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Memo to Media: Questions to Ask BC Candidates

Jan 7th, 2013 by

Journalists wishing to be relevant this provincial election must zero in on environment.

This will be, at long last, the year of the environment in B.C. For the first time in my memory, leaders debating in the upcoming election will have to answer questions about the environment.

It will be a strange feeling for those who have slugged it out in the trenches since the 1960s only to be ignored by the media who think that the only issues are those they have acknowledged to be so, and no others.

For decades the media’s agenda has refused to reflect the demonstrable public concern that spawned Greenpeace, the Sea Shepherd Society and may others including the Wilderness Committee, the Living Oceans Society, the Georgia Strait Alliance… I’m already getting into trouble because I can’t possibly name them all. I especially must mention the great work at sea by Paul Watson, on whose board of advisors I have sat on for some 20 years, and Joe Foy and his colleagues at the Wilderness Committee with whom I have shared many a podium. Continue Reading »

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All I Want for Christmas

Dec 27th, 2012 by

Is a May election that puts in power true defenders of BC’s natural bounty.

To me the dominant issue before all others going into May’s provincial election is the environment. Fiscal fudge-ups can be fixed as can most bad policy. But environmental damage — be it due to fish farms, pipelines, tankers, Site C or loss of agricultural land — is, to all intents and purposes, permanent.

My vote will I think be the same as many. It will go to the candidate who stands for our precious environment. For any politicians wanting to know what to give me — and likely a winning margin of other grateful voters — here are four items on my list:

1. No more ocean-based fish farms

Let’s deal with some of these issues, starting with fish farms. There can be no doubt, after the Cohen report finding that there is no safe way to have fish farms in the pathway of migrating fish, that the provincial government must stop potential farms and get rid of the others. Continue Reading »

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How the Environment is Becoming the Top Issue for Canadians

Dec 14th, 2012 by

Wendy and I, exercising a habit of some years now, are further depleting our kids’ legacies and will be away until January 10, starting with 20 days in the Caribbean then 4 days in Boston visiting friends.

It’s been an interesting year in the environmental field.

Opposition to the Enbridge Northern Gateway project is massive and I predict the same situation will prevail against the proposed Kinder Morgan expansion. In fact, this is the first time in my memory that the environment has been the #1 issue. In fact, one of the signs is that neither the government, nor sadly, the opposition want to come to grips with several major environmental issues. The federal government is beyond all hope and may have to be stopped by massive civil disobedience, which no doubt will come. Continue Reading »

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Public Will Soon Turn on Kinder Morgan…Will the NDP?

Dec 11th, 2012 by

A rally against Kinder Morgan’s proposed pipeline and tanker expansion last year.

Mike Smyth had an interesting column in Sunday’s Province, dealing with the proposed second and much larger Kinder Morgan Pipeline to Vancouver, which would see a five-fold increase in tanker traffic through Vancouver’s harbour. In it he told us that the company was being very laid back compared with Enbridge, holding a series of public information sessions. Mr. Smyth, quite correctly in my view, said that the public, if only mildly involved now, would change its attitude toward Kinder Morgan.

Kinder Morgan will and indeed is being dishonest with the public. This is no different than Enbridge or any other pipeline – they all maintain that there will be no spills and that, if there are, they will be minor (which is what Enbridge said about Kalamazoo) and quickly cleaned up. This is nonsense and the public will very soon be letting Kinder Morgan know that.

We must all know that corporations simply do not tell the truth except by accident. Their face to the public comes from highly skilled public relations departments and highly skilled and expensive outside agencies.

As we have seen with BP in the Gulf of Mexico disaster, after the tragedy they are quick to find pictures of healthy birds and animals to show that all is well again. Continue Reading »

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Posted in The Common Sense Canadian | 2 Comments »

Baby, Ignore the Culture Scrooges

Dec 10th, 2012 by

Halleluiah! Sharing diverse cultural traditions can be joyful if we loosen up and let it out.

I’ll show you my Christmas, you show me your Ramadan. Why are we afraid of holidays born of history?

I say let’s put Christ back into Christmas!

I am a lapsed Christian, still groping for answers. Ever since I did a TV series on religion, I’ve been groping far and wide with limited success. Actually, I’m probably now a quasi-Christian since I cannot in all honesty say the Creed. The Trinity, the virgin birth and bodily resurrection give me a lot of trouble, as does the divinity of Jesus.

But I have taken to Jesus. I like what he has to say: that we must love God and our neighbour and that upon those two rules everything else depends.

I was raised in a Christian way in the sense that I went to Sunday school, sang in the choir, and married (three times) in the Anglican Church. When asked my religion in days of yore I would always say — apologies to Will Rogers — that I belonged to no organized church. I was an Anglican.

