by: Brent Patterson | First published by The Council of Canadians on June 16, 2014 A map of Enbridge’s proposed $6.5 billion Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline. Map from Mining.com The Harper government must announce its decision on the 525,000 barrels per day Northern Gateway tar sands export pipeline by midnight tomorrow.
Continue readingTag: British Columbia
Politics, Re-Spun: Hey, BC: Want More Jobs? Dump the LNG and Pipelines!
Well, I found yet another [like this] study showing how many MORE jobs we’d get by moving to a post-carbon energy infrastructure and dumping LNG, tarsands, pipelines and all the other Mordor Industrial Complex BC and Alberta are embracing. Not only is dumping the carbon energy infrastructure essential to do
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Updates: Ricochet, Piketty Forum and more coming soon
I’m in the midst of a spell of travel and other work that’s been keeping me away from posting new content here. Another week or two and I should be able to return to much more regular updates of this blog. For the time being I wanted to mention two things that might
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: What Does Soft Fascism Look Like These Days?
We don’t see brown shirts and jackboots, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t seeing the de-democratization of our society. In Vancouver this month, armed police with guns drawn, raided a house because they suspected people inside not of being terrorists, but of spray painting “No Pipelines” all over the place.
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: The BC Government Doesn’t Know Who Graduates With What. What?
I know. It’s true. The BC government’s Ministry of Advanced Education has no data on who has graduated with what from BC universities in the last 40 years. I know, hey. You’d think it would be interesting to them, even because maybe some of them were curious. Maybe some of
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Forget global superstar, Vancouver’s housing troubles start at home
Vancouver was the star of a recent New Yorker article that shone a light on the city’s lack of housing affordability and linked this lack to an inflow of foreign buyers. Unfortunately, this link is extremely tenuous, as most of the support is anecdotal or based on very limited data.
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Denmark and Germany Show Us How Easy It Is
Seeking some climate justice and labour justice? You’ve come to the right place. Here’s how Denmark and Germany are showing us that it isn’t brain surgery. Why re-invent the wheel; just steal ideas from people who already get it. Simple! Denmark Someone once told me that Starbucks stores in Safeway
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics: The All-Calgarian PC Party leadership race
TweetAnother Calgarian has entered what has been, at least so far, an all-Calgarian Progressive Conservative leadership race. Announcing his candidacy in the contest to become the next PC Party leader and premier, former Infrastructure minister Ric McIver declared he would bring a “common-sense new approach to replace insider, establishment thinking, with new common-sense thinking.” The
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Occupy, For Democracy
Journalists protest the erosion of freedom of expression in Canada on Feb. 27 in Toronto. Photo Credit: Hiba Zayadin When I write about soft fascism, I sometimes feel too Canadian. I don’t want to be impolite and talk about hard or old school or 20th century fascism because frankly, when
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Does BC’s Neglect of Poverty Constitute a Eugenics Plan?
There has been a great deal of talk in recent decades about the cycle of poverty, how it’s a vicious circle that children have difficulty getting out of. Human chromosomes with telomeres stained fluorescent red. Copyright Nakamura et al. It makes sense. If parents are short on economic resources, have
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: BC’s New Landscape and Ecology Eradication Projects!
Once upon a time, before we knew much about ecology and systems theory, corporations just went around raping and pillaging the countryside, polluting whatever they wanted. Shhh, there’s a secret new law: it’s open season for corporations to rape and pillage our environment. This came back to me grotesquely in
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: What Yoko Ono Knows About Fracking
Today we are fresh off the tar soaked heels of Enbridge’s lie and spin machine in Kitimat, leading to a vote AGAINST their toxic future. In Kitimat, in a non-binding plebiscite, the people of Kitimat, but not the first peoples who live outside the town boundary, voted about 60-40 to
Continue readingezra winton: My second interview with the incredible George Littlechild
AAbove is a screen shot from the Art Threat site, which currently features my newest interview with an artist whose work is alive with history, heart and healing. I’ve been honoured and privileged to interview George Littlechild once before, and seized upon the opportunity for a follow-up on the heels
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Poor Kids, Poor Families and Shame
“When Centennial’s students found out Seymour couldn’t hold a pyjama day because many students didn’t have pyjamas, they fundraised to buy every Seymour student a pair last Christmas.” – When the Field Trip’s Too Pricey, Students ‘Self-Exclude’ BC’s disgusting and preventable child poverty crisis. Let’s stop coddling the rich! When
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Expanding Our 2014 Boycott List: #BoycottLoblaws
First, it started with IKEA, which has been locking out its Richmond, BC workers for 11 months. Then it expanded to a white Richmond farmer who isn’t all that happy with all the non-white farmers changing the complexion of farming in BC. So we’re are committing to #BoycottIKEA and boycotting
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Resistance is Futile: Steveston, Developers, PR flacks, and the Borg
The idyllic town of Steveston, located at the western tip of Richmond, is the site of what appears to be a battle for the ages: the City Council is facing an invasion of the Borg as they debate what to do with a developer’s plans for an historic district along the
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Welcome to Stephen Harper’s Banana Republic
#PMSH goes #BananaRepublic: the (un) #FairElectionsAct lets incumbents SUPERVISE their own election! pic.twitter.com/SG3IT8GMAz #cdnpoli — Politics, Re-Spun (@PoliticsReSpun) April 6, 2014 Just how stupid does Stephen Harper think we are? He thinks that we’re fine with the idea that incumbent parties should be able to pick the poll supervisors in
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Where’s the tax in BC’s carbon tax?
British Columbia’s carbon tax has been getting some high praise lately. A recent article in the Atlantic called it “the crown jewel of North American climate policy”. Such assessments need some tempering. BC’s carbon tax can tell us important things about the limits of fiscal policy today, which in turn
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Let’s Not Ban Books, Kamloops
Ban me? Burn me? Fear me? OK, Kamloops, take a cool soothing breath while I take a short break today to not talk about the rebooting of the Occupy Movement in 8 days. I know most of you in The Loops are doing just fine and that most of you
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Published elsewhere: Five myths to bust about minimum wage hikes
I wrote a piece on the very recent proposal to increase the minimum wage in British Columbia that was published over the weekend in The Tyee: The B.C. Federation of Labour has just proposed to increase the minimum wage in British Columbia to $13 per hour. In short, it’s about time. With this
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