Monday, April 10, 2017 West Coast Environmental Law was happy to accept an invitation to attend a celebration in Gaaw (Old Massett) on March 25, co-hosted by Haida Gwaii CoAST and the Council of the Haida Nation, to mark the defeat of the Enbridge Northern Gateway project. Staff Counsel Gavin
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Environmental Law Alert Blog: A Kinder Morgan snapshot
Tuesday, March 14, 2017 It’s been a while since we’ve updated you about Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline and tanker expansion project (KMX). A lot has happened in the past few months, so here’s a snapshot of where we’re at. It’s been a while since we’ve updated you about Kinder
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Carrying forward lessons from Northern Gateway
Thursday, December 8, 2016 Understandably, those opposed to the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain project have not been in a mood to celebrate this past week. At the same time as the Prime Minister announced the federal government’s approval of Kinder Morgan (and the Enbridge Line 3 project), he confirmed something
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Field notes from the Haida Gwaii Potlatch: Why government and industry should take heed of Indigenous governance decisions
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
I was honoured to have been invited to witness this historic potlatch, Raven Always Sets Things Right, hosted by the Yahgulaan…
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Brian Jean Embarkes on Post Truth Politics
“Fact-checking was a great development in accountability journalism…[but] one-off fact-checking is no match for the repeated lie.” Brian Jean, leader of the Wildrose opposition, published an article in the Calgary Herald last week. It was heavy on the repeated lie and light on everything else. Jean’s premise is: pipelines
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: While Brad Wall is “Showboating” Rachel Notley Moves On
“Premier Wall says that if standing up for your industry and your province is showboating, take me to the bridge.”—Brad Wall’s response to Rachel Notley’s comment that Wall was “showboating” on the eve of the premiers’ meeting. Brad Wall is the second provincial premier (Jim Prentice was the first)
Continue readingreeves report: 2014 — Canada’s Year of the Pipeline
Keystone XL wasn’t the only pipeline project to rankle Canadians in 2014. WIDESPREAD PUBLIC DEBATE on building vast networks of snaking energy pipelines throughout Canada dominated the country’s environmental newsreel in 2014, and will continue making headlines in the year ahead. A collection of Canada’s top environmental NGOs told Reeves Report the climate change
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Whether You Support Pipelines or Not, Here’s Something We Can Surely Agree On.
No secret I’m opposed to both Kinder Morgan and Northern Gateway. A sizeable majority of British