Yet, surprisingly the discussion of energy policy gets brushed under the carpet. My contention is that the reason the various energy debates are so unproductive is that we are operating in the absence of any over-arching strategy. Canada is the only country in the OECD without an energy policy. Canada is one of the only countries in the world not participating as a member of the International Renewable Energy Agency. Canada is the only country in the OECD without a comprehensive climate plan. Canada is the only country in the world to have ratified Kyoto and withdrawn. Canada is the only industrialized country without a national Transportation plan.

These are not small gaps. And their absence contributes to the nastiness of the debate. The debate tends to fall to regionalism. As a federal party leader, I find the province versus province aspect of the discussion the least productive and most damaging to our national interest. Energy decisions cannot be presented as binary choices in which for British Columbia to “win,” Alberta must “lose.”

What we need is to think like a country. We need to assess what set of policy tools best advance the multiple interests of all parts of the economy and all parts of the country. We need an energy strategy for Canada.
The idea that we need a national energy strategy was floated by former Premier of Alberta, Alison Redford. It was then immediately shot down by the prime minister.

That idea must be revisited. We need a national approach to our energy future. Our starting point should be to agree to some key national goals. I would suggest they would include:

1. Energy security – currently half of the oil consumed in Canada is imported from Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Norway and Venezuela. Meanwhile, the “plan” seems to be to boost production of the most greenhouse intensive fossil fuel, bitumen and ship it to China for refining. Unlike the U.S., Canada has no strategic petroleum reserve. There is no plan for domestic energy security.
2. Energy pricing – We need to stop subsidizing fossil fuels and start pricing carbon.
3. An effective greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction plan for the needed transition to a low-carbon economy.
4. Full employment goals – we create more Canadian jobs by processing bitumen in Canada than by mixing it with toxic diluents and then shipping that dangerous product through pipelines to tankers heading overseas to other nations’ refineries and jobs there.
5. The promotion of innovation and competitiveness in Canada – Canada is falling behind the US in productivity and innovation. Part of the reason is shifting from relatively more value-added exports to raw resource exports (60% of all our exports were value-added in the late 1990s, falling to 40% recently, according to Statistics Canada.) Value-added not only creates more jobs, it attracts innovation, R and D and improves Canada’s productivity.
6. Social justice; ending energy poverty – “energy poverty” concerns must be part of any national energy strategy.
7. Any energy strategy needs to be premised on respect for First Nations right and title, as the recent Supreme Court of Canada language in the Tsilhqot’in decision makes clear is not optional; it’s mandatory;
8. Energy strategies for a resourceful and resilient Canada.

Taken separately, we could be fighting over these individual elements without resolution. Taken together in a grown-up conversation, they all fit together.

If we met around the same table and worked to achieve a consensus that respected the interests of all parts of Canada, demonstrated a responsible approach to the growing climate crisis and worked to create the kind of energy super-power we could be, one working to decrease dependence on fossil fuels, I am confident a realistic energy plan could emerge.

The first step is to start thinking like a country.

Originally published in the Hill Times.

The post Why Canada needs an Energy Policy appeared first on Elizabeth May.

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Will the Prime Minister confirm that under no circumstances will the federal government become the aggressive and hostile government that approves a project as long British Columbians say no?

Right Hon. Stephen Harper: Mr. Speaker, the project in question, of course, is subject to a joint review panel process. Obviously, we believe in the rule of law and, in adjudicating these things based on scientific and policy concerns, the government will obviously withhold its decision on the matter until we see the results of the panel and its work.

Related: Sign the petition for an oil-free coast.

The post Question Period – Northern Gateway Pipeline and Provincial Rights appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Debate has been about how best to export raw, virtually unprocessed bitumen — as much as possible and as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, the eastern half of Canada depends on imports of foreign oil from Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Venezuela, and Norway. As Gordon Laxer of the Parkland Institute tried to point out to a Parliamentary committee (before the Conservative chair ordered him to stop talking and stormed out of the room), Canada has no energy security.

I feel some responsibility for this shift in debate, as I was the first political leader to point out that there was something wrong with the picture.

RELATED: Sign the petition for an oil-free coast.

