Less than two months after a major oil spill at Kinder Morgan’s Sumas Mountain tank farm, the company announced plans to twin their existing trans mountain infrastructure. The most recent rupture of January 24th leaked approximately 110,000 liters of crude oil, raising major concern from local residents with regards to
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The Common Sense Canadian home page: Newly Obtained Documents Reveal Private River Power Projects Killing Fish
Read this exclusive story from the Vancouver Sun on documents obtained by the Wilderness Committee that demonstrate private river power projects are killing fish. (Match 10, 2012) The Mamquam River pours cold and fresh off the Coast Mountains, forming pools and canyons and chutes of white water on its way
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Veteran North Coast Fisherman Warns of Serious Navigational Risks to Supertankers
John Brajcich and his family have been fishing the north and central coast of BC since the 1930’s, providing them with intimate knowledge of its many navigational hazards. Here, Mr. Brajcich outlines his concerns about proposed supertanker traffic through these waters: “This route would be extremely dangerous to tanker traffic.
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Review of B.C.’s Dysfunctional Carbon Tax Aims for Repairs in 2013 Pre-election Budget
British Columbia’s controversial and widely misunderstood carbon tax will soon be subjected to a comprehensive review with the results likely to be revealed in next year’s budget, just in time for the tax to become another pre-election political football to be kicked around by voters and political parties in the
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Power Failure – Part 2: The Folly of the Kokish River IPP Proposal
The race for BC to become a world leader in new clean energy production was over long ago, when Government and the private power sector blew their wager on run-of-river technology…The wisdom of these directives, including expectations for new clean energy to supply economic expansion, and the implications for BC
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Power Failure: BC’s Clean Energy Act on Shaky Ground – Part 1
Premier Christy Clark’s complacency and Energy Minister Rich Coleman’s failure to address glaring new realities has resulted in increasingly desperate collusion by government and corporate influences to justify obsolete policy. The ongoing explosive growth of wind power capacity in the Pacific Northwest Power Pool, the collapse of natural gas prices,
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: The Myth About Pipeline Jobs and the True Ownership of the Alberta Tar Sands
As many economists have pointed out, and our PM who claims to be an economist refuses to hear, every petro-state has an inflated value to their currency. We already know that we are not doing as well in the export field because our dollar is high in comparison the US
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: In-Depth Coverage Coming on Historic Prince Rupert Enbridge Protest
Both Rafe Mair and Damien Gillis of The Common Sense Canadian were on hand in Prince Rupert this past weekend to witness and take part in a historic gathering to protest Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline and associated Tar Sands supertankers on BC’s rugged coast. Mair was the evening’s key-note
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: BC NDP Widens Lead in Latest Angus Reid Opinion Poll – In-depth Analysis
The latest opinion poll from Angus Reid Public Opinion shows that a new paradigm in BC politics has held and even increased in the last three months, most notably with a widening gap between the NDP, now up 2 to 42%, and the Liberals, down 3 to only 28%, which
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Cross Border Deal’s Grave Threats to Canadian Food Security
Will Canadians see higher levels of pesticide and herbicide residues on our vegetables and fruits as American standards are adopted? Will we see a proliferation of GMO crops which are dangerous to human and animal health? Will more GMO foods begin hitting our dinner plates? Will Canadians see toxic but
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Is Canada Dropping the Ball on Sustainable Waste Management?
Once upon a time North American waste activists looked to Canada for cutting edge moves towards sustainable waste management. Looking back we remember the ban on incineration by the Ontario NDP; the blue box program; the pay-by bag systems; EPR in Vancouver; Ottawa’s Take it Back program; Toronto’s declaration of
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Beyond Cohen: Salmon Issue Must Follow Path of Oil Tanker Resistance – Uniting First Nations, Conservationists, Citizens
It wasn’t until the final hours of the final day of the Cohen Commission into declining Fraser River sockeye, last Monday, that it truly became clear to me. After all the hundreds of thousands of pages of documents and thousands of hours of testimony made public by the Inquiry; after
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Shades of Green: Globalized Bigness…and Why Santa Claus is No Longer Believable
When Santa Claus was delivering a few token Christmas gifts to a few houses in a few little villages in northern Europe, he seemed believable because his task was possible. But a globalized Santa, required to travel at searing speeds to distribute billions of gifts to billions of households, simply
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: US-Canada Regulatory Cooperation Council Plan’s Orwellian Transportaion Pact
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second of three articles by Nelle Maxey examining the wide-ranging ramifications for the Canadian public, economy and environment of the new Canada-US Border Security Deal and its ancillary agreements. With my first article on this topic I set the background for Canada’s new trade deal
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: US-Canada Regulatory Cooperation Council Plan’s Orwellian Transportation Pact
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second of three articles by Nelle Maxey examining the wide-ranging ramifications for the Canadian public, economy and environment of the new Canada-US Border Security Deal and its ancillary agreements. With my first article on this topic I set the background for Canada’s new trade deal
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Rafe on Cummins’ Foolhardy Support for Enbridge – Plus Refelctions on Cohen
I must say I was surprised to see that Conservative leader John Cummins supports the proposed Enbridge pipeline from the Tar Sands to Kitimat and I have since wondered if that would impact the NDP, the Liberals, both – or anyone. John has never been strong on complicated issues and I
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Damien Gillis Discusses Cohen Commission and ISA Virus on CBC’s Early Edition
Get MP3 (8.9 MB) Listen to this 7 min interview of Damien Gillis from CBC’s Early Edition this past Monday. Damien and host Kathryn Gretsinger discuss some of the key revelations that have emerged from the Cohen Commission into disappearing Fraser River Sockeye – including a series of new virus
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Shades of Green: Agnotology – The Propagation of Doubt
“Agnotology” is a new and useful word coined in 1992 by Dr. Robert Proctor of Stanford University to designate the study of ignorance. We give a huge amount of attention to knowing, to “gnosis”, he contended, but little attention to its opposite, “agnosis” (Guardian Weekly, July 1/11). At first glance,
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Border Security Deal’s Ugly Twin Carries Major Energy and Environmental Implications for Canada
Harper’s government officially announced in recent weeks a new Border Security deal with the US. However, little press space was given to the ugly twin of this deal – the Canada-United States Regulatory Cooperation Council (RCC) and their “Joint Action Plan”. The RCC was set up to “streamline” regulations in
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Border Security Deal’s Ugly Twin Carries Major Energy and Environmental Implications for Canada
Harper’s government officially announced in recent weeks a new Border Security deal with the US. However, little press space was given to the ugly twin of this deal – the Canada-United States Regulatory Cooperation Council (RCC) and their “Joint Action Plan”. The RCC was set up to “streamline” regulations in
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