So, What in Hell Does Justin Do Now?

This is another fine mess he's created. He tried to help Rachel as much as he could but she's out, bumped off by the bete noire of Western conservatism, Jason Kenney.

The new premier is a truly shrewd bugger who knows to strike when an opponent is vulnerable and, today, "vulnerable" is Justin Trudeau's job description.

Trudeau owns a pipeline, a very costly pipeline, and, no matter what he does with it, the Liberals will have no reward in Alberta.  Jason Kenney is out to whip the Liberals like the proverbial red-headed stepchild. How tightly has Trudeau tied his own hands?

There are seats the Liberals can lose in the west - in British Columbia, Kenney's other target. It's hard to imagine coastal British Columbians warming to a prime minister seen as in league with that conservative thug from the other side of the Rockies.

What a screw up and, yes, I am referring to Justin Trudeau.  He dug this hole. It's his to climb out of if he still can.

"Here I Stand" - The Late Rafe Mair on an Independent British Columbia. He Saw This Coming, a Lot of Us Did.

Lawyer, Social Credit cabinet minister, columnist, broadcaster: Rafe Mair was one of those legendary firebrands British Columbia occasionally produces. Mair died in early October, 2017, seven months after he had penned a call for British Columbia to leave Canada.

His words never rang truer than now when we're getting browbeaten and strong armed by our federal government and threatened by the malignancy on our eastern frontier, Alberta. Mair had them both foremost in his mind when he wrote this.

I find I no longer come close to sharing the values Canada now stands for – I’m not talking about opinions but a philosophy of life, a set of basic values. 

As a core value, I value the environment above the desire of bankers and developers to make money and bought and paid for politicians to support them. I accept the need for societal sustenance but do not accept plunder in the name of progress. 

The flashpoint is the Trudeau supported revival of the Alberta Tar Sands and the Prime Minister compelling BC to sacrifice both principle and its environment to the transport and sale of Tar Sands product to places that will be under no constraints as to its use. I believe Canada must accept responsibility for safeguarding water, land and air in places it exports products and services. I cannot be loyal ro a country that has no such values.

...I have long felt more British Columbian than Canadian. When BC Minister for constitutional affairs working on amending the BNA Act to become the Constitution, I observed the perpetual second class treatment of BC and saw how no one cared that the Senate was an ongoing, deliberate putdown of my province, observed its woeful lack of representation on federal boards and commissions, lack of BC prime ministers and utter absence oF BC Governors-General, the disgraceful Prussian arrogant treatment of BC’s fishery by the federal government, the unthinking and uncaring expectation that in the 1970 FLQ crisis that it was fine to put BC, which wasn’t involved under martial law (no one would surely suggest that a murder and a kidnapping in BC by BC separatists, would have resulted in Ontario and Quebec being placed on martial law). The put downs seemed endless and started early. 

My generation grew up learning that Canadian explorers were Cartier and Champlain, Indians were Iroquois, Algonquin and Huron, and some limey, Sir Isaac Brock was a Canadian hero. I learned about Captains Cook and Vancouver, Quadra and Russian settlements in British History in a private school and about Simon Fraser and David Thompson at UBC. I didn’t read a decent history of BC until from Dr. Walter Sage and Dr. Margaret Ormsby in secohd year UBC and the real history of the land of my birth until I was nearly 70 and interviewed Dr. Jean Barman on her classic, The West Beyond The West. I doubt one in 100 kids of my vintage could name the first BC premier or the rich Victoria merchants, without a suggestion of public support, who sold us out to Ottawa for a mess of potage and a railway to help Ontario grab our resources cheap.

...The real reason I want BC out is a question of principles, or values, if you prefer. I’m not talking about political issues but basic tenets of belief.

The Meech Lake/Charlottetown Accords disclosed a basic gap between the Central Canadian elite – the people the late Denny Boyd called “Higher Purpose Persons (HPPs)”, who know best, – and those ignorant idiots in BC who refused to accept special powers for one province. 

After Elijah Harper killed Meech Lake, BC said next time it won’t be the premiers deciding but the people in referendum and thus it was that The Charlottetown referendum was held and 67.9% of British Columbians said “we’ve had enough of your patronizing crap – get stuffed!” 

Then Justin Trudeau decided, cross my heart, hope to die, to give Canadians a better voting system. To do it democratically, we’ll hold cozy neighbourhood meetings around the Country, then the House of Commons will meet, and the Liberal Party will cram through a reformed First Past The Post with a preferential ballot and presto! by an amazing coincidence, The Liberals will have its way and should carry Central Canada forevermore.

HPPs said there mustn’t be a referendum because, er, the people can’t understand these complicared issues and remember what happened when they voted on Charlottetown! In fact the HPPs were right for the wrong reason. Trudeau understood it was a Liberal Party Permanent Election formula he was after and wasn’t going to let those troublemakers in BC spoil it all for the elite, the HPPS as they did with Charlottetown in 1992. It was safer to break your word and lay low.

...I am an environmentalist. When we lose our environment, be it the extinction of a species we’ve never heard of, a valley sustained by its fauna, flora and water or a run of herring it is a huge tragedy. That list, as you know, is endless. Reading reports from Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd breaks the heart. 

Does that mean that I oppose all industry and development? 

That’s a pretty silly question. We have to work, eat and survive. But to the Canada exemplified by Trudeau, development, without more than cynical word service for the values I care about, trumps everything. Bear in mind throughout the balance of what I have to say that the Precautionary Principle is the law of Canada. 

