US President-Elect Trump (Flickr/Gage Skidmore) and Canadian PM Trudeau (Flickr/Canada 2020) are both big on pipelines Forces at play suggest there will continue to be significant advancements in the global migration to a green economy. Trudeau and Trump are rowing against the current. Despite Trudeau’s continued focus on tar sands extraction
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The Common Sense Canadian: Rafe’s New Year’s letter to Trudeau: Time for PM to get to know BC…for real
Justin Trudeau hasn’t learned much about BC in the time he lived here and from visits like this one to the central coast in 2014 (Flickr/Justin Trudeau) Dear Prime Minister Trudeau, Allow me to introduce myself. I am a lifelong, pretty old British Columbian who loves his province with the same passion
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: If not Civil Disobedience, what? Letters to the editor?…Rafe Mair on the necessary response to Site C Dam, Kinder Morgan
84 year-old retired librarian Barbara Grant getting arrested at Burnaby Mountain (Burnaby Mountain Updates/facebook) Beyond doubt, British Columbia must get involved in two separate and substantial actions of civil disobedience, one with Site C and the other with the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline. Civil disobedience runs against the grain of many
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: Trudeau, Notley’s defence of Kinder Morgan doesn’t wash for BC
Justin Trudeau is greeted in Alberta by Rachel Notley (Premier of Alberta/Flickr CC licence) I listened to Alberta Premier Rachel Notley on CBC with Rick Cluff this week and must say she said nothing to give me cause to change my mind on Kinder Morgan. To the contrary, I asked myself how
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: Gary Mason, quit lecturing Vancouverites for opposing pipelines
Recent Kinder Morgan protest in Vancouver (Photo: Lu Iz/Facebook) I simply couldn’t believe Gary Mason in Friday’s Globe and Mail In his article entitled “Sorry Vancouver: The rest of Canada needs pipelines”. I urge you to read the article so that if I misrepresent Mr. Mason you will see it
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe Mair to Justin Trudeau: BC is not yours to give away
Justin Trudeau speaks at the Paris climate talks – flanked by Canadian premiers (Province of BC/Flickr) “They hang the man, and flog the woman, That steals the goose from off the common; But let the greater villain loose, That steals the common from the goose.” I’ll not waste too many
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Fate of BC’s ancient forests is a question of “values”
Craig Pettitt of Valhalla Wilderness Society in the Incomappleux Valley How do we value wilderness? What metrics should we apply to an 1,800-year-old tree, or the tiny lichens that make their home on it? What numbers do we input into our calculator – ecosystem services rendered, tonnes of carbon sequestered, cubic metres
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: Trudeau will have hell to pay in BC if he approves Kinder Morgan
Recent Vancouver rally against Kinder Morgan (Photo: David Suzuki Foundation/Facebook) None should be in the slightest surprised at the anti-British Columbia stance of Justin Trudeau and the Liberals. As Talleyrand famously noted when, after the fall of Napoleon the Bourbons were restored, “they learned nothing and forgot nothing”. Thus it
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Central Coast diesel spill response slow, ineffective, serious damage done: Heiltsuk
The Nathan E. Stewart fuel barge and part-sunken tug the morning of the incident (Jordan Wilson/Pacific Wild) Judging by official statements in the aftermath of the ongoing Central Coast diesel fuel spill, the response to the disaster was relatively effective and damage minimized – a PR line largely soaked up by the mainstream
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Heiltsuk call for tanker ban to include fuel barges amid ongoing leak in Great Bear Sea
Sunken tug towing Nathan E. Stewart (Image submitted) A 10,000 tonne US-owned fuel barge, the Nathan E. Stewart, ran aground in Seaforth Channel on BC’s central coast early this morning and the tug that was towing it is now leaking fuel into the highly sensitive marine environment of the Great Bear
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Pipelines being driven by private equity firms through ratings agency they now own
Former federal cabinet minister and Alberta Premier Jim Prentice, whose recent work with a major private equity firm has him acting as a strong advocate for multiple pipelines. (Canada2020/Flickr) By Joyce Nelson You may have caught the Sept. 12 headline in the Globe and Mail, the Edmonton Journal, etc: “Canada
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: With LNG approval, Trudeau govt shows true colours…but we shouldn’t be suprised
Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna with Industry Minister Jim Carr (left) and BC Premier Christy Clark (right) announcing the federal government’s approval of PNWLNG (Province of BC/Flickr) Developing a climate plan to meet Canada’s Paris Agreement commitments is a challenging but achievable task for the federal government. Doing so
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Opinion: Environment & Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna gets failing report card
Environment & Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna (Mike Gifford/Flickr cc licence) The following is an op-ed by Dr. Eoin Finn – B.Sc., Ph.D., MBA In October 2015, SFU Energy and Materials Research Group Professor Mark Jaccard published a report titled “Canadian Climate Policy Report Card: 2015”. In part, it is a
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Electric Vehicles are set to take off…so why is Trudeau still pushing pipelines?
Tesla Model 3 at March 2016 unveiling (Steve Jurvetson/Flickr) In my previous March 2016 article “Pipelines to Nowhere“, I made the point that the proposed Canadian pipelines are about increasing the international supply of petroleum when all the signs are that demand fossil fuels are levelling off over the longer
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Filmmaker exploring new vision for forestry with video series
In 2012, I took a fateful trip to Cortes Island – a northern gulf island three ferry rides away from Vancouver – to document the Cortes community’s fight to fend off an impending logging operation by coastal timber giant Island Timberlands. Community members took us deep into the woods privately
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Longtime Lions Bay Mayor: LNG is plain dirty, violates Canada’s climate commitments
LNG is dirty, plain and simple, charges former longtime Lions Bay Mayor Brenda Broughton. She slams both the Trudeau and Clark governments for jeopardizing Canada’s climate commitments by ignoring or cherry-picking the science, and maintains the industry won’t benefit taxpayers at all.
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Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Trudeau abandons green election promises, lacks real climate plan
Many of the Justin Trudeau’s green election promises are quickly falling by the wayside, with pipelines moving forward, unsolved regulatory problems, cuts to clean tech funding, and a lack of vision for addressing climate change and building a green economy.
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Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe to Justin: Kinder Morgan approval makes mockery of democracy
Rafe Mair calls out Justin Trudeau on Kinder Morgan and the mockery its approval makes of our democracy. “What right does parliament have to expose our lands, parks and waters to the certain destruction that will come from toxic tankers from the Kinder Morgan pipeline?”
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Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: New video shows serious dangers posed by LNG tankers
A new, short video illustrates in vivid detail the dangers posed by plans to run LNG tankers through narrow, densely populated coastal waterways in places like Howe Sound, Saanich Inlet, Prince Rupert and Kitimat.
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Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: NDP’s Horgan too quick to dismiss Leap Manifesto
BCNDP leader John Horgan has been too quick to dismiss the Leap Manifesto, says Rafe Mair. Instead of showing real vision and distinguishing himself from Premier Christy Clark, Horgan has chosen a losing path to the 2017 election.
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