Rafe Mair Online

The two by-elections are very bad news for the Liberals, not much better for the Tories and excellent news for the NDP.

Let’s start with the last first.

The loyal opposition is now in the position where a couple of Liberals crossing the floor can bring the government down. I don’t believe that will happen but it’s a worry for the Liberals. Mostly this confirmed Adrian Dix’s leadership. Any time you have a contested election, the losers and their supporters have a death wish for the winner – more about that in a moment. Dix is firmly in control. The NDP made a brilliant move in saying that while they oppose Enbridge and coastal tanker traffic they promise a local referendum for Kinder Morgan. One of the moves of the Campbell/Clark government was to extinguish the right of local governments to pass judgment on environmentally sensitive projects and the NDP understand that the late US Speaker, Tip O’Neill, was right when he said “all politics is local”. Continue Reading »

It’s indeed an overworked accolade but Dr. David Suzuki is a great man. In the Environmental world he is in that pantheon of heroes that include the likes of Rachel Carson, Jane Goodall, Thor Heyerdahl and Jacques Cousteau. Dr. Suzuki is a scientist but is better known as the man who brought the environment into the living rooms of the world, explaining things in ways we all could understand.In years when it was unfashionable to be an environmentalist in Canada he, with the likes of Colleen McCrory, Mark Angelo, Joe Foy, Betty Krawczyk and so many others, slowly but surely got the public’s attention. Dr. Suzuki’s impact is incalculable.

But great people make mistakes and usually they are great mistakes, bringing unforeseen consequences that should have been foreseen. Perhaps that’s because people are reluctant to challenge those held in such high esteem. Continue Reading »

How wonderful it is to have such breaking news fanatics as the Vancouver Sun and the Vancouver Province. The Sun on Friday the 13th carried a headline story of how Kinder Morgan is planning to increase its pipeline capacity to 850,000 barrels per day at a cost of $5 Billion. The Province with a breathlessness usually reserved for the discovery of a three headed toad in Tasmania, told us this:

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners gave the green light Thursday to its pipeline expansion, which will more than double the current amount of crude oil flowing from Alberta to Burnaby to 850,000 barrels per day, up from the current 300,000 bpd.

The quantity is about 40 per cent more than what the Houston-based company had originally proposed. And it will see annual tanker traffic jump from about 70 tankers per year to 360 to 365 tankers per year, based on one tanker visiting port per day, said Kinder Morgan. Continue Reading »

Craig McInnes of the Vancouver Sun today has an article essentially supporting the Enbridge Pipeline and the tanker traffic down our coast. His position is that with all the science available these things can be done safely. Craig deserves a trip to the woodshed or, as also happened in my young days, to have his mouth washed out with soap. This usually careful journalist ignores two essential points: the mathematical certainty of accidents and the appalling consequences that will follow.

With the pipeline, no amount of surveillance will prevent ruptures, leaving aside the possibility of vandalism. As we know, this modern, scientifically savvy company, Enbridge, has had 811 accidents since 1998. Craig seems to forget that we’re dealing with an 1,100 km pipeline through both the Rockies and the Coast Range thence through the Great Bear Rainforest and over 1,000 rivers and streams, including several that are vital salmon spawning locations. This means that even when a leak or rupture occurs, the only way to get to it is by helicopter. Surveillance may be state of the art, indeed, way ahead of its time – but what’s the good of surveillance if you can do nothing? Continue Reading »