Definition – The precautionary principle (or precautionary approach) to risk management states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public, or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus (that the action or policy is not harmful), the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking that action. 

Start with fish farms. Recently disease spreading from farms to wild salmon was scientifically demonstrated yet another time. The evidence of assaults on our wild salmon by sea lice from fish farms and disease from farmed fish, not to mention damage to other sea life and to the ocean floor, has piled up for 15+ years, is overwhelming yet, in as few words as possible, what was Fisheries Minister and DFO answer to the plethora of evidence generally and to the latest report? “BC, GO FUCK YOURSELVES!” 

Forgive my language but when I look at the work Alexandra Morton has done, the long underfunded battle of First Nations, the impact of this fascist government on commercial fishermen and, yes, sports fishermen, going back to Confederation that’s the only way I can translate the Federal Government’s attitude of sacrificing our precious resources to a large Norwegian despoiler of nature.. 

Does this offend your basic set of values? It certainly does mine! 

...The Alberta Tar Sands, the world’s biggest natural polluter, produces a tar like substance artificially liquefied, which if spilled, especially on water, is virtually impossible to clean up as it usually sinks too quickly to be dealt with, a spill defined as minor into the Kalamazoo River, in Michigan, in 2010, has not yet been cleaned up and probably never will be. The federal government has approved the Kinder Morgan pipeline to bring this from the Tar Sands through BC to Burrard Inlet (Vancouver Harbour) them taken by tankers across the Salish Sea, through or near the Gulf Islands through the Straits of Juan de Fuca to the Ocean. 

The company claims this will “only” add 400 tankers a year but as the Duke of Wellington said to a man on a London street who hailed him ‘Mr. Robinson, I believe’, “Sir, If you believe that, you’ll believe anything!” 

Spills are inevitable. So are tanker collisions and serious ones. Great damage will be done to our precious sea life, lives will be lost. And for what? 

Does this offend your basic set of values? It certainly does mine! 

A final word. Many things make up a nation but in my view shared values outrank all the rest combined. These aren’t political quarrels I have with Canada, though I have lots of them. No, these are fundamental values I can’t live without and Justin Trudeau can’t live with. None of these values destroy industry but put it, and what we are deeply committed to in British Columbia, on a level playing field where he who would impact the very essence of our homeland has the onus of proving he will do no harm or none which we whose home it is will not accept. 

British Columbia, my home, has been pushed around the 85+ years I have lived, worked, served, loved and, yes, loafed in her. To be called a bad Canadian because I want to protect her wild life and their habitat and don’t want to assist uncaring capitalists and their captive governments to spread ruin here and elsewhere has finally become too much. 

I hope you understand but that’s irrelevant, “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise.”

I somehow think those words are destined to live on. Eventually, maybe not this year, perhaps not next but, eventually, we're going to get out of this empty shell of a country where choice comes in meaningless options of Harper or Ignatieff, Trudeau or Scheer, pale suits stuffed with wet cardboard. We cannot solve the challenges of this century with leaders of their meagre calibre.

You're Right, Justin. Delusional, but Right.

The prime minister has spoken. Justin Trudeau proclaimed that his pipeline fetish isn't about "punishing" British Columbia. The man/boy prime minister is utterly, indisputably right. It isn't about punishing British Columbia. However the Dauphin's "my way or the highway" approach to the Trans Mountain pipeline is all about steamrollering British Columbia in order to imperil British Columbia - all, in his mind perhaps, with the best of intentions. Then again, maybe even he doesn't believe it.

Trudeau has made up so much nonsense, broken so many promises, told so many whopping lies about this pipeline that he may not even be able to tell fact from fantasy any more.

He's invented non-existent "science" that shows his pipeline and supertanker flotilla can cross British Columbia and transit its coastal waters safely. This science that he's shown no one. The science that Environment Canada and the Royal Society of Canada say hasn't been done. Until he produces this supposed science he can't complain if his claim is treated as just another one of his self-serving falsehoods.

He's propped himself up with findings of the National Energy Board that he himself earlier rebuked as corrupt, untrustworthy, in the pocket of the energy industry.

Our Stephen Harper "Mini-Me" has fed Canadians a plate of steaming horseshit about constitutional powers that he dare not take to court to enforce.

He's not out to punish British Columbia but he sure as hell is out to subdue it, to subjugate it, to sweep aside the province's own legitimate constitutional powers that stand between him and his ability to imperil the province and force on it the very real risk of catastrophic, irreparable harm. And, to Trudeau, all of that is within the "national interest."

WTF? Winter Storm Warnings in Texas, Mexico. California on Fire. High Arctic Melting.

Think of it this way. You may not feel it but you are firmly in the grip of climate change. There's nothing you can do to make it go away. It has a firm grip and it is going to tighten. It may not have gotten around to you yet as it has to others but it certainly will and your government is not doing a damned thing about it.

A week ago I posted an item about Springtime in Greenland.  The high north, Greenland and the Canadian archipelago, were basking in temperatures 20 to 30 C above normal, well above the freezing mark.

Today there are winter storm and snowfall warnings across southwest Texas and into northern Mexico.

Jump a couple of states over and you're in fire swept southern California where, in some places, the only thing stopping the spread of wildfires is the Pacific Ocean.

Hmmm, above freezing conditions in December in the Arctic Circle, winter storm warnings in the Texas/Mexico border region, wildfires sweeping southern California.


