Author: Damien Gillis

Watch this powerhouse speech from Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union at the Defend Our Coast rally in Victoria explaining why his members are “diametrically opposed” to Tar Sands pipelines to BC’s coast. A representative of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers echoed those concerns, citing

Council of Canadians Chair Maude Barlow and 350.org founder Bill McKibben will lead a discussion about oil and gas pipelines and tankers in Burnaby this Thursday evening. The event is the second stop in a seven-city tour discussing a range of oil and gas pipeline proposals and associated tanker traffic,

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for salmon biologist and anti-fish farm activist Alexandra Morton. In between receiving two prestigious academic honours on opposite sides of the country, she found the time to drop by a few Sobeys grocery stores in Halifax, discover clumps of sea lice on the

The Harper Government plans to further roll back the historic Navigable Waters Protection Act in this year’s omnibus budget bill. The new proposed changes to the Act follow serious cuts made in the 2009 budget, which included eliminating most environmental assessments based on navigable waters triggers and setting up a

We can no longer muzzle debate about cancer research and prevention with taboos designed to protect the status quo. The discussion must certainly be imbued with compassion and sensitivity to the pain of losing a loved one to this disease. But we need to be able to ask questions about

I was delighted to learn recently that my good friend and colleague, leading salmon farming critic Don Staniford, won a major victory in the BC Supreme Court over the aquaculture industry – in large part thanks to an important legal precedent established by another good friend and colleague, Rafe Mair.

The tainted meat scandal that continues to dominate Canadian news headlines has provoked harsh criticism of XL Foods – the company at the centre of the nation’s largest ever meat recall – regulator the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Federal Conservative Government. Yet, as humourist and political commentator Rick

Following an eventful couple of weeks for the Canada-China energy trade file, Stephen Harper finds himself in quite a pickle. The Prime Minster is stuck between his resolute commitment to opening up a carbon corridor to Asian markets and the increasingly politically untenable position of supporting wholesale Chinese state ownership

Part 2 of the introduction to Damien Gillis’ new series, “Canada’s Carbon Corridor” – and exploration of the interconnected web of major oil, gas, coal, mining and hydroelectric projects across northern BC and Alberta, told through the lens of the team currently shooting the documentary “Fractured Land”. In this chapter,

I recently returned from a whirlwind tour across northern BC, one of many legs of filming for a documentary and multi-media project I’m co-directing called “Fractured Land”. The people we spoke to along the way, the sights we witnessed and documented finally brought into focus the real story about energy

The upper Incomappleux River and its very ancient rainforest are the gems of the Selkirk Mountain Caribou Park Proposal. Having avoided the ravages of logging for years, this special part of the river – home to grizzlies and myriad blue and red-listed species – is threatened by a proposed private

As big of a game-changer as oil pipelines and tankers would be for BC, one could argue that the collection of proposed natural gas-related developments on the table is, taken together, at least as transformative for the province’s future – though you wouldn’t know it from the relative silence on

Check out this interview from Aug. 15 on Vancouver Co-op Radio’s “Discussion”, with host Charles Boylan. Guest Damien Gillis and Boylan cover a wide range of topics relating to energy and the future of the BC and Canadian economy. The pair discuss the myriad alternatives popping up of late to

Province cartoonist Dan Murphy is back at it – poking fun at Enbridge’s laughable marketing campaign for the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline. This time, it’s a spoof on the company’s bucolic animation of the pipeline and tanker route, derided by the public and media of late for its airbrushing out

In Part 2 of Rafe Mair’s July 2012 interview of economist Erik Andersen, the two cover the plan to build Liquefied Natural Gas plants on BC’s west coast – to sell natural gas to Asia – and the proposed Site C Dam. Says Andersen, “Site C is a loser of

Part 1 of Rafe Mair’s July 2012 interview with economist Andersen, delving deep into BC’s troubled energy situation, including Hydro’s broken forecasting model, rip-off private power projects, and massive debt and Enron-style accounting practices at our public utility – all driven by the shadowy private American corporation to which we’ve

I recently attended the one-day hearing for the Joint Review Panel into the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline in the small community of Shearwater – the umpteenth meeting of this sort I’ve documented over the past 6 years covering environmental politics in BC. At the end of the meeting, throughout

And so it begins. The spin to jettison Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline in favour supposedly “safer” alternatives – demonstrated by Conservative MP James Moore on CKNW’s Bill Good Show. After slagging Enbridge for its poor public engagement and safety record, the MP for Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam held up Kinder