Here, following up on this post about the potential for a truly federal carbon pricing system if right-wing provincial governments keep griping about having the ability to develop alternatives. For further reading…– Anna Desmarais reports on the NDP’s push for climate change policy to meet the standards set out in
Continue readingTag: Gary Mason
Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Evening Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Gary Mason discusses how politicians are fiddling while our planet burns. And Jonathan Watts reports on the strongest sea ice in the Arctic breaking up for the first time in recorded history, as well as the likelihood that Arctic warming bears part
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Eli Wolfe discusses new research confirming how unions have saved thousands of workers’ lives – and how workers stand to pay the price for political attempts to undermine collective action: The new study focuses in particular on the extent to which state “right
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Trish Hennessy examines the aftermath of Ontario’s provincial election, while Andrew Mitrovica traces the spread of Trumpian antisocial populism. And Doug Nesbitt offers some lessons for workers based on the province’s previous PC government. – David Roberts takes a look at our
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Tom Parkin discusses the need for a new Tommy Douglas to start leading the way toward national social programs – and the hope that Andrea Horwath can earn that role in Ontario’s provincial election: Since Douglas’s time, Canadian health care has been
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Simon Enoch offers his take on Saskatchewan’s latest budget – including what little the Saskatchewan Party has learned, and how much it’s still getting wrong: (W)hile the 2018 budget is more measured in that it doesn’t replicate a 2017 budget that saw cuts
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne writes about the need for real wage increases to relieve the financial stress on Canadian workers. – Sheila Block examines the relative effects of tax cuts and minimum wage increases on lower-income workers, and finds that people are far better off
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Julian Cribb reports on new research as to mass exposure to chemicals and pollutants: Almost every human being is now contaminated in a worldwide flood of industrial chemicals and pollutants – most of which have never been tested for safety – a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: So long, Denis; Hello Valérie … Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
PHOTOS: Just-defeated Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre (Photo: City of Montreal.) Below: Montreal Mayor-elect Valérie Plante, who defeated Mr. Coderre in the city’s civic election Sunday, and Saskatchewan Senator Denise Batters, both photos from their Twitter accounts. I’ve got some advice for those right-wingers from Western Canada cheering the political demise
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading. – Brian Jones rightly argues that a fair tax system would go a long way toward eliminating any serious concerns about government deficits. And Marco Chown Oved offers some reason for optimism in the Canada Revenue Agency’s response to the Panama Papers. – David
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading: – Percy Downe notes that both the Harper Cons and Trudeau Libs have stood in the way of identifying and recouping tens of billions of dollars in unpaid taxes – leaving everybody else to pay the share of tax evaders. And Riley Sparks
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading: – Percy Downe notes that both the Harper Cons and Trudeau Libs have stood in the way of identifying and recouping tens of billions of dollars in unpaid taxes – leaving everybody else to pay the share of tax evaders. And Riley Sparks
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Notley Government navigates a profound crisis with grace and empathy, as even some conservatives begin to recognize
PHOTOS: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, who has risen to the challenge of a difficult moment in Alberta’s history. Below: Municipal Affairs Minister Danielle Larivee and a scene from the Fort McMurray fire catastrophe, which continues to burn. The lat…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Allan Woods looks into the pitiful responses to states of emergency declared by First Nations, as well as a decade and a half worth of neglect of cries for help from Pikangikum First Nation in particular. Krist…
Continue readingIn-Sights: Careless or captured? (A 2009 repeat)
Despite deep cynicism about those backing Gordon Campbell’s Liberals, I’ve long held respect for the writing of Vaughn Palmer. My reservoir of appreciation seems now to have run dry. He has been bright, skilled and articulate, usually worth reading throughout 35 years with the Vancouver Sun.
Now, I don’t know. Is he distracted, overburdened, grown careless or captured by his subjects? What can explain Palmer’s early reporting about the British Columbia Utilities Commission decision on BC Hydro’s 2008 Long Term Acquisition Plan.
July 31, on his regular Vancouver radio outing, he led with this:
“I think it means the BC Utilities Commission is out of touch. You know, they said, “We’re not persuaded we need all this new green power because you’ve got the Burrard Thermal Plant sitting out there in Port Moody and it could run full time and take care of your power needs for many years.” Which, is completely out of touch. … the Utility Commission’s belief that the Burrard Thermal is the answer to any of the province’s power needs for the future just ignores its impact on air quality among other things.”
That is not merely weak reporting of the Commission’s determination. It is a reprehensible misstatement that totally fails to reflect the actual decision. I can think of only two possibilities. One is that Palmer had not read the report but relied on someone’s corrupt précis. The other is that he intentionally misled the audience for some purpose.
Sidekick Keith Baldrey, also of Canwest Global, contributed:
“And, that’s why I don’t understand why a number of environmental groups who are applauding this decision have remained silent on the fact that Burrard Thermal is to be relied on at an increasing rate because it produces dirty energy. That’s a contradictory and hypocritical position and a number of people haven’t really squared themselves with that.”
No Keith, the BC Utilities Commission simply didn’t say that.