There have been many victims of the ongoing wildfires in Southern California, the largest of which is the Thomas Fire, a 101-square-mile monster blaze north of Los Angeles. The L.A. Times reports that the fire jumped the 101 freeway and was stopped only by the Pacific Ocean, along the way burning 50,500 acres, destroying 150 structures, and forcing 27,000 people to evacuate. Californians are used to wildfires, but Miller says these ones are unseasonable. “We usually get crazy wildfires in October, and then the first rains come in November, and ground stays wet and more rains come, and there’s no wildfire threat,” said [climate change activist, R.L. Miller]. “It’s early December .... This is happening because there is no more winter rain. There’s not enough winter rain, ever.”

Climate science backs up Miller’s observation. The state’s wildfire seasons are lasting longer and burning stronger due to human-caused climate change, as rising temperatures make vegetation drier and causes states like California to whip between very dry and very wet seasons. These current fires are so bad because of a mixture of dry foliage and low humidity, but also because of hot, dry winds blowing up to 70 miles per hour. This seasonal high wind, known as the Santa Ana winds, is not unusual for this time of year, climate scientist Daniel Swain told the Verge. But some scientists believe climate change “may be making these strong winds drier,” according to the New York Times. 

...

Eventually everywhere in the United States, not just the coastal regions, will suffer from severe climate impacts. Climate scientists have documented how global warming stands will hit the rest of America, whether it be through more extreme precipitation in the northeast or crop failure in the heartland. But reality has shown it to us, too. Hurricane Harvey brought Houston, Texas, its worst rainfall and flooding in recorded history. The risks of sea-level rise in Florida was made more apparent by Hurricane Irma, which flooded city streets and destroyed sea-walls. This summer, in Oklahoma, the temperature reached 100 degrees in the dead of winter.

This year’s mind-boggling extreme weather has shown us that climate change will leave few Americans untouched. And yet, so many states refuse to do much about it. That angers climate scientist Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. “The other states—Florida, Texas, Oklahoma—are under the control of climate change-denying politicians who continue to bury their head in the sand about climate change as they do the bidding of the fossil fuel interests who fund them, with the people they are supposed to be representing paying the cost in the form of devastating climate change-aggravated damage,” he said.

Here's one way to tell if your provincial and federal governments are serious about climate change. What are they telling you about what you and everyone else in your particular region can expect in the way of climate change impacts? What specific recommendations are they passing along to help you prepare for what's coming in the short range, 10 years, 20 years? Are you hearing anything out of them? Chances are pretty good that you're not.

I find it a little odd that my provincial government is so good at warning my community and my neighbours about the earthquake peril that hangs over our head, the mega-thrust subduction zone earthquake that could arrive any time between this afternoon and a century from now. I get detailed lists of what to have on hand, the best emergency foodstuffs, first aid gear, communications and such. I know the best places to take shelter in my home and the worst.  Yet the "Big One" may never hit in my lifetime or even my kids' lifetimes. 

Climate change impacts, however, are a lot more certain and far more predictable. Yet we hear nothing from the federal or British Columbia governments beyond banal injunctions and platitudes. Instead they mutter on about carbon taxes while Trudeau continues to pimp for the bitumen barons. Did the Dauphin even read about the wildfires we had this year, fires so extensive that they formed a high pressure zone that sent the smoke from fires hundreds of miles inland out into the Pacific to blanket Vancouver Island. Wildfires from Mexico to Alaska and what's the Dauphin's response to that? Sweet f#@k all. Carbon taxes - yeah, right. That'll git 'er done, sure.

I'm sensing a window of opportunity that is at risk. If the Liberals don't really come to grips with climate change - both adaptation and mitigation (carbon taxes, etc.) it's a safe bet that, when their time has come and gone, we'll wind up with another Conservative government that will do even less. It's time Justin began giving the country as much attention as he devotes to the economy.

Okay, Justin, Now Tell Us What Those Facts Are

Serial bullshitter, JustinTrudeau, was quick off the mark to defend the Kinder Morgan bitumen pipeline expansion in the wake of the announcement that the NDP, backed by the provincial Greens, will form the next government of British Columbia.

With a straight face the prime ministerial bullshitter defended his government's decision to toss out his election campaign promises and approve the hazmat pipeline.

"The decision we took on the Trans Mountain pipeline was based on facts [and] evidence, on what is in the best interest of Canadians."

What Canadians would those be, Justin?  It can't be the companies behind it. They're American. It can't be the supertanker armada owners. They're offshore. So I suppose you've defined Canadians as everybody except me and those like me, the majority of the people of British Columbia who stand opposed to this damned pipeline, the same people who just tossed Christy Clark and her Liberals out of office. 

Believe me when I say that doesn't come as a shock. We got over that when you turned into just another greasy opportunist and reneged on your solemn promise that there would be no pipeline without First Nations approval and "social licence" (the consent of the municipalities through which the pipeline would be routed).

Save the righteous indignation you jackass. What about that other promise of yours, that your government's decisions would follow the science? There's plenty of science involved in this decision and you've got plenty of scientists to advise you. Show us your science, Slick. What do your scientists tell you? 

Let's see these "facts" you talk about. Why have you not laid all that out already? This isn't about facts. They're not on your side. This is about political opportunism of the very worst kind. This is real Harper-grade shit. At least have the decency to wear that proudly.

What are the facts behind the stellar spill record of Canada's pipeline operators? What are the facts about what happens when there's a dilbit spill in our coastal waters. We've got plenty of evidence on record - from Canadian naval commanders to mariners to Coast Guard experts - that tanker accidents are inevitable. It's not a matter of "if" but "how often." All that evidence was given at your rigged National Energy Board hearings.

