Author: Rafe Mair

I have, for Premier Clark, an offer she can’t possibly turn down. She refuses to call the Legislature into session because it will only make pundits and politicians (presumably she means those in the opposition) happy. In her view it’s better for the great unwashed if she goes on the

I see that all civilization and some uncivilizations, like the USA, want Paul Watson’s hide. Just so there’s no doubt, I’ve known and supported Paul for over 30 years and for many years been on the Sea Shepherd Society’s Board of Advisors. I have supported him all that time because,

It was a more progressive development of the Tar Sands that happened on Lougheed’s watch. What a pity his policy wasn’t continued, for he stood squarely for this project be developed by Canadian refineries to be used for Canadian needs. Had his policies been followed, there would be no discussion

Does the fact I recognize corporations do what is in their financial self-interest – that the onus of demonstrating the environmental safety of mines, fish farms, pipelines, tankers falls not on corporations but on citizens – does all this mean that I’m a neo-communist, or even a socialist? Not at

The NDP are getting a free ride – at least they certainly are on the energy file. I must ask again: Why are they not condemning the proposed twinning of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands to Vancouver? All the arguments that prevail against the Enbridge

I have been to a number of joint federal/provincial hearings and I’d rather have a root canal without novocaine than attend another. The chair and the company representative are joined at the hip even demonstrably socializing before and after the “hearing”. The desirability of the project is off limits for

Three engineers including two professors emeritus from UBC have verified what I and others have been saying for some time. An article in the September 1 Vancouver Sun tells us that the risks of an eventual spill are too high through the expected 50-year lifetime of the project, “and the

We are now seeing the public relations world at work. I know something about the philosophy behind Public Relations companies and their siamese twin, the advertising company. If you want to observe the the ethics of the industry, go to a Third World Country and look at their advertisements for

I simply cannot see how, short of a fluke, Christy Clark can lead her party to victory in May 2013. She didn’t have a chance from the start. With but one MLA supporting here she had to pull off a miracle in order to start putting Humpty Dumpty together again.

Rafe Mair takes on an op-ed by Gordon Gibson, in favour of David Black’s Kitimat refinery proposal, published in the Globe and Mail. He identifies this proposal as “idiotic”, and points out that Gibson’s piece is a paid advertisement for it. Rafe also explains why’s Black’s proposal is such a

One must, I suppose, take newspaper tycoon David Black’s offer to build a refinery near Kitimat seriously, although the idea is preposterous on several fronts. For openers, he doesn’t tell us who will be behind such a refinery. He admits he doesn’t have the money – an important matter. Of

The tide seems to be turning against the Enbridge Pipeline but we must take great care not to lose by winning. Industry seems to be talking alternative routes by using rail or other methods. My old friend Tex Enemark weighs in this morning in an op-ed in the Sun and

The tide seems to be turning against the Enbridge Pipeline but we must take great care not to lose by winning. Industry seems to be talking alternative routes by using rail or other methods. My old friend Tex Enemark weighs in this morning in an op-ed in the Sun and

this week, it was right wing zealot Herb Grubel, today it’s some deep thinker, I don’t think, from SNC Lavalin and a director of HSBC, named Gwyn Morgan…Morgan states, “how difficult it can be for ‘big business’ to be heard over the doom-laden exaggerations of environmental zealots…and powerful international groups…stopping

Mike Smyth of the Vancouver Province took on Adrian Dix this morning for not applying the same principles in his stance on the proposed Enbridge pipeline and consequent tanker traffic to the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline twinning. Mike is absolutely right. Dix has shown a political wimpishness which puts him,

Dr. Grubel glosses over the most important fact in this controversy – the oil spills he speaks of as certain cannot, for all intents and purposes, be cleaned up. It is this fact that throws Grubel’s arguments out the window. We’re not dealing with gasoline, natural gas, bunker oil or

I’m perplexed at the provincial government’s apparent imminent approval of a new fish farm in Clayoquot Sound. Has no one in that catastrophic government in Victoria read the recent and growing evidence of serious disease endemic to fish farms?…I’m perplexed at the flip in the recent opinion column by the

Premier Clark’s fight with Alberta Premier Redford over the Northern Gateway project is a very dangerous ploy. She has, by this action, said plainly that the BC environment is open to bids in exchange for the desecration of our province. The Premier’s environmental stipulations will cause no concerns with Alberta,

The BC Liberals have just offered the sword of surrender to Enbridge and Ottawa as the organ-grinder’s monkey, Environment Minister Terry Lake, made clear in a statement today. Separating the pepper from the fly shit, the Liberals want more money and more environmental safeguards imposed upon Enbridge, which must be

Premier Clark reminds me of the story where a man asks a lady if she will go to bed with him for $100,000 and she hems and haws, speaks of her needy children and, with apparent reluctance agrees. The man then asks, “Will you then go to bed with me