Unlike the US, we have no Strategic Petroleum Reserves. If there was a blockade of foreign oil or an economic embargo, those in Eastern Canada would have to wait for tankers to bring them bitumen for processing through the Panama Canal and up the eastern seaboard. As bizarre as that sounds, it was the solution offered by a Suncor executive when asked in committee about the vulnerability of eastern Canada to embargos.

Oppositional Canada

The irony is that the dividing line of foreign oil to the east and Alberta oil for the west was the result of deliberate government policy—aimed at helping the Alberta oil and gas sector. Back in 1961, the National Oil Policy decreed that eastern Canadians (east of the Ottawa River) would only receive imported oil while those in the West had to purchase Alberta product. By deliberate policy, Eastern Canadians became dependent on foreign oil, while Alberta oil was consumed by those in western provinces and exported to the US. Now it is time to think like a country.

The Solution: Shipping East?

However, the current proposal also makes no sense. Former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna has proposed shipping unprocessed bitumen to St John, New Brunswick, to put it in tankers to export it from there. Others are proposing refining it in New Brunswick.

The first decision point is Enbridge’s application to reverse its Number 9 pipeline. This pipeline was built in the 1970s and had originally flowed west to east. It was reversed in the 1990s as the markets favoured cheaper foreign oil.

Now, Enbridge is applying to reverse it once again, running a different product, dilbit, from west to east. The request to the National Energy Board is being considered in two stand-alone applications; Line 9A (Sarnia to North Westover) and Line 9B to Montreal.

From there the bitumen would likely go south through New England. When I was in Washington DC, I heard from quite a few Congressmen and Senators that they do not want those pipelines over their territory.

Bitumen

The nature of bitumen and diluents in pipelines is a critical issue in why the Green Party oppose pipelines of unprocessed product to either coastline. So, before talking about the direction of pipelines, we need to talk about the product.

Even after the extensive and intensive process of extracting the viscous material known as bitumen from the soil in which it is found (generally about 10% by volume), it is still not processed to even the level of crude oil. Crude oil can flow. Bitumen cannot. It has the consistency of peanut butter, so needs to be mixed with something else to flow. That something else is called ‘diluent’—a mix of undisclosed chemicals. The most commonly used diluent is a natural gas condensate, similar to Naptha. The public does not know the make-up of any particular diluent. Some have more benzene than others—benzene is a well-documented carcinogen.

The resulting so-called dilbit product is about 30% diluents and 70% bitumen. We do know a lot more about dilbit than we used to. And we did a lot of that learning through the 2010 Enbridge dilbit spill in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. We know it both floats and sinks; that it is far harder and far more expensive to clean-up than unprocessed conventional crude. The Kalamazoo spill is still not cleaned up.

Meanwhile a debate rages about whether dilbit is more likely to cause pipeline failure. Cornell University found that between 2007 and 2010 pipelines carrying dilbit had a spill-rate three times higher than pipelines carrying conventional crude. Oil sands products have a higher sulfur and a higher acidic content than conventional crude and those properties could explain its increased corrosive nature.

This finding led to the Department of Natural Resources to commissioning a study by a group called Alberta Innovates Technology Futures (ATIF). That study compared dilbit and conventional crudes and concluded the types of corrosive compounds between the two products were comparable. So we have labwork versus the real life rate of spills in US pipelines. At the moment, despite what Harper’s Cabinet ministers claim, the science on the corrosive nature of dilbit is not settled.

Meanwhile, if local residents along the Number 9 pipeline wish to speak before the NEB hearings, or even submit a letter, they are required to fill out a 10-page form, and are also encouraged to submit references and a resume! This is an NEB effort to meet the new requirements imposed by the horrific overhaul of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act that took place last year in the Omnibus Budget Bill (C-38).

Unlike the previous CEAA, which was premised on a fundamental commitment to rights of public participation, the Harperized CEAA restricts access to only those ‘directly affected’. The NEB has made this restriction even worse by demanding that any citizens who want to make comments, fill out the forms and apply within a two-week period—which will close before this article will be in print.

Refineries In Alberta

So, what should be done? The best environmental, economic and climate outcome would be to slow down the boom-and-bust cycle of constant expansion in the oil sands. What the late Peter Lougheed used to describe as the ‘traffic jam’ of feverish expansion in the oilsands prevents the construction of ancillary infrastructure, like upgraders and refineries.