What are the facts about what happens when dilbit pours into our coastal waters with their tides and currents and storm-tossed waters? Does it float in a nice blob where it can be sucked up and safely removed? Or does it, as the facts state, head to the bottom, delivering all the acids and heavy metals, all the carcinogens, to the seabed and into our marine environment? 

What about your government's concession that you're powerless when that spill happens? What concession, what admission, what smoking gun? That evidence comes from your enviromin, Dame Cathy's approval of the use of Corexit as an oil spill dispersant.

The Americans used Corexit on the Exxon Valdez spill. It sickened the clean up workers. BP used it on the Deepwater Horizon disaster. It sickened clean up workers and people of the Gulf coast. It plagues the Gulf fishery to this day and will for years, perhaps decades to come. The thing is, those were conventional crude oil spills, kid's stuff compared to bitumen.

If it's facts you want, Slick, read the manufacturer's warning labels:

Corexit isn't an oil dispersant. In an open water spill, Corexit causes the oil to sink straight to the bottom where it can contaminate the marine ecology for many, many decades.

This is "in the best interests of Canadians"? I always thought I was one of those Canadians. It doesn't seem quite that way any longer. Thanks for the heads up.

Dirtier Than We Had Ever Imagined.

Oil and gas fracking doesn't draw the same attention in Canada as it has attracted in the United States. It's probably fair to say that most of us hardly think of it at all. That could be about to change.

Two new studies into fracking operations in western Canada show that fracking generally and the LNG industry in particular are far dirtier, leaking massively more methane, than we had been led to believe.

A peer-reviewed study appearing in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions used measurements in the field to estimate that methane emissions from B.C.’s shale gas basins are now at least 2.5 times higher than provincial government estimates.

That makes the oil and gas sector the largest source of climate pollution in B.C., a greater source of pollution than commercial transportation.

Based on measurements from mobile methane detectors driven around in a Dodge truck, the study found that just the drilling part of the industry in the B.C. portion of the Montney Formation, a 29,850 square-kilometre siltstone area in Western Canada, is releasing 111,800 tonnes of methane a year into the atmosphere.

That is equivalent to burning more than 4.5 million tonnes of coal or putting more than two million cars on the road. Half of B.C.’s fracked gas currently comes from the Montney. The study did not look at methane leaks from pipelines or gas processing plants.

...

More than 130 scientists recently criticized the federal government for assessing the climate change impact of a proposed Petronas LNG terminal in B.C. by using unverified and unrealistically small estimates of methane leakage.

All LNG environmental assessments in the province to date have used a questionable methane leakage rate of 0.28 per cent estimated by the B.C. government — one of the lowest rates on the continent.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calculates that most natural gas operations lose about 1.33 per cent of their product, while some sites have recorded leakage rates as high as nine per cent. Leakage rates above three per cent make methane as dirty as coal in terms of direct impact on climate change. 

But Wait, There's More

Meanwhile, another study found that methane leaks pose an even graver problem in Alberta, home to more than 300,000 oil and gas wells. (B.C. currently has 25,000 wells, but LNG developments could add 150,000 wells in the Montney Formation alone.)

To back up its case, the environmental group reviewed the findings of a 2017 study by the Alberta Energy Regulator and GreenPath Energy, which found that “the actual emissions at oil and gas facilities from pneumatic devices are 60 per cent higher than estimates used to compile Canada’s GHG inventory.”

Pneumatic devices, mostly powered by methane, help to pump and control the flow of gas from well sites and other facilities. Most vent methane directly to the atmosphere too.

The GreenPath Energy study measured leaks from pneumatic devices at 395 sites and almost 700 wells at six locations in Alberta and identified 77 major leaks via infrared cameras and direct methane vents from 236 pieces of equipment. GreenPath Energy is a Calgary-based company that specializes in managing greenhouse gas emissions.

The researchers found that 95 per cent of the pneumatic devices at conventional oil and gas facilities vented methane and other gases such as benzene. Oil well sites leaked the most methane.

If you're not conversant with the fracking process and perils, this video may help.

Betrayal

That's it. Prime minister Slick has greenlighted the Kinder Morgan pipeline initiative that will ship 900,000 barrels of toxic, lethal dilbit a day across British Columbia, through the Lower Mainland municipalities, and into an armada of supertankers that will become a daily feature as they ply the waters of Burrard Inlet, Coal Harbour, English Bay and coastal British Columbia through the Juan de Fuca Strait scraping along the US boundary.

All that business about First Nations approval and social licence, like just about everything else that has come from Trudeau, was a pack of lies. All that bold talk about fighting climate change - more lies. Bastard.

The good news is that the Tsleil-Wauthuth Nation on Burrard Inlet has vowed to block the deal. The less than good news is that the Green Party was all over the announcement, wasting not a second to notify the membership to send more money to Elizabeth May.  

So What's Our Excuse?

Amnesty International is urging Britain's Cameron government to stop arms shipments to Saudi Arabia.  Amnesty claims the weapons are being used to deliberately slaughter civilians in Houthi-rebel controlled parts of Yemen.

Amnesty said it found a pattern of “appalling disregard” for civilian lives by the Saudi-led coalition in an investigation of 13 air strikes in north-eastern Saada governorate during May, June and July: these killed some 100 civilians – including 59 children and 22 women and injured a further 56, including 18 children.

