“Oh, what a tangled web we weave…when first we practice to deceive.” ― Sir Walter Scott One Stewart Muir is the executive director of Resource Works, an elite organization formed to tout Woodfibre LNG. Muir was once the business editor and deputy managing editor of the Vancouver Sun, thus the
Continue readingAuthor: Rafe Mair
The Common Sense Canadian: Why Rafe Mair is begrudgingly voting “Yes” in Transit Plebiscite
Rafe Mair trusts Mayor Gregor Robertson (pictured) with our transportation future a tad more than the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation – despite big misgivings about transit management to date (Vision Vancouver/Twitter) I am a lifetime contrarian. Whatever I’m supposed to do, I rebel against. I have not changed much in my dotage. But I’m
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: All hands on deck for Howe Sound as LNG storm brews
Boaters raise the alarm over plans to re-industrialize Howe Sound (Future of Howe Sound Society) Howe Sound needs the help of all British Columbians and it needs it now. The proposed Woodfibre LNG plant in Squamish has got some very powerful allies. Both governments support it. That means that there’s
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: A PR Flack’s Guide to LNG: Dream Team tries to repair industry’s image
Clockwise from top left: Teck’s Doug Horswill, Stewart Muir, former A-G Geoff Plant, and Lyn Anglin It’s an axiom of debate that if you don’t like the argument you’re in, find one that you’re more comfortable with. Barristers use this technique before juries all the time and that’s precisely the
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Joe Oliver says fracking is safe, so it must be
Finance Minister Joe Oliver (Adrian Wyld/CP) I must apologize for being an alarmist. I now discover there is no reason for concern about hydraulic fracturing, commonly called “fracking”. I have been alleging that this process of “mining” natural gas is dangerous not only to the atmosphere and the people around
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: Federal leaders out of touch on LNG, fracking
Thomas Mulcair, Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau Prime Minister Stephen Harper has thrown down the gauntlet with his promise of federal tax giveaways for LNG enterprises. I expected this sort of nonsense – just one look at the smug sneer of power on the face of James Moore, Minister of Industry,
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Christy Clark’s LNG-fueled Fudge-it Budget…and the enabling NDP
Premier Christy Clark made big election promises about managing BC’s economy (CP) Welcome to Ruritania! Where is Peter Sellers when we need him? We now have a legislature pretending to act like big kids do, leaders acting as if they really are in charge, a government out of control, and
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Woodfibre LNG proponent has history of fraud, tax evasion
Sukanto Tanoto (right), the man behind the proposed Woodfibre LNG project Permit me to make some observations about the LNG situation in Squamish. What the people of Howe Sound do is their affair. I can only give them the benefit, if any, of my experience over the years. We are
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: West, Weyler team up to battle Kinder Morgan
Ben West addressing a Vancouver crowd about Kinder Morgan in 2012 (Damien Gillis) There’s big news on the environmental front! Ben West, the eminent young environmentalist until now with Forest Ethics and, before that, the Wilderness Committee, has joined Rex Weyler fighting tanker traffic on the BC coast through Tanker Free
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Tide may be turning on farms destroying salmon habitat
A coho spawning in a small stream (Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife) I come today in praise of the Vancouver Sun and trust that events don’t prove that I should’ve approached the mainstream media with my usual skepticism. First, let me tell you a story from my early life
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: NDP Opposition should try some actual opposing
BC NDP and Official Opposition Leader John Horgan (BCNDP.ca/youtube) I’ve been very critical, especially recently in the tyee.ca, of John Horgan, leader of the NDP, and the Official Opposition itself. This is, I assure you, nothing personal but is entirely a matter of the quality of the opposition presented and
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: “The environment IS the economy” says Tory MP Weston…Really?
Tory MP John Weston (from his annual Christmas video message/Youtube) There is surely nothing quite as ridiculous as a Tory pretending that he cares. Money and rich friends they understand but when it comes to the values that ordinary people revere they’re at sea. In fact they’re bewildered by those
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Calgary paper dispenses free parenting advice to BC’s Kinder Morgan opponents
Kim Fink-Jensen (left) and daughter Kate pose with MP Kennedy Stewart after protesting the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline at Burnaby Mountain (Photo: Kim Fink-Jensen/facebook) I say two cheers and a hey nonny nonny for the Vancouver Province. How good it was of them to re-print, on the op-ed page yesterday a
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: What’s the NDP thinking jumping on Liberals’ sinking LNG ship?
BCNDP Leader John Horgan talking LNG at UBCM meeting (Photo: BCNDP) I suppose it’s not unusual for an electorate to feel swindled. It sure as hell happens often enough. The BC electorate has every right to feel swindled in the election of 2013 by the Christy Clark government’s solemn promise
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe to Christy: Spare the kids, parents your Kinder Morgan lectures
11-year-old Kate Fink-Jensen (CTV) and Premier Clark (Lyle Stafford, Postmedia) Premier Christy Clark has taken it upon herself to criticize the parents of two 11-year-olds who protested the Kinder Morgan action in Burnaby and were only not arrested because the police chose to refrain from doing so. The premier is
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: Critics of Burnaby Mountain citizens are out of touch with public will for change
84 year-old retried librarian Barbara Grant getting arrested at Burnaby Mountain (Burnaby Mountain Updates/facebook) I’m inspired, if that’s the right word, from two quite irreconcilable sources. First, the Vancouver Sun editorial of last Thursday, and secondly a wonderful movie called Revolution, by Canadian Rob Stewart, which I urge you to
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: Tough on Kinder Morgan, Corrigan & Robertson my kind of mayors
Re-elected mayors Gregor Robertson & Derek Corrigan. Photos: CP (left) / Dale Cornish/Forest Ethics (right) Derek Corrigan is my kind of mayor. So is Gregor Robertson. Both of these mayors are prepared to look beyond the immediate concerns of their city and take a broader view. I have no doubt
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: Shell promises “green” LNG…we can trust them, right?
Christy Clark and Marvin Odum, President Shell Oil Company at recent BC LNG conference (BC govt flickr) I’m sure, like me, you were excited to read in the Vancouver Sun for November 4 that LNG Canada (Shell and its Asian partners) will build a plant in Kitimat which will be
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Shell Game: Public being fooled by great BC LNG illusion
We are allowing ourselves to be mesmerized over Liquified Natural Gas (LNG). Perhaps we’re doing this to ourselves but the sad fact is that the government’s total ineptitude is not the only story. Not that that isn’t a big story. In fact, it was magnified last week when the Liberals set
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: Runaway Simushir may be safe now; BC’s coast is anything but
The Simushir under tow from US tugboat Barbara Foss (via Maritime Forces Pacific Facebook) The incapacitation of a Russian cargo vessel off Haida Gwaii caused great panic amongst all of us who watched the events unfold over the past weekend. The seas were very heavy – not an unusual state of
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