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Now They’re Aiming Nukes at Me

Feb 1st, 2010 by admin

My critics are wrong to say I ’support’ nuclear power. Plus: Steve Fonyo’s fall.

Today a potpourri.

First, to correct a misimpression making the email circuit, I have never pronounced support for nuclear power. Here’s what I said in The Tyee:

“I do not, repeat not, say we should adopt a nuclear power program in B.C., only that we stand back and look at nuclear with a jaundiced eye but still look. We are, under the Campbell Liberals, bound and determined to destroy our rivers. Campbell, nose growing all the time, says we need the power and that’s why our rivers must be sacrificed. His nose stretches because we do not need the power and even if we did, private river projects won’t help because they only produce power when BC Hydro doesn’t need it. But if there’s a valid alternative, shouldn’t we look at it?

“There are, as I see it, these concerns to be dealt with, any one of which would negate the arguments for nuclear energy.

“1. Is it, under 2009 conditions and knowledge, safe? Even if it’s safe under everyday circumstances, could terrorists use it to create an atom bomb-like disaster?

“2. How do we dispose of the waste? It’s been this problem that has for many people made the issue a non starter.

“3. Is it cost effective? We know that they haven’t been but are the numbers better now?

“4. Is it really green, considering what it takes to build and maintain a facility?

“We would be damned fools to rush into a pro-nuclear policy but also damned fools not to consider it.” Continue Reading »

Posted in The Tyee | No Comments »

Proposed Bute Inlet Hydroelectric Project participant funding process postponed

Jan 22nd, 2010 by admin

This release is huge news for those who have been opposing this horrible project – mostly it’s good news for all of British Columbia.

OTTAWA, Jan. 21 /CNW Telbec/ – The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency is postponing its participant funding process for the proposed Bute Inlet Hydroelectric Project in British Columbia due to changes in timelines associated with the submission of the Environmental Impact Statement.

The proponent, Bute Hydro Inc., recently indicated that additional field work and analysis would be conducted in the spring and fall of 2010 before it will be in a position to submit its environmental impact statement. In light of this new information, the timelines for the review panel process will be substantially delayed.

The participant funding process will be re-initiated when the proponent is in a position to confirm a timeline for the submission of its environmental impact statement. At that time, an announcement will be made with the revised funding amounts and the deadline to submit applications. Current applicants will have an opportunity to revise and resubmit their applications for consideration at that time.

The Agency announced in May 2009 the availability of $250,000 under its Participant Funding Program to assist groups and individuals to participate in the environmental review for the Bute Inlet Hydroelectric Project.

Information on the Participant Funding Program, the proposed project and on the environmental assessment process is available on the Agency’s Web site at www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca, registry number 09-05-44825.

Bute Hydro Inc. is proposing to construct 17 run-of-river hydroelectric facilities in the vicinity of Bute Inlet. Major components in addition to the generating facilities include a substation near the mouth of Southgate River, associated access roads and ancillary works, 216 km of 230 kV collector transmission line and 227 km of 500 kV trunk transmission line from the proposed substation near the mouth of Southgate River to the existing 500 kV substation at Malaspina.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency administers the federal environmental assessment process, which identifies the environmental effects of proposed projects and measures to address those effects, in support of sustainable development.

For further information: media may contact: Annie Roy, Manager, Communications, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, Tel.: (613) 957-0396

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The high cost of green power

Jan 14th, 2010 by admin

While the article below is about Ontario, you’ll see from the highlighted portions that it foretells what will happen in BC as BC Hydro is forced to pay private companies double the price of what they can sell that energy for.

KAREN HOWLETT
Globe and Mail
Jan. 08, 2010

Ontario has a power problem.

A strategy to subsidize the province’s nascent green energy industry is
starting to sting businesses and many households that find themselves
paying the biggest markups on electricity pricing in the country.

Even as electricity demand – and market prices – dropped last year with
the global economic downturn, electricity bills have risen steadily on the
back of generous contracts signed by the province’s power planning agency.
Now, the government of Premier Dalton McGuinty is preparing for a looming
political backlash.