The hyper-inflationary bubble that sits on northern Alberta is what makes it cheaper for Big Oil to build a $7 billion pipeline to Texas, rather than build facilities in Alberta. Any reasonable carbon plan would set a level of managed growth for oil sands production—say 2 million barrels of oil a day (more than the current 1.7 million barrels, but less than Harper’s goal of 6 million barrels of oil a day). That level of production could cool down the capital and labour markets enough to build upgraders and refineries near the resource. Then, we could be talking about shipping—by pipeline, truck or train—a finished product whose properties are better understood. Shipping a product with a far lower risk of environmental impact in the event of spills.

If we are thinking like a country, we should get Alberta oil to Eastern Canada, but we should not ship bitumen + diluents.

The post Pipelines to the east? appeared first on Elizabeth May.

These town halls are an opportunity for Elizabeth to meet her constituents and hear about their concerns and priorities. As well, she updates constituents about her actions and work in the House of Commons on their behalf.

These clips are from Elizabeth’s town hall in Central Saanich in January 2013.

Party Discipline

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Canada-China Investment Treaty

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Northern Gateway Pipeline

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More on the Canada-China Investment Treaty

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Cooperation in the House of Commons

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First Nations

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Food Labeling

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Small Business

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Health Foods

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Local Food

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Airport Expansion

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Robocalls

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The post Central Saanich Town Hall Videos appeared first on Elizabeth May.

– Elizabeth

Yesterday, Doctor Warren Bell at Kelowna JRP

Dr. Bell spoke yesterday before the Kelowna Joint Review Panel hearings on Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, outlining “four diseased elements” that put the pipeline proposal in a social and political context and he condemned as dangerous Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s concentration of power and the apparent depth of his associations with corporate interests.  When Bell finished speaking, he was surrounded by reporters.  Here’s what he said:

I am a family physician, in clinical practice for just over 36 years in rural BC. As a professional reflex, I have a sensitivity towards the behaviour of others, and towards the impact of my own conduct.

While still in medical school, I learned that many of the most important influences on a person’s health derive not just from what doctors do, or even from the choices made by patients themselves, but from broad trends in the community – from the immediate neighbourhood right up to the planetary environment.

When I began my practice, however, the term “ecosystem” was unknown, and the term “environment” referred almost exclusively to a person’s immediate social or physical situation.

Today, thanks to global telecommunications and transportation, and especially the Internet and social media, our worldview has expanded greatly. As we humans have multiplied exponentially, we have learned that we can degrade the functional capacity of our planetary home, which in turn affects our survival.

In 1995, I helped to found the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment or CAPE. Our purpose was to scientifically examine the intimate inter-relationship between human and ecosystem health, and improve the former by addressing the latter. With 5,500 members, CAPE has become the environmental voice of the medical profession.

Today, however, I am here not as representative of CAPE or any other organization. I am speaking as just one person, and as a physician.

I want to address what one might call “structural pathology” in the governance system in Canada, which has led to the contention surrounding the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project – which I have followed closely since its inception.

Your work as members of the Joint Review Panel is taking place in a social context. As a medical professional – with, I might add, extra training in psychotherapy – I would like to examine four diseased elements in this social context, and suggest remedies for them.

The first pathological element is historical.

Up until about 400 years ago, the land base subsumed within Canada was home to various peoples, originally from Asian roots, broadly connected by culture and race. They lived, like all our forebearers once did, seeking survival in an unforgiving but also bountiful natural world. Through a combination of force of arms, disease, mass immigration and various legalistic arrangements – including a genocidal strategy called the residential school system – the land base occupied by the original inhabitants of this country was progressively reduced, and their role in society was relentlessly marginalized. The small land base and the few prerogatives left to them thus have become critically important to their well being.

In Salmon Arm, I have patients, neighbours and friends who are aboriginal, who embody the experiences I’ve just referred to, both in their physiology and in their psyches. Many First Nations communities, with similar individual and collective experiences, are in the path of the proposed pipeline.

The second element in this structural pathology is the electoral system.

Elections to the House of Commons are based on the “first past the post” system. The elected candidate just has to get one vote more than any other candidate – even if only a minority of citizens actually vote in the first place.