Palmer subsequently shifted his attack, all but accusing the BCUC of joining forces with uninformed racists:
“You know, that bit about the First Nations – I mean think about this for a minute – if we go out and get public opinion on First Nations, one of the first things you hear from people is, “You know, they always want a handout from the government, they’re always taking government money.” You know, here you got a bunch of First Nations in British Columbia – some of the best led native bands in the province – gone out and they’ve found private partners to develop their own resources on their own traditional territory and the big provincial government regulator has slammed the door on their face. I mean, it’s no wonder that they’re feeling frustrated.”
Baldrey added:
“. . . these independent power projects have as economic partners First Nations groups. These are a huge economic development tool for impoverished First Nations and Vaughn and I were reading this morning, from the Sechelt Indian Band, a letter they’ve written the BC Utilities Commission accusing them of essentially, and I quote, “This appears to us to be nothing less than regulated racism.” So you’ve got First Nations now very much up in arms. With the stroke of a pen, the Utilities Commission has kiboshed what they saw as the number one tool to lift a lot of their people out of fairly extensive poverty and I don’t know if the Utilities Commission thought this through properly.”
I was interested to note that at 9am July 31, Baldrey and Palmer knew the contents of the Sechelt Band’s letter and were even armed with the pointed quote claiming “regulated racism.” Yet that letter was still warm from printing, being dated only one day before, July 30. I wonder how it came to be reviewed so promptly and publicly by the Victoria based journalists.
Was the Public Affairs Bureau (PAB) or the Independent Power Producers Association of BC (IPPBC) helping Chief Garry Feschuk and the shishalh First Nation circulate the letter? Were the flacks also providing pre-digested interpretations of the BCUC decision to certain journalists?
Palmer went on to provide a bit of accurate detail, saying the BCUC decision did not reject green power, private power or run of the river facilities and that, primarily, BC Hydro had to rework the scheduling of projects. Mind you, he ignored the BCUC determination that BC Hydro had been either inaccurate or dishonest in its power needs forecasting. That should have been news. At best, Palmer had part of the story correct but his headline material was worse than sloppy.
We cannot though accuse all professional journalists of faulty or inadequate reporting. Mark Hume at the Globe and Mail had no difficulty understanding the entire BCUC decision and writing conclusions based on the Commission’s actual findings. He said:
“The commission’s ruling made it clear, however, that there is no energy crisis – and that when there are energy shortfalls, such as during droughts or the period of peak demand in December, BC Hydro has a solid backup system in the Burrard Generating Station, an old, mostly idle plant fueled by natural gas.
“The commission is not saying we should run the Burrard plant, or that Burrard is a better source of energy than clean resources,” said economist Marvin Shaffer. What the commission determined is that Burrard is valuable as a backup facility, and that in that role it has the capacity of at least 5,000 gigawatt hours, not the 3,000 GWh estimated by BC Hydro.
“By refusing to accept the lower capacity, the commission called into question the need for BC Hydro to purchase backup power from IPPs.
“Had the British Columbia Utilities Commission not intervened, B.C. would have been damming its wild and scenic rivers, not in a noble fight against global warming, but in order to run air conditioners in California.”
Contrast that analysis to the one by Keith Baldrey:
“Yes, they (BCUC) just said go and use Burrard Thermal.”
One does not need to be a sophisticated media analyst to conclude that Canwest Global’s Palmer and Baldrey reported on the BCUC in a manner that is entirely below the standard set by Mark Hume. The Globe and Mail faces the same financial challenges as every newspaper publisher but in the western bureau, they employ and deploy high quality staff, particularly in comparison to the competition.
In-Sights: Careless or captured? (A 2009 repeat)
When you read or listen to resource industry advocates, especially ones masquerading as objective political pundits, compare their concerns in 2009 about burning natural gas to generate peak-demand electricity to their current attitudes toward burning natural gas to liquefy natural gas. The following was first published at Northern Insight on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how political fund-raising scandals in Ontario and British Columbia only highlight the complete lack of rules governing donations in Saskatchewan.For further reading…- SCOTUS’ Citizens United decision is here (PDF). And Michael Hiltzik discu…
Continue readingNorthern Insight / Perceptivity: Agenda journalism
Black Press political reporter Tom Fletcher, whose wife is a Public Affairs Officer for the BC Liberal Government, occasionally recalls the nineties: The dark decade, the dismal decade, the decade of destruction …when investment, jobs and people packed up and headed for the B.C. border in response to the NDP
Continue readingNorthern Insight / Perceptivity: Oh, what a tangled web we weave…
I will comment about BC Budget 2014 after more study but I’ve read a few reports from media stenographers. Studying detail takes more time than rewording notes issued by the gaggle of Liberal flacks paid for by munificent taxpayers. One Globe & Mail report, written by the father of an
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Never mind the Mudville Nine: Nothing has changed, nothing ever will, that is all!
“Your health. Our promise.” It’s March 1, 2013, and then-premier Alison Redford announces plans to build a new cancer treatment facility in Calgary to replace the grubby and overcrowded Tom Baker Cancer Centre. (Photo grabbed from Metro Newspapers.) But that was then. This is now. Below: Alberta Health Minister Stephen
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