What’s at stake is an industrial strategy that’s on a collision course
with a century-old policy of delivering electricity to consumers at the
lowest possible cost. After the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in
the manufacturing heartland, Mr. McGuinty vowed to create more than 50,000
new ones through the Green Energy Act. But he is building this new sector
- and burnishing his green credentials – by ratcheting up electricity
costs. Continue Reading »

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Norway alert on lice

Jan 9th, 2010 by admin

Gerry Heaslip's 'fish of a lifetime' from the River Dodder in Dublin. The trout weighed 3kg (6lb 9oz) and fell to a Peter Ross minnow pattern size 12, during the Miami Cup.

Gerry Heaslip's 'fish of a lifetime' from the River Dodder in Dublin.

A bit of a heads up … shortly, Damien Gillis – the superb producer of outdoor videos – and I will soon be announcing an undertaking which we’re very excited about. Stay tuned!

Premier Campbell and his henchmen along with the federal minister, Gail Shea, continue to deny the heavy impact of sea lice from fish farms on migrating wild salmon. When you read the following report from Norway remember that our migrating salmon smolts are smaller than the Atlantic Salmon and Sea Trout in Europe thus even more vulnerable.

I must tell you that I returned from a short holiday in London thoroughly re-energized so despoilers of the environment will be hearing from me and colleagues this year BIG TIME. My every sense tells me that the public is getting angrier by the day at what they see happening to our beautiful province which means that to keep the pressure on, please send this and other information to your address book!

Here’s an article that appeared in the Irish Times on December 28, 2009:

Norway alert on lice

BY DEREK EVANS

NORWAY’S Directorate for Nature Management and the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (Nina) have issued a warning that salmon farming in Norway must be reduced during 2010.

The warning is directed to the new Minister for Fisheries, Lisbeth Berg-Hansen, a former head of the Norwegian salmon farming association and the owner of a salmon farm. Continue Reading »

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Vancouver Council’s Sucker Punch

Dec 28th, 2009 by admin

A bloody stupid decision

A bloody stupid decision

Given what’s now known about concussions, there’s no excuse for approving extreme fighting.

There are some things I will just never understand. For a few hundred thousand dollars, OK maybe a million or two, we’ll leave the ill, especially the mentally ill without adequate health service but we can afford the billions on the Olympics. It says something about how much our society cares about its citizens. Not only do we not care about the less fortunate, we won’t even take minimal steps to stop bad things happening.

A couple of weeks ago, I spoke of my watching Floyd Patterson, in 1960, knock out Ingemar Johansson in a heavyweight boxing match and how I was horrorstruck seeing Johansson out like a light for five minutes, blood streaming from his mouth and one of his feet twitching and how I instantly lost my enthusiasm for a “sport” I had always followed. What I finally grasped was that boxing had, as its primary object, concussing the opponent — in short, causing brain damage.

In the past few days, we’ve learned of a tragedy and complete insensitivity. I refer to the death of former NHLer Reggie Fleming, the comments by Don Cherry and the decision of Vancouver City Council to countenance extreme fighting or, as it’s now euphemistically called “mixed martial arts.”

Dr. Charles Tator, a neurosurgeon from the University of Toronto has studied the effect of concussions and has concluded, “Concussions used to be considered minor head injuries because we were taught in medical school that a concussion had only a temporary effect. It’s true that some of the symptoms are temporary, but the effects on the brain are often permanent,” he said.

“We can’t really speak any longer of a minor concussion. There is no concussion that is truly minor.”

After the autopsy, Tator correctly pointed out that the style or brand of hockey promoted by Don Cherry leads to head injuries.

Cherry didn’t deal with the issue, namely whether or not the hard-hitting, illegal-checking, fight-ridden game Cherry loves contributes to concussions but responded, “For this guy to come out and blame me for all the injuries I think is totally unfair,” and concluded that Dr. Tator was trying to get his name in the papers. This is, unfortunately, the sort of crap you’d expect of this mental midget who makes huge bucks promoting violence and bad mouthing European players. Continue Reading »

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Posted in The Tyee | 1 Comment »

Going Nuclear!

Dec 21st, 2009 by admin

Nuclear power plant in the U.K.

Nuclear power plant in the U.K.

Well,  at least inviting a hard look at nuclear energy as an option.

Batten down the hatches! Hide the good booze! Prepare for the worst! Rafe is going to talk about nuclear, hereinafter called N to preserve the sensibilities of readers!

First a bit of background as to why I would discuss this matter now having done almost nothing on the subject since the early ’80s.