This kind of selection procedure, in a community with many disparate parts, is psychologically grossly inefficient. Especially in complex or conflictual situations, it generates a mixture of cynicism, despair and anger.

The third element in this structural pathology is the nature of the Prime Minister’s Office, or PMO.

In Britain, the PMO is surrounded by powerful committees and advisory bodies whose comments and decisions have a major influence on government decision-making and cannot be readily ignored.

In Canada, the PMO has vastly more political power. It has, in fact, absolute veto power over several hundred different government bodies.

Political power in the Canadian system is profoundly more centralized than it is in Britain, and far more than it is in the United States, with its system of “checks and balances”.

Frankly, if Stephen Harper doesn’t like your report, he can, and by every indication he will, shelve it.

This concentration of power in one element of Canada’s political structure, for whatever murky historical reason, is an invitation to social disaster. The illusion of “efficiency” in political decision-making is subverted by the opportunity for hard-line autocracy.

In the 21^st century, when my patients are being encouraged to take increasing responsibility for their lives, such a concentration of power is anachronistic and backward.

The final element in Canada’s structural pathology is the expansion of the influence of the “corporation”, a business model that uncouples personal responsibility from profit, and places dollar gains above all others.

It is significant that as I sit talking to you here the Enbridge consortium is applying to expand its Kitimat terminal from 11 to 16 oil tanks. What clearer demonstration of absolute confidence in an eventual approval could there possibly be?

Taken together:

1. the relentless marginalization of First Nations, with their intimate connection to the ecosystem;
2. the electoral system, which readily generates non-representative governments;
3. the huge concentration of political power in the Prime Minister’s office; and
4. the rise of corporate influence.

These elements create the pathological state that leads directly to us being here today.

The planet is overcrowded, heating up, and steadily depleted of its natural capital. But now we have a Prime Minister who is forcefully using the overwhelming dominance afforded his office, to try and reshape this country to his dated views.

Stephen Harper, according to recorded evidence, has longed to be able to exercise such intense power, and identifies with doing so now (several years ago he formally changed the phrase “federal government” to “the government of Stephen Harper”).

His own religious background suggests reasons for his overall orientation, but his willingness to mask his own renowned intensity behind a rigidly bland “persona” is a truer indication of his deep commitment to power.

This approach to governance, exercised by a Prime Minister and government elected by a minority of Canadians, has deepened the already strong alliance between the corporate sector and the government. The former, fixated on immediate- and short-term financial profitability, is drawn to the latter, intent on maintaining its ascendancy, and vice versa.

The result, in a situation like the one we are addressing today, is growing social pathology. Frustration, anger, cynicism, depression and distrust of leadership are on the ascendancy, as noted in the Edelman Trust Barometer, released just before the World Economic Forum in Davos.

A patient of mine in his mid-twenties came to my office recently to say that he was deeply depressed and anxious, not about his love life, or his financial situation, but about the overheated, depleted future he was heading towards. He felt that the government in this country was acting now to make it worse for him and his young children later.

So what is the cure for this disease?

It is four-fold, in my opinion.

1. First, we must, as a nation, work out a respectful, mutually satisfactory relationship with Canada’s First Peoples – not destroy their culture by stealth.
2. Second, we must reform the electoral system to make it radically more representative.
3. Third, we must alter the power balance in the federal governance system so that one person cannot pre-empt democratic processes as Stephen Harper is now doing.
4. And fourth, we must rein in the overwhelming power and influence of the corporate sector.

Until we do these four things, our country is vulnerable to political, social and ecological upheaval that will retard our development as a nation, and likely offer ruin to the lives of future generations.

And it’s going to make my personal and professional life more difficult, as I minister to the anxiety and physical suffering of particularly the young people in my community.

I therefore personally pledge my energies and experience – here, today – to bringing about these changes, by whatever means possible.

I hope you will too.

And I also hope you will reject this flawed and destructive project, the inevitable result of such a flawed and destructive – and pathological – process.

The post Dr. Warren Bell on the Northern Gateway Pipeline appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Source Link: View the full original article >>

Author: Roohi Sahajpal

Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline has no chance in British Columbia if Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has her way.