Since last March coalition air strikes have hit homes, schools, markets and other civilian infrastructure, as well as miltiary objectives. Saada, a Houthi stronghold, has been badly hit. Thousands who remain in the governorate “live in constant fear of the airstrikes and dire humanitarian conditions”, Amnesty says.

Canada is also on the Saudi weapons of indiscriminate destruction/war crimes gravy train with Harper having inked a $15-billion deal for the sale of light armoured fighting vehicles (light tanks) presumably for democracy suppression patrols. The deal supposedly gags Harper from discussing (having to explain) the sale but seemingly leaves him quite free to excuse it on the basis that, if we didn't sell Saudis its instruments of carnage then some other nation would.

For the radical Sunni Muslim House of Saud, being a Shiite Muslim is enough to qualify you for live-fire target practice.  Fortunately, that exempts the devoutly Sunni al Qaeda, al Nusra and ISIS terrorists/insurgents from Saudi bloodlust. Yemen's Houthi rebels daily fight ISIS and al Qaeda forces while the Saudis, with the active support of Canada, Britain and the US, wage a ground and air war against the Houthis.

If you're interested in this curious murderous mess, check out this episode of VICE TV. The Houthi segment begins at the 17:00 minute mark. It's an eye-opener.



Keeping with the theme of "So What's Our Excuse?" let's talk bitumen and the armada of supertankers that may soon ply British Columbia's coast.  Roger Annis has written an important report, "The Canadian Election and the Global Climate Crisis," for CounterPunch that should be required reading for every British Columbian before they vote in the federal election.  The only party that's even partly standing up for this province and our incredibly fragile ecosystems is Elizabeth May's Green Party and even May is a bit wobbly on bitumen trafficking.

Which brings us to the first segment of the VICE TV episode above concerning the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico and how BP used a highly toxic chemical, Corexit, that, instead of dispersing the oil as promised simply made it far more lethal and sank it to contaminate the bottom and the marine life that is found there. Watch it. It's a genuine call to arms.

h/t Northern PoV

Dear Crusty. LNG is Volatile. It Could Even Blow Up in Your Face.

BC premier Christy Clark is in love - with British Columbia's natural gas reserves.  She sees it as a magical solution to pay off all of the province's debts and fund wonderful new projects and services.  She even imagines herself riding across northern BC on a unicorn sprinkling fairy dust wherever natural gas is to be found.

Uhh-uhh.  Crash. Thud.  Sorry, madam premier, to be the carrier of more bad LNG news (there's been a lot lately) but a new report says our own natural gas reserves may be a stranded asset if international action reaches an accord to limit global warming to 2C.

LNG projects allow gas to be compressed into tankers and sold around the world, making it key to hopes in the US, Canada and Australia of fully exploiting their gas reserves.

But the new analysis shows that if emissions are cut to keep global temperature rise below the internationally agreed target many LNG projects being considered will not be needed.

The report concludes that over the next 10 years $82bn of LNG plants in Canada would be surplus to requirements, $71bn in the US and $68bn in Australia, with the rest of the world, led by Russia and Indonesia, accounting for the remaining $59bn.

...The report is the latest to raise concerns that increasing action to cut carbon emissions, combined with falling renewable energy prices, will put some fossil fuel investments at risk. Carbon Tracker has pioneered this analysis, which has been backed by the Bank of England and the World Bank.

Will British Columbia be the Last Pacific Jurisdiction to Legalize Pot?

Washington took recreational marijuana off the state criminal books two years ago.  Last night voters in Alaska and Oregon followed suit.  California is expected to do the same in 2016.

Imagine.  British Columbia, the province once known for "B.C. Bud", could be the last jurisdiction on the Pacific Coast to have a criminal prohibition against marijuana growing, possession and/or sale.  And that, like so many other things that grate on British Columbians, is because the power to change is held by Ottawa - and held over our heads, as usual.

Ottawa has final say, sort of.  Law enforcement agencies in British Columbia normally can't be bothered to arrest individuals for simple possession.  Even growers rarely do prison time.

The greatest hit British Columbia's marijuana industry has suffered has not come from the feds or from law enforcement.  It's come from the loss of markets due to the legalization spreading through the US.

It could just be me but I've noticed a real increase in the Harper government's anti-pot TV ads lately.  I sense they're targeted at Harper's base - angry, fearful old white people.

What'll It Be, Christy - Alberta or Norway?

A report came out this week concluding that British Columbia's reserves of natural gas may be twice as great as previously thought.   The numbers, if accurate, would put British Columbia right up there with Alberta in the "money for nothing" club only our wealth would be in a windfall of natural gas whilst theirs would be in the leper of fossil fuel petroleum - bitumen.

When you come into this sort of unearned bounty, decisions have to be made.  It's sort of like a 16-year old discovering he's inherited ten-grand from his maiden great-aunt Tilley.  Left to his own devices he may want to blow it on a tricked out beater, his first set of wheels, and a bit of bling but he would really be better off investing it in his college fund.  In other words, he'll be tempted to act like Alberta when he'd really be far better off acting like Norway.  One spends, the other invests.

To the extent she mentions this promised wealth at all, Christy Clark seems to have a touch of Klein-Redford fever.   She talks of moving as much as possible as quickly as possible and spending the proceeds.   She sees that potential wealth as the property of today's voting public, not as something that belongs to a province and its people today and those to come.   It's pretty plain she sees that cashflow, just like Ralph Klein saw it, as a key to retaining political control into perpetuity.