Though I was raised a Christian, it was pretty laid back. My dad went to church every Christmas only, and always raised hell if what he considered the family pew was otherwise occupied. Continue Reading »

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Cancellation of Private Power Project in Kootenays a Victory for Citizens, Bull Trout

Dec 7th, 2012 by

1,100 citizens came out to an environmental assessment meeting in Kaslo to oppose the Glacier/Howser private power project

There is good news in the environment field and, for some reason the Fraser Institute-driven Vancouver Sun won’t talk about it – nor will the Province. The reason they won’t?

Because it is a triumph of the people over monetary and Establishment interests.

Private power producer AXOR, under subsidiary Purcell Green Power, planned to dam and divert Glacier and Howser Creeks in the Purcell Wilderness in the Kootenays, along with two other nearby rivers. Well, to the surprise of many, the Environmental Assessment Office has terminated the Environmental Assessment of the project, noting the company has failed to address concerns about fish and other questions raised by the public.

What does this mean?

Montreal based Axor must go right back to square one if it wants another chance and I find it difficult to believe that with all they have sunk into this project they would want to do it all over again. Continue Reading »

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BC Liberal Government Corrupt

Dec 5th, 2012 by

The Campbell/Clark government is corrupt and here are a few of the reasons I say this:

  • Campbell gets convicted of drunken driving and doesn’t resign as he certainly would have demanded that an NDP premier do
  • The 2009 budget that was over $2 billion short of reality – this amounted to a fraud upon the voters
  • The lies about the HST
  • The BC Rail stink
  • The use of public finds to promote the Liberal Party
  • The use of public servants for party political purposes
  • Private power contracts for political pals which are bankrupting BC Hydro

Readers will, no doubt, find other reasons.

In recent weeks we discovered Rich Coleman taking election funds from a brewery he is now about to save $9 million in taxes.

Let me tell you about the standards that prevailed in my years (1975-81) in the Bill Bennett government.  And, I must say, in the Barrett government before it. Now, mark you, I’m not talking about what policies they supported but the integrity of the premier and his ministers. Continue Reading »

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Undemocratic Jumbo Resort Threatens Kootenay Grizzly Bears

Nov 27th, 2012 by

Photo of Jumbo Glacier by Trevor Florence

The Jumbo Ski Resort planned for the Purcell Mountains has been approved by the provincial government, which has put in place legislation for the area to become a municipality.

The setting up of a municipality is so the government will have someone to work with as the various permits are dealt with (which is Liberalese for “approved”).

The irony, nay hypocrisy, of this seems to have been lost in the debate. This is nothing short of gerrymandering, for there already is a municipality to deal with – namely the several communities in the Kootenays which will be affected by this project This is a refinement of gerrymandering.

This technique came about when a Massachusetts governor, Elbridge Gerry, redrew an election district to suit his political needs. It looked like a salamander so the term gerrymandering entered the political lexicon. Continue Reading »

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BC Politicians’ Gaseous Dreams

Nov 26th, 2012 by

Liquified natural gas carrying vessel: Sailing into a price crash? LNG photo by Shutterstock.

Both parties seem oblivious to the coming natural gas glut and its economic impact.

“Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad”— Unknown

“You make a very serious mistake believing that people in charge know what the hell they’re doing” — Mair’s Axiom I

We in B.C. are on a ship of fools headed for a disabling recession, the likes of which we’ve never witnessed before.

Always in a helpful mood, I’m going to try and help Finance Minister Mike de Jong and Opposition Leader Adrian Dix understand elementary rules of economics from a man — me — who learned about such matters in university (Economics 200, 1951, failed).

The first thing you learn is that when you have a supply curve and a demand curve intersect, you have the price. Admittedly there are other factors that come into play, but that statement is the underlying rule about how prices are set — although there are countless ways the law of supply and demand can be bent, not the least of which is government policy. Continue Reading »

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One Step Forward with Fish Farms, Two Steps Back with Proposed Fossil Fuel Exports

Nov 18th, 2012 by

Schematic drawing for closed-containment fish farm – from DFO’s feasibility study on the subject

A couple of thoughts today.

A promising article on fish farms appears in today’s Vancouver Sun. At face value it looks like great news – the story of fish farming on land with no contact with the ocean.

As I say, it looks great but I want to hear what Alexandra Morton has to say.

The objection industry has always made is that it’s too expensive for them to compete that way. The answer to that, according to the Sun article, is that excrement can be recycled for profit and that expenses such as fish lost to predators, or to kill sea lice are avoided.

There is only one fair way to compare the two approaches: charge fish farms an appropriate rent for their leases to include ALL the environmental losses. This levels the playing field and is only fair. Continue Reading »

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