Perfidy

What do the Fraser Institute and climate change have in common? To B.C. premier, Christy Clark, the answer seems to be "plenty."

Clark has been looking for a new deputy climate minister. Her choice speaks volumes for Clark's integrity and the perilous future that awaits our province. Our new deputy climate minister is Fazil Mihlar, ex-Fraser alum, who, "co-authored a paper that among other things, advised British Columbia to do away with its environmental assessment act."

The Fraser Institute has a track record of denying the science of climate change. In 2012, the Vancouver Observer learned that since 2007, the American oil billionaires, the Koch brothers, had donated nearly a $1M to the “charitable” Fraser Institute. The Koch brothers control as much as two-million acres of Alberta’s tar sands.

Mihlar is expected to lead the province’s engagement with the public, industry, environmental groups and other levels of government over the creation of B.C.’s new Climate Leadership Plan.

Shane Gunster, a Simon Fraser University professor in the School of Communications who has studied the B.C. government’s relation to the LNG industry, said Mihlar’s appointment is drawing a lot of concern.

“To bring someone with that kind of pedigree into this role really suggests that the goal of Christy Clark is going to be trying to make sure climate policy doesn’t interfere with the real priorities of the government, which is developing LNG and other fossil fuel opportunities,” Gunster said.

Sounds like hiring a known flasher to be a crossing guard for a Catholic girls school.