May was in Kelowna Saturday to speak to more than 300 people at the First United Church.

“Has Enbridge made a case? No they haven’t. They have failed miserably in even putting together the evidence,” she said.

View the full original article >>

The post May says no way to pipeline appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Local opponents to the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline came out in force Saturday night, filling a local church to hear five prominent speakers denounce the project, as well as blast the federal and provincial governments for they have handled the issue.

About 400 people packed into First United Church to hear Green Party leader and Saanich-Gulf Islands MP Elizabeth May, provincial NDP environment critic and Victoria-Swan Lake MLA Rob Fleming, filmmaker and environmental journalist Damien Gillis and Grand Chief Stewart Philip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs and his wife, aboriginal activist Joan Phillip speak.

May, who made history in 2011 when she was elected as the first Green Party MP in Canada, said the federal Conservatives have “skewed” our economy by putting all the countries resources into fossil fuel expansion.

View the full original article >>

The post Kelowna ‘People’s Summit’ to oppose pipeline draws a crowd appeared first on Elizabeth May.

As a New Year’s Resolution, I knew it was a long-shot—but so are many New Year’s Resolutions. So, like most of us this New Year, I will re-commit to some unfulfilled 2012 resolutions — including seeing Stephen Harper leave office (one way or another) within 2013.

Crystal-ball gazing is notoriously prone to failure, but let me make some likely predictions. Within the continuing attack in the House of Commons against the fabric of Canadian criminal law, we will see more bills that assault Charter rights through a ‘tough on crime’ agenda. The Conservatives are bound to return to the internet snooping bill, C-30, famously described by Vic Toews as representing a choice of standing with the Conservatives or standing on the side of child pornographers.

Up early in February will be C-43, titled the act for the ‘faster removal of foreign criminals act’ but which, actually, can limit access to Canada to people who are not criminals at all. The bill gives the Minister of Immigration the right to deny a claimant permanent residency in Canada for ‘public policy reasons,’ a term which is undefined.

We will see the last significant environmental law (at least among those that have an impact on land-use and conservation) being dismantled. The Species at Risk Act (SARA) was rumoured to have been planned to be in the fall omnibus bill, C-45. The Hill gossip is that the provinces were not willing to see the act being downloaded to the provinces as rapidly as was being proposed. Environment Minister Peter Kent has said to expect the overhaul of SARA as stand-alone legislation.

It won’t be too early to start seeing the impacts of the egregious changes from 2012. The new and pathetic excuse for an environmental assessment act is so badly drafted that even industry is bound to start complaining. And the destruction of the Fisheries Act in relation to protection of fish habitat could well be the subject of litigation, especially due to the impacts on First Nations rights.

Another potential area of litigation could be First Nations push back against the Canada-China Investment Treaty. I keep hoping that a case can be brought for injunctive relief to block ratification while there is still time. As I write this, the treaty is not yet ratified. The Prime Minister can legally ratify at any time he convenes a Cabinet meeting. We need to keep the pressure up, particularly on Conservative MPs, to urge them to pressure the Prime Minister to, at a minimum, reject the treaty with language that locks us in for 31 years. We should insist that, at least, the exit provisions match NAFTA, with a 6-month opt-out provision.

By December, the Joint Review Panel on the Enbridge Northern Gateway project, or as I like to call it, ‘The Great Pipeline of China’ will report. Thanks to changes in C-38, the National Energy Board is no longer the decision-maker. The NEB will make a recommendation based on the Joint Review Panel report. Then, Prime Minister Harper’s Cabinet will rule. Despite all the opposition, and the clear climb-down on rhetoric from the PM and his Cabinet members in the last year, it will be a surprise if the project is turned down. We will stop it from being built, somehow, but we cannot afford to assume the fight is already won.

Beyond the legislative agenda, we are likely to experience within Canada and globally, more extreme weather events due to human-induced climate change. I am convinced another year cannot go by without people around the world, urged on by the world’s scientists, making the links and demanding governments take action. We need to become more active, more assertive in making the case that the changes we are seeing now are dangerous, and that we are only seeing the tip of a very large (and melting) iceberg.