The Norse thought this one through.   They realized that once you take the lid off the cookie jar you won't stop until it's empty, a.k.a. the Alberta model.  They also realized that wealth was a national asset that belonged to future generations as much as to the current generation.  They mulled it over and pretty soon came to a national consensus that their windfall bounty should go straight into a sovereign wealth fund where it could grow and serve the people far into the future.   Now little Norway has perhaps the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world.  Alberta, by contrast - well we know and they know what happens when you keep putting all your chips on red.

It's a bad moment for British Columbia.   We have a government that doesn't consult the legislature much less the public as we stand poised to become the gaseous equivalent of a petro-state.   Now, more than ever, the public deserves consultation and needs to be heard by the trolls in Victoria.    Yes we have a provincial debt to pay off but that doesn't mean we should steal from future generations to repay the debts we racked up.

British Columbia's Position - Enbridge Cannot Be Trusted, No to Northern Gateway

The British Columbia government, it seems, has spoken out loud and clear in opposition to the Northern Gateway pipeline.   Even Christy Clark would be in peril if she tried to step down from this stand.  Here are excerpts from the government's brief.

“Many parts of the pipeline will be located in remote areas, some distance from road networks and population centres, “ said the government in a lengthy brief submitted to the National Energy Board appointed review panel earlier this year. “Many of the rivers (along the route) are identified as remote or having no access.”

Then, too, “the topography is prone to slope failures.” In wintertime, “the pipeline could be covered by heavy snow,” to a depth of nine metres in some places.

Heavy water flows (“a common occurrence in B.C. rivers”) could make it next to impossible to contain a spill: “At certain water velocities, booms become ineffective and are potentially unsafe to operate.”

The B.C. team was not impressed with he Northern Gateway (NG) proponent’s often vague preliminary plans for detection and management of potential spills.

“Leak detection techniques, such as aerial surveillance and third party notification, which may be effective in other locations, would have less effectiveness in B.C. due to remoteness and snow cover.”

Superior techniques include fibre-optic detectors, backup power for pumping stations, and an automatic shut-off system to preclude human error.

“While NG asserts that its spill detection systems will be world-class, it has not yet chosen to adopt technologies that would achieve that objective.”

The company’s proposed time frame for responding to spills was also found wanting.

“NG’s targeted spill response time of six to 12 hours needs to be set against the reality that oil may travel many kilometres downstream while NG is still mobilizing,” says the report. “Travel times to the control points that have been identified do not take into account mobilization time and assumes all roads are drivable.”

As a worst-case scenario, the province cited the Clore River, located in a steep-sided valley east of Terrace.

“A full-bore spill into the Clore River could, over a 12-hour period, flow through the entire length of the river and continue on to the Copper (Zymoetz) River ... The province submits that NG cannot assert today that it would have the ability to respond effectively, if at all, to a spill were it to enter the Clore River.”

By the time the response team got to the site, the river would be ruined.

“The effects of a spill on fish could span over several generations,” says the report, quoting the proponent’s own evidence. “At certain times of the year, multiple-year classes of certain fish species could be affected. Furthermore, the effects of a spill on threatened species, such as eulachon, would not necessarily be reversible. Already weakened populations may simply not recover.”

“It is NG that has asserted its ability to respond to any spill from the pipeline. It is NG that has asserted that it intends to have in place world-class response capabilities. Having made these claims, presumably, for the purpose of obtaining a positive recommendation from the review panel, the proponent cannot then say ‘Trust us.’ We submit that Northern Gateway must be able to demonstrate that the mitigation measures it proposes are in fact practicable and effective.”

Lest there be any doubt as to why the B.C. government is not prepared to trust Enbridge, the brief cites the company’s sorry record as it emerged after that huge spill in Michigan in 2011.

“Enbridge has not demonstrated its ability to learn from its mistakes in order to avoid spills,” says the B.C. brief. “There are serious reasons for concern that the commitments it has made in this proceeding will be hollow.”

Bottom line: “The challenges posed by the pipeline route, the nature of the product being shipped, the conceptual nature of its plans to date and Enbridge’s track record mean that the province is not able to support this project’s approval at this time.”

Did Joe Oliver Just Declare War on British Columbia?

A solid and steadily growing majority of British Columbians want nothing to do with Alberta's bitumen pipelines crossing our province to our coast.  Fewer of us still want bitumen-laden supertankers plying our pristine northern coastal waters or Vancouver's inner harbour.

According to our federal government's reptilian industry minister, Joe Oliver, our firmly held opposition to this bitumen trafficking makes us, the great majority of British Columbians, "inimical to Canadian national interests." 

Now "inimical" is a loaded word.  It connotes hostility, and a willingness to harm, malevolence and, according to merriamwebster.com, "having the disposition of an enemy."

And any doubt that Joe sees British Columbians as enemies of his authoritarian state were put to rest when he told a gaggle of tarheads in Calgary, "We are in a battle for the future of Canada."

So, let's get this straight.  In Joe's mind (and obviously his master's too), the people of British Columbia are Canada's enemy and Joe's army is "in a battle" against us to defend the future of Canada from our malevolence.

Wow, this seems a lot like the War of 1812 all over again only it's Joe's side telling British Columbians to surrender or be enslaved.  It's the people of British Columbia who are on the defensive, trying to protect their homeland, and the federal government that is waging a war of conquest.

British Columbia's Tumblin' Crispy Christy Clark

British Columbia's unelected, unelectable and outgoing premier, Crispy Christy Clark, was nudged ever closer to the exit today - by her own party members.

