This week in Ottawa, NDP MP for New Westminster-Coquitlam-Port Moody Fin Donnelly reintroduced two private members bills he authored last year. The first calls for a legislated ban on oil supertanker traffic on BC’s North and Central Coast. The second,…
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The Common Sense Canadian home page: Video: Joe Foy on Why We Don’t Need Site C Dam
At a recent event in Vancouver, the Wilderness Committee’s Joe Foy picked apart the BC Liberal Government’s faulty case for Site C Dam – discussing better alternatives to power our future needs and the enormous cost of a dam whose real purpose is to su…
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Shades of Green: The Ecology of Wealth
If a healthy biological ecology provides for the well-being of its plants and animals, then a healthy human ecology should provide for the well-being of its constituent members. But human societies are not inclined to be healthy. And a major problem is…
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Hansen, Palmer on Hydro: Ignoring the $50 Billion Elephant in the Room
This will be harsh, I warn you. In preparation I urge you to read Dr. Marvin Shaffer’s (SFU) article in the Vancouver Sun last Monday. My position today is that the Vancouver Sun’s lead columnist, whom I once greatly admired, Vaughn Palmer, ha…
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Coleman, Palmer on Hydro: Ignoring the $50 Billion Elephant in Room
This will be harsh, I warn you. In preparation I urge you to read Dr. Marvin Shaffer’s (SFU) article in the Vancouver Sun last Monday. My position today is that the Vancouver Sun’s lead columnist, whom I once greatly admired, Vaughn Palmer, ha…
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Audio: Clark vs. Campbell Liberals on Environment
Get MP3 (53 MB)Listen to Damien Gillis’ June 8 appearance on CHLY Nanaimo’s “Sense of Justice”. Damien and host Rae Kornberger discuss the Christy Clark Liberals and how the NDP needs to man up and earn the public’s confidence.”We’re the suckers that…
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Mission and Abbotsford’s Public-Private Water War
The proposal to privatize the water services in my community seemed to hit us from behind – it was negotiated for over a year in secret and sprung on us without warning. This $300 million project, that would inevitably give control of our water to a fo…
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Rafe on Being Old, Fixed Elections and Christy Clark’s Mandate
I received an email recently saying I was too old and should begone – not his precise words but that was the gist of what he said. And I suppose that requires an answer. I am old and will be 80 on New Years Eve; there it is – make of it what y…
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Raven Coal Mine Hearings Draw Huge Public Opposition
The controversial proposal for an a coal mine in Vancouver Island’s Baynes Sound – home to a thriving shellfish industry – saw large crowds turn out to voice their opposition at three separate public meetings last week. The joint federal and provincial…
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Shades of Green: Extreme Weather – Floods, Fires, Storms and Droughts
The realization that we might be partly responsible for the recent spate of destructive weather is difficult to accept because it requires us to change the image of ourselves from innocent victim to guilty perpetrator. And, given the psychology of deni…
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: The Need for Civil Disobedience Throughout History…and in BC Today
I favour civil disobedience if it’s done responsibly and for good reasons. Civil disobedience was practiced by Jesus; more recently Henry David Thoreau, the 19th Century American philosopher, is seen as father of the modern art of flouting autho…
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Stopping Debate – Again!
Under the current government, the BC Legislature seems to have become a necessary evil to be used sparingly or otherwise avoided.In the Liberals first term, Premier Campbell introduced a sweeping set of democratic reforms that were supposed to elevate …
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: A Coal Port in the Storm: Tsunami Risks for Raven Mine Storage Plan
What does Port Alberni have in common with Fukushima, Japan – besides a love for fish? Two things, potentially. First, according to experts from Emergency Management BC, Port Alberni is located in the heart of the most dangerous Tsunami zone in the cou…
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Site C: Simple Questions & Answers
We at the Common Sense Canadian will be dealing with the Site C project in some depth and from the outset we would like to acknowledge the tremendous work and research done by our colleague, well known economist Erik Andersen, who cut his professional …
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Rafe’s Books Nominated for Samara Awards
I’m astonished and hugely flattered to learn that a long time
listener and reader of my stuff, Gavin Bamber, has nominated three of my
books for recognition as the top Canadian political books of the past
25 years by Samara. This about Samara …
The Common Sense Canadian home page: Shades of Green: Manufactured Doubt
Doubt is the foundation of all science. Every scientific principle and theory, no matter how established and trusted, contains the acknowledged possibility of error. This is the way science works. It is always in the process of disproving, adjusting or…
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Video: Mainstream Plans New Farm Amidst Tanking Clayoquot Wild Salmon
A proposal from Mainstream Canada – the local subsidiary of Norwegian aquaculture giant Cermaq – for a new 56-hectare open net pen salmon farm in Clayoquot Sound threatens the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve’s already hard-hit wild salmon stocks. The Common S…
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Thorium: Nuclear Power’s Last Hope…Maybe
Awhile back I did a piece on nuclear energy and you would have thought I was in favour of hanging petty thieves (that theory belongs to the Harper Conservatives). I said nothing in favour of nuclear but only made the point that before anything is rejec…
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Shades of Green: The Psychology of Denial
The scientific community has been in a state of constrained panic during the last couple of years as the binding terms of the Kyoto Protocol approach expiry, as a replacement agreement to cut global greenhouse gases emission have foundered at internati…
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: How the Campbell/Clark Liberals Brought Real Lying into BC Politics
I have been in politics or commenting on them (same thing) back to the days of WAC Bennett. My first published piece was a criticism of Bennett’s position on the failed (thankfully) Victoria Charter. During that time I’ve seen plenty of gildi…
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