No doubt we will experience heartbreaks (I cannot speak of what happened to little children in Newtown, Connecticut). We can never anticipate exactly how the military industrial complex will make its greed and Machiavellian machinations felt in a troubled world. We will have moments that bring us great joy, worry about things that in the scheme of things do not matter much, and love and lose loves, as in every year. The world did not end in 2012 and perhaps human consciousness will evolve.

Perhaps, from our beautiful islands—big and small—off the west coast of British Columbia, just perhaps, our work for change will lead the way. All the best to us all in this new year.

The post What will 2013 hold for Canada? appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Having observed the hearings and the evidence over the nearly eight months since the hearings began, I wish to make the following observations:

1. The proponent, Enbridge, has failed to provide any specific information about the impact of spills, on land or at sea, of the mixture it proposes to move by pipeline and sell to other carriers for shipment by sea.  Bitumen and diluents were shown in the Kalamazoo Michigan spill to be considerably more difficult to remediate than conventional crude.  The proponent has now admitted all its evidence was based on a substance it is not proposing to ship.  Meanwhile, it should be noted that few improvements or technological advances on handling spills of conventional crude have been made since the Exxon Valdez spill.
2.  The proponent has violated its social licence to operate through a culture of negligence. This failing is well-documented in the report of the United States National Transportation Safety Board  (Enbridge Incorporated, Hazardous Liquid Pipeline Rupture and Release, Marshall Michigan, July 25, 2010, Accident Report NTSB/PAR-12/01, PB2012-916501, July 10, 2012).  The spills and pipeline leaks in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 2010 and additional spill in the summer of 2012 in Wisconsin are ample evidence of the corporate culture of Enbridge being negligent. The panel is commended for accepting the report of the US. NTSB into evidence.  As evidence before this panel, the litany of failures in preventing the Kalamazoo spill and subsequent negligence in ignoring alarms and pumping more bitumen-diluent mix into a broken pipeline must lead to a rejection of this proposal at this time.
3.  The July 2012 report of the US NTSB is also relevant as it is clear that the Enbridge proposal was developed without any consideration of the experience of the serious spill in 2010 in Michigan.  As such, the current proposal should be rejected and the proponent instructed to revise any proposal to take into account lessons learned in the 2010 failure.
4. The proponent has offered to this panel a mathematical risk estimate for spills in which the proponent deliberately chose to exclude local spill and accident events in the waters in which the proponent proposes to operate. This evidence of dramatically under-estimated risk of accident should be entirely discounted as fanciful and absurd.  The review of this mathematical alchemy by the Raincoast Conservation Foundation should be accepted instead.
5. The need for the additional pipeline capacity has not been established.  On this point, the evidence of J. David Hughes should be accepted that unless and until bitumen production increases by 150% from current levels, the existing pipeline infrastructure is adequate. (“The Northern Gateway Pipeline: An Affront to the Public Interest and Long Term Energy Security of Canadians,” November 22, 2011).
6. Transport Canada’s submission to this panel was reported in the media as establishing that there was no serious risk in super-tanker traffic. In fact, it did not say that at all.  It merely said there were no “regulatory gaps.”  In other words, it said, if there is a spill, we know which department will be in charge. In the entire Transport Canada review, there is no specific assessment of the particularly turbulent and navigationally challenging passages any super-tanker would encounter. The words “Hecate Strait” do not appear in the Transport Canada review, even though, Environment Canada’s Marine Weather Hazards Manual states that the Hecate Strait is “the fourth most dangerous body of water in the world.” The Transport Canada submission should not be used in evidence as relevant to the specific risks of the British Columbia coast.
7. No federal body nor the proponent have come forward with any credible analysis to lift the 1972 moratorium, honoured by every federal and British Columbia government since that time. It banned super-tanker traffic along the BC coastline, with the Port of Vancouver grandfathered.  The federal government and the proponent would like to “pretend” the moratorium away.  Admittedly, the moratorium was not enshrined in law, but its observance for four decades is a significant statement about its existence and importance. This panel has an obligation to consider Enbridge’s proposal as one that has the burden of proof to lift an existing moratorium.
8. The increased tanker traffic has been found to be a source of significantly increased risk to the endangered whales in the area. Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) review of threats to humpback whales in 2005 named the proposed tanker traffic to Kitimat as a threat to whale recovery.  Humpback whales are listed as a species at risk in the threatened category.  Scientists actually think the fin whales may be even more at risk of tanker collisions. Proposed mitigation measures of whale spotters on board tankers are mere “window dressing.” The notion that whale spotters can avoid collisions with endangered whales would only be plausible if super-tankers were prohibited from travelling at night, in dense fogs (typical in the area) or in storms and gales (also typical in the area).
9. First Nations constitutionally protected rights have not been honoured by the proponent.  The proponent made false claims about the extent of its relationship with the Haida Nation, according to a letter sent to this panel by the President of the Council of the Haida Nation last year.  The timelines and deadlines for this panel’s work will be unlikely to survive a court challenge under many precedents of the requirement for consultation and for the federal government’s fiduciary obligations to First Nations.
10. Dr. Jeffrey Hutchins of Dalhousie University has drawn attention to the fact that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was unable to provide the detailed scientific information this panel requires to make any judgement about the extent of damage to ecosystems and fisheries in the hundreds of stream and water crossings the pipeline will entail.  It is outrageous that a government agency would conclude all damage can be mitigated when, by its own admission, it lacks the capacity, due to a loss of scientists and budget, to be capable of assessing the situation on the ground.
11. Recent budgetary cuts make this project even more risky due to a loss of capacity to respond to a spill. Environment Canada’s Environmental Emergency Programme has been shrunk from regional offices, including one in Vancouver, to one office in Quebec.  Ten Coast Guard operations are being shut down.  In BC alone, we are losing the search and rescue operation in Vancouver plus marine communication operations in Kitsilano, Comox and Tofino.  The cuts affect the ability of the Coast Guard to monitor and deal with marine pollution offences. As well, the safety of mariners could be affected.
12. Further loss of capacity is found in the decision to reduce staff and budget to DFO’s Centre for Off-shore Oil, Gas, and Energy Research (COOGER), ending work in progress in many areas, including a “Baseline Hydrocarbon Study in Hecate Strait.” It was studying impacts of oil and gas leaks, counter-measures for an oil spill, restoration of environment after any spill, among other key areas.
13. Meanwhile, the entire marine mammal contaminants programme within DFO has been shut down.  Nearly all of the DFO scientists studying marine toxicology across Canada are being laid off.   Dr. Peter Ross, a globally respected scientist working at the Institute for Ocean Sciences in my riding, lamented, “The entire pollution file for the government of Canada, and marine environment in Canada’s three oceans, will be overseen by five junior biologists scattered across Canada – one of which will be in BC.”  (quoted in Times Colonist, “Ottawa sinks pollution checks,” May 20, 2012)
14. The Joint Review Panel should take note of the fact that even when the programmes listed in points 10, 11, 12 and 13 were in operation, the Commissioner for the Environment and Sustainable Development, within the Office of the Auditor General, concluded that Canada lacked the capacity to respond to an oil spill or other marine emergency.