We are facing several crises in Canada just as elsewhere. Fossil fuels are about as welcome as a cow at a christening. The thought of burning a litre of gas or oil, or a sack of coal, brings exclamations of horror, yet 30 years ago coal was the darling of fuels. Remember northeast coal project and the government of which I was a part making that big deal with South Korea? And how those mining and selling it out of the southeast sector gave the government hell for creating a favoured competitor? Which it did. Coal was all the rage as scientists worked on ways to cheaply convert it into gasoline while other scientists worked on making coal clean enough to burn for power.

Those theories would be considered madness now. Or would they, considering that in their stead we have the Alberta tar sands, which make coal and oil smell like lavender perfume by comparison?

When I was a teenager after the war (no, dammit, not that war, World War II!), atomic energy was seen by everyone as the answer to our power problems. I remember a teacher telling us that there was enough energy in a streetcar (yes, we had those then in addition to the coach and four and the surrey with the fringe on top) to power an entire city. Many countries went into N as did the province of Ontario but many others did not — by an amazing coincidence those that didn’t, had no need to. Continue Reading »

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Say It Ain’t So, Tiger

Dec 14th, 2009 by admin

His image was based on lies. Illustration: Adbusters

His image was based on lies. Illustration: Adbusters

I was your biggest fan. Now I say to your wife Elin, ‘Sue the bastard!’

He was one of the best ballplayers of all time. He played in the 1919 World Series for the Chicago White Sox and had 12 hits and a .375 batting average — in both cases leading both teams. The 12 hits was a World Series record. He hit the series’ only home run (this was the day of the “dead ball”), committed no errors and even threw out a runner at the plate.

Still, when a number of White Sox players were indicted for “throwing” the series to the Cincinnati Reds in what became known as the “Black Sox Scandal,” Joe Jackson was one of them. Even though he was acquitted by the jury, the new commissioner for baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, banned him for life.

“Shoeless” Joe Jackson became the subject for local writer Bill Kinsella’s book Shoeless Joe, the first book ever serialized by Sports Illustrated which morphed into the wonderful movie Field of Dreams.

When Jackson was arraigned in a Chicago courthouse, the story says that when he came out, a young fan came up to him with tears in his eyes and said, “Say it ain’t so, Joe.” Joe evidently acknowledged to his young hero worshipper that it was so, though in later years Jackson denied the entire incident.

I, an aging hero worshipper, say it now. “Say it ain’t so, Tiger.”

In my youth, which is to say until I reached 50, my unqualified heroes were the Montreal Canadiens. I despised the Toronto Maple Leafs, and on those rare occasions when they beat the Habs, I became doubtful of the Almighty since surely a just God would never allow this to happen. I happened to be in Toronto for the last game of the 1967 series between the Maple Leafs and the Habs, which the former won.

I was inconsolable. All the way home on the subway I felt sure people were staring at me in a combination of contempt and pity. Big Jean, Pocket Rocket, Dickie and Doug ‘arvee (as the Montreal announcer called him), how could this have happened? Don’t you understand the consequences? Continue Reading »

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NDP Doesn’t Hide Its Divisions

Dec 7th, 2009 by admin

Cartoon by Ingrid Rice

Cartoon by Ingrid Rice

Carole James is no autocrat — and her party, for better or worse, lacks discipline.

Much note has been taken in the press of the conflicting speeches of Jim Sinclair and Carole James at the recent NDP conference, with Sinclair representing the BC Federation of Labour and James speaking for herself and those who support her. I was surprised that columnists don’t understand that this sort of thing is endemic to this party.

First, one should know about the NDP’s “mother,” the CCF (Cooperative Commonwealth Federation). The Canadian Encyclopedia says this: “the CCF was founded in 1932 in Calgary as a political coalition of progressive, socialist and labour forces anxious to establish a political vehicle capable of bringing about economic reforms to improve the circumstances of those suffering the effects of the Great Depression. The main impetus for the formation of the new party came from farmers’ organizations (including the United Farmers of Alberta, which governed that province), and a handful of academics… allied with both farmer and trade-union organizations.”