More than a hundred BC Libs met in Surrey this morning to demand Clark resign to let somebody else, presumably almost anybody,  lead the government party into the May election.  It's hard to imagine how a change at the top could do the party much good at this point.

Recent polls find 59% of respondents favouring a change of government versus just 24% still supporting the BC Libs.   Worse still, over 70% of respondents believe the latest "balanced budget" was a scam designed to cloak an actual deficit.

Some think that a real contender might be willing to step in at this point to revive the BC Libs' fortunes before the poll but it's hard to imagine anyone with ambitions for the future being willing to "step in" to the mess Christy Clark and her advisers have left on the floor.

Clark has summoned a meeting of her cabinet this afternoon.  No word yet in which bunker they'll convene.

Jack Knox It Straight Out of the Park

Victoria Times Colonist scribe Jack Knox has it right.   It's not eco-hippies who will stop Harper's Northern Gateway pipeline, it's the heart of middle-class Canada who will do that job.

The panel reviewing Enbridge’s proposal to build a 1,150-kilometre pipeline from Alberta to a terminal at Kitimat will spend until Jan. 11 hearing presentations from more than 270 Victorians, all of whom signed up for the opportunity at least 15 months ago.

First up was [Bill] Eisenhauer, with a message echoed throughout the day: Northern Gateway represents a rush to sell off a precious resource in a reckless fashion, the threat to the environment outweighing the benefit. “There are many, many other less risky and less toxic ways to generate economic growth,” he testified.

Eisenhauer is not an eco-hippie. He wore a suit and tie, no hackey sack in sight. He’s a solid community guy: a 45-year-old dad who has his own communications business, sits on the Victoria Hospice Foundation board, coaches a Bays United soccer team and helped organize the local leg of the Olympic torch relay.

In other words, he’s mainstream, the kind of voter whose opinion carries weight with politicians. His is the voice — or at least a voice — of Middle Canada. “That is one of the reasons I thought it was important that I make the effort,” he said later.

He’s not alone. While the list of speakers is liberally sprinkled with environmental activists, Friday’s Ocean Pointe waiting room looked more like a United Church service than a Grateful Dead concert.

That’s not the image they get across the Rockies, where a different narrative is told. The conventional Albertan perspective is that the world needs oil, we have it, we just need to get it to market. Our traditional customers are in the U.S. heartland, but the Americans have rejected the Keystone pipeline that would take it there. Besides, the oil companies can get a much higher price from the Asians, so let’s build a pipeline to the coast and sell to them instead.

Alberta and Ottawa freely malign British Columbians opposed to their damned bitumen pipelines as eco-radicals, extremists.  Many, perhaps even most, of us are grey-haired, lifelong law-abiding, middle class citizens for whom the British Columbia/Alberta border is a pipeline Rubicon.   It endangers us, our province and our way of life.  That can't be allowed to happen.

One Alberta Government Too Many

One thing that grates on plenty of British Columbians is that Canada has two Alberta governments, one too many.   We have a provincial Alberta government that sits in Edmonton and a federal Alberta government that sits in Ottawa.

The Alberta government in Ottawa does things the provincial Alberta government can't do.   It signs treaties with China for example.   Only the federal Alberta government could put a loaded pistol in Beijing's hand and invite them to hold it to the heads of the people and province of British Columbia should they dare stand against the environmental rape of their land and coastline by Alberta bitumen.

Once you see both Alberta governments, provincial and federal, what Ottawa is doing for Edmonton becomes logical, ordered and even sensible in a fiendish sort of way.   Nobody needs to see this state of affairs more clearly than the people of British Columbia, especially those who elected so many Conservative MPs in the last election.   Once we see that these B.C. Tories are actually serving the federal Alberta government I expect we'll be a hell of a lot less inclined to re-elected the bastards.

It's easy out here to see Harper's China tar deal as "economic treason" (as Andrew Nikiforuk terms it) yet it must look like anything but treason to either of our Alberta governments.  And there's the rub.

We can't win this politically.   When the provincial Alberta government and the federal Alberta government pile on, we don't stand a chance.   When they add mighty China to their pile for extra heft we probably won't be able to even breathe.

It's sad to know that the rest of Canada doesn't have the sand to stand up to these Alberta governments but they're conveniently lined up with their alms bowls for their share of the action.   Ontario, for example, is in line to receive many times more bounty out of the Northern Gateway than British Columbia is to receive.   Having federal and a provincial Alberta governments can make that sort of stuff happen.

The stage is set for a pretty interesting confrontation between the province and people of British Columbia in one corner and the massed power of both Alberta governments, China and their spineless minion premiers from the rest of Canada.   Anyone who can't see that as a recipe for west coast separatism?

Every Rapist First Subdues His Victim

Stephen Harper has gone to great lengths to subdue the province and people of British Columbia in preparation for having his way with us against our will.

It's been methodical and relentless and every aspect of it has been marked by three telltales - they've all been without consultation, without our consent and against our will.   It's political rape of an entire province by a brutal despot wielding what he perceives to be unstoppable, superior power.

Harper got the West Coast emergency oil spill centre out of the way.  He moved that to Quebec.   Without consultation, without our consent, against our will.

Harper gutted fisheries protection regulations that might have interfered with supertanker traffic.    Without consultation, without our consent, against our will.

Harper shut down entire departments of Fisheries and Oceans scientists and monitors who served to safeguard our waters, our fisheries and our marine ecology.   Without consultation, without our consent, against our will.

