short order made it clear he may be the only Minister who has read the act.  While Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield tried to claim the new Fisheries Act will improve habitat protection, the assault to habitat is real, underscored by the subsequent lay-off notices to all DFO habitat officers in British Columbia. The National Round Table on the Environment and Economy is scrapped.  The Species at Risk Act and Navigable Waters Protection Act amended to allow the National Energy Board to assume jurisdiction of endangered species or navigable waters are in the way of any pipeline.

Basic science and monitoring is being savaged with the end of funding to the Canadian Foundation of Climate and Atmospheric Science, elimination of the Adaptation research group within Environment Canada, the cuts to ozone monitoring, the closure of the Polar Arctic and Environmental Laboratory (PEARL) in Eureka, the sale of the 58 lakes in the globally unique Experimental Lakes Area near Kenora, Ontario, the elimination of the marine contaminants programme within DFO, the loss of scientists in Natural Resources Canada to study ice cores data (and the hope to find a university with a large fridge willing to take the 80,000 year ice core record Canada’s government no longer wants), the end of monitoring smoke stack emissions, cut backs in the Canada Oil and Gas research group in Halifax, and cuts at NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) resulting in the closing of the Yukon Research Lab at Yukon College in Whitehorse.

The thin end of the wedge of privatization has hit National Parks – first Jasper and then the hot springs at Banff, while cuts to ecological staff in the parks compelled former Deputy Minister Jacques Gerin to call on Harper to stop gutting National Parks.

It is a blitzkrieg of bad news as cut-backs and programme cancellation hit the core areas of federal responsibility to protect nature.  The multi-faceted assault has the effect of blinding media and the public to the largest threat.  In 2012, Canada still has no plan to address the threat of climate change.

While Stephen Harper has succeeded in dramatically reducing the Canadian media coverage of climate science through the muzzling of government scientists, the atmosphere does not seem to have gotten the memo.  Around the world, the force and frequency of severe weather events has woken up even the mainstream US media.  Fires, floods, tornadoes, heat waves are wreaking havoc on agriculture and running up the bills to the insurance industry.  The culprit for much of this year’s strange weather phenomenon is the rapidly warming Arctic.  As the Arctic warms the differential in temperature between the Arctic and the Equator becomes less pronounced. That causes the jet stream to lose its straight and fast course. (Francis, Vavrus study, Rutgers/Univ of Wisconsin). Slowing down, it has allowed large low pressure systems and high pressure systems to sit for far longer periods than normal in one place —  causing flooding in the low pressure zones and heat waves and fires in the high zones.

Loss of agriculture, losses to floods and fires also cost the economy, as well as human lives. Despite the Prime Minister’s attempts to destroy the collection of data, the evidence of the climate crisis is all around us.  We are sabotaging our children’s future – but what does it matter as long as the bitumen flows?

Elizabeth May is the Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands and Leader of the Green Party of Canada.

First published in the Hill Times.

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Since the first Earth Day in 1970, Canada has seen steady progress in environmental legislation and protections  — until this year.

This Earth Week was marked by announcements from the Harper Conservatives —  undermining environmental assessment and attacking environmental groups as “radicals.”

“This year on Earth Day, we need citizens to speak up and speak loudly to demand a healthy environment. Our government should not be ignoring the values of Canadians in favour of the oil patch,” said Green Leader Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.

The attacks keep coming:

• Slashing the budgets of government departments in charge of environmental regulations;
• Turning environmental assessments into rubber stamps;
• Giving Revenue Canada $8-million to specifically target environmental charities;
• Pressuring funders to stop supporting Canadian environmental charities;
• Crafting a budget that supports supertankers, pipelines and fossil fuels, but does nothing to address the threat of climate change;
• Eliminating the National Round Table on Environment and Economy;
• Continually muzzling Canada’s scientists;
• Cutting funding to scientific research stations, including Canadian Food Inspection Agency research centres and PEARL, a world-renowned atmospheric research centre;
• Planning to gut the Fisheries Act by removing provisions for habitat protection;
• Closing the emergency response stations under Environment Canada to respond to oil or chemical emergencies, and leaving only one office in Quebec.

“We have never seen an assault on nature of this scale and determination in Canada’s history.  As communities across the country come together to celebrate Earth Day and to take steps to reduce their ecological footprint, we need to speak up and expand our political footprint.  Let 2012 be the year we return to Canadian values — protect the planet for our children’s future, stay in Kyoto and invest in the green energy revolution that creates tens of thousands of jobs,”  said May.

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On March 14^th the committee met with Doris Olafsen, Executive Vice-President of Opportunity International Canada, Larry Reed the Director of the Microcredit Summit Campaign and Keith Weaver of MicroEnsure. Of particular interest was MicroEnsure which is a company that arranges Micro-Insurance opportunities with local insurance companies for individuals who would not traditionally be able to buy insurance due to the small size of their enterprises. The other main topic of conversation was what micro-credit organizations can do to prevent some of the potential negative impacts of loans on their recipients. Also appearing before the committee was Hon. Bev Oda, Minister of International Cooperation. The primary line of questioning for opposition MPs was focused on CIDA’s selection process for their contracts and grants which has changed a great deal recently. The minister also answered questions regarding CIDA’s grants to public/private partnerships between mining companies and NGOs in the developing world.

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A noteworthy witness was Vivian Krause, the blogger from North Vancouver who has recently taken on the role of the Harper Conservatives source for claims that Canada’s energy industry has been hijacked by American billionaires funding Canadian ENGOs.

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