The Columbia Encyclopedia version of the founding convention of the NDP puts it like this: “The New Democratic Party (NDP), a Canadian political party, was founded in 1961 when the CCF reorganized itself and entered into close ties with Canadian labor unions, especially the Canadian Labor Congress (CLC). The CCF, formed in 1932, began as a largely Western Canadian federation of farm, labor and socialist groups with a democratic socialist program of increased welfare measures, moderate nationalization, and government economic planning.”

Clearly, then, the distinction between “labour forces” and “trade unions” is key to understanding the foundation of the New Democratic Party.

Coalitions, and covering up

In days of yore when I sat in the legislature, I was always amused by NDP members calling us Socreds “a coalition” — as if they weren’t a better example of that than we were! Continue Reading »

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Layton Needs a BC Strategy

Nov 30th, 2009 by admin

NDP leader Layton: New opportunities

NDP leader Layton: New opportunities

And here it is: campaign hard, with Carole James, on saving our natural environment.

We may be seeing what no person in his right mind would have dared speak of just a handful of years ago. I speak of the chance that the NDP may overtake the Liberals as the government in waiting. It could happen. Indeed it may already have happened.

The reasons are that Michael Ignatieff is a dud and won’t go quietly and the NDP is moving toward the centre.

Under Jack Layton the last three elections have show some promise for the NDP. In his first election he got 19 seats. This moved to 29 in 2006 and 37 in 2008. The fact remains that the NDP has a long way to go in order to be the opposition but with some luck and skill it could happen.

Jack Layton is a very decent guy who unfortunately reminds one of Terry-Thomas playing a used car salesman. Now, don’t get me wrong, some of my best friends are used car salesman and you may believe that they are more to be trusted than, say, lawyers, politicians, broadcasters or writers. The problem is one of image. Remember poor old Gilles Duceppe and the picture of him wearing a hairnet when he visited a meat packing plant? Even though he was required to wear this, the media pilloried him as they did with Stockwell Day on a jet ski and poor old Bob Stanfield for tucking his trousers inside his cowboy boots. And who could forget Gordon Campbell’s plaid shirt? Somehow Pierre Trudeau got away with wearing ridiculous garb but Trudeau managed to get away with almost everything.

Layton faces an uphill struggle and if he’s to move up the ladder and pass the Grits he must do better in Quebec and Ontario, make headway in Atlantic Canada and really do well in B.C. In order to do that, the federal NDP must do better — much better — in rural B.C., which has become a Tory stronghold. This is where Carole James comes in.

In my judgment the mainstream media has avoided talking about the real issues in rural B.C., namely the environmental degradation of the province under the Campbell government. This appalling ruination of our heritage is catching people’s attention all over the province. Continue Reading »

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Just Don’t Call Me Right-Wing

Nov 23rd, 2009 by admin

Sorry, no right turn here.

Sorry, no right turn here.

I was raised conservative, but look where I’ve ended up!

Denouement: the outcome of a complex sequence of events.

As one whose lifetime has been involved in a complex sequence of events, my outcome has left me a bit bewildered at what I’ve become — a severe opponent of “big C” conservatism because I see it as destructive of much of what I hold dear.

(Before continuing, a man named David Field representing Citizens for Green Energy keeps calling me a “right-winger” in his attacks on my views which he’s been sending to community papers. The idea that I’m a right-winger will probably come as an unbearable shock to Premier Campbell who, having seen me campaign long and hard for the NDP last election, had assumed quite the opposite!)

My mother and father were Conservatives who always voted for Point Grey’s Howard Green — even when he supported the expulsion of Japanese Canadians from the B.C. coast in 1942. In fact, when my father “bought” a paper box company from the so-called trustee looking after selling the property of the internees at a 90 per cent discount, it was mostly seen as an act of patriotism.

Blame Trudeau

By the time I had reached university I was a Liberal. The CCF (Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation, now the NDP) were not looked at seriously where I came from, and the Conservatives were so very, very British — opposing any efforts to diminish the country’s “Britishness.” I stayed a provincial Liberal until 1975 when I voted for myself, the Social Credit candidate for Kamloops. By that time, I was thoroughly fed up with Trudeau, especially over the so-called “Quebec Crisis” where it seemed to me that Trudeau and his government had taken leave of their senses.

Even though I didn’t like what I saw in the Progressive Conservative Party, it was better than the Grits. It helped me to know that my lifelong friend John Fraser was a Tory — a “Red” Tory who I could relate to. Continue Reading »

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