These comments are not exhaustive, but represent substantial evidentiary hurdles on which the current proposal must fail.

Respectfully submitted,

Elizabeth E. May, O.C.
Member of Parliament
Saanich-Gulf Islands

The post Submission to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project Joint Review Panel appeared first on Elizabeth May.

August 31st (tomorrow) is the final day to submit a letter of comment to the Joint Review Panel, offering your opinion on the Northern Gateway Pipeline.

A letter of comment is a written statement that expresses your knowledge, views or concerns on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Project. A letter of comment should include any information that will help explain or support your comments as well as the nature of your interest in this proposed project.

Letters of comment must include personal contact information such as full name and mailing address. Once submitted, letters of comment become public documents.

The Panel can only consider information that participants put on the record during the joint review process. Therefore, it is very important that your voice is heard now!

You can submit your views online:

http://gatewaypanel.review-examen.gc.ca/efile/LetterOfComment.aspx

Or you can print a form and mail or fax to the Panel:

http://gatewaypanel.review-examen.gc.ca/clf-nsi/dcmnt/lttrfcmmnt-eng.pdf

Thank you,

Craig Cantin
Outreach Director
Office of Elizabeth May, O.C., M.P.

The post Give your Feedback on the Northern Gateway Pipeline appeared first on Elizabeth May.