Harper shut down all but two of our key Coast Guard stations, slashing the safety and security of our coastal waters.  Without consultation, without our consent, against our will.

Harper is now moving to strip navigation protections.   Without consultation, without our consent, against our will.

Harper has stripped ("streamlined") environmental assessment procedures to eliminate almost certain hurdles to the Northern Gateway pipeline and Kitimat supertanker port.   Without consultation, without our consent, against our will.

Harper has gagged federal researchers and scientists, preventing them from speaking out on the perils he is crafting for British Columbia.   Without consultation, without our consent, against our will.

All this, and so much more, Harper has done or has in the works and all of it without consultation, without our consent and against our will.  It's a calculated process to subdue and overwhelm British Columbia and the majority of the public that stand in his way.  It's the precursor to the rape to follow.

Everyone is entitled to fight off a rapist.   No one is obliged to submit to violation.   The rest of Canada needs to understand that what Harper has in mind for British Columbia is nothing short of rape.   The rest of Canada, especially everybody in Alberta, needs to understand why we have to defend ourselves and our province.

Crispy Clark's Sarah Palin Moment

British Columbia's unelected, unelectable and outgoing premier, Christy Clark, apparently doesn't like her job any more.  She's beginning to sound like a mid-term Sarah Palin.

...Clark says she tries to avoid working at the legislature because there's "no real people in Victoria" and the "sick culture" is unhealthy.

Clark, whose government cancelled the regularly scheduled fall session of the legislature, blasted working conditions in the provincial capital during an interview with a Vancouver-based columnist for the National Post.

"I try never to go over there. Because it's sick. It's a sick culture. All they can think about is government and there are no real people in Victoria, and you get captured by this inside-the-beltway debate, and it's really unhealthy."

Clark's apparent disdain for the legislature contrasts with comments she made while running for the B.C. Liberal party leadership in 2011.

Then, she told reporters she loved the daily cut-and-thrust of question period. After she won the party leadership, she expressed a desire to run in a byelection as quickly as possible to get her seat in the house. "As you know, I love question period and I hate to miss it," she told reporters.

When Clark was resigning as an MLA in 2005, during her first stint in office, she also professed love for the job in her last speech in the chamber.

"I have a deep, deep love of politics. I love question period. I love debate. I love the people I've met. I even love the protesters. I love politics."

Don't worry, Christy, it'll be all over soon.   In fact the people of British Columbia can't wait to set you free from your burdensome responsibilities in Victoria.   Why, you'll never have to see the place again.   Ever.

Weaver Slams Harper - Again

It wasn't a large protest rally, just 200 people in the crowd, but the message was loud and clear - Harper must stop gagging Canadian scientists.

On hand at the Victoria protest were U. Vic climate scientist, Andrew Weaver, and Green Party leader, Elizabeth May.

"We used to laugh about what was happening to science in the George W. Bush era. It pales in comparison to what is going on in Canada now," [Weaver] said. "Science is happening behind closed doors and is only made public if it fits with the government's agenda."

Canadians can no longer see the science behind climate change, fisheries and marine pollution, Weaver said, but government is pushing anything that helps oil and gas extraction, especially in the Arctic.

He said even the Arctic search for the Franklin Expedition would benefit oil and gas exploration through sea-floor mapping.

At the same time, the government has closed the Polar Environment Arctic Research Laboratory, which provided valuable climate and environmental information, Weaver said.

While Weaver said it was his duty to speak out on behalf of junior colleagues who had lost funding, another scientist spoke disguised by a false beard and sunglasses, saying he could face financial and legal problems if identified.

The Fisheries and Oceans marine contaminants program at the Institute of Ocean Sciences was drastically cut earlier this year and the scientist said Canada had lost the ability to look at the effects of pollutants in B.C. waters.

 

British Columbia's Political Ambiguity

Of late British Columbians have been plagued by the endless bleating of our unelected and unelectable, outgoing premier, Christie Clark, droning on about how hers is the "free enterprise" government.  It's an old saw, one based on the idea that the public has to choose between raving socialists on the left and a grandiose version of the Chamber of Commerce on the right.   It worked in the past for W.A.C. Bennett and a host of right-wingers who followed but it may have outworn its welcome.

Yet there are a good many of us in this province who spurn both extremes and have come to dread the left-right whipsaw politics.  Yes, most of us will probably vote NDP this time around, but it will be negative voting.   We'll be voting against the BL Libs, not for the NDP.   That said, we'll be pleased enough to wake up the morning after and know that the Libs-in-name-only have been finally swept from power.

What British Columbia needs is a genuinely liberal Liberal Party.  That, after all, is how the party was reborn out of the ashes of decades of tug of war between the right and left that ill-served the province and its people.   Unfortunately the resurgent BC Liberal Party punched a hole in the bottom of the Social Credit ship causing its members to swim for it until they boarded the Liberal ship and made it their own.   Any hope for liberalism was utterly and ruthlessly purged from the BC Libs before it ever could take hold.

Of course to give the Dippers their due, today they seem to have little interest in their old ways.   The great causes have been neatly folded up and packed away.   They have embraced liberalism and pragmatism instead.   Maybe it's their socialism that is actually dead, put down at their own hands.

Perhaps getting wiped out at the polls will be a good thing for the BC Liberal Party.   It will certainly be good for the BC Conservative Party if it clears the way for the Tories to reclaim the right.   It will obviously be great for the NDP.   What remains unclear is whether any of it will actually be much good for the people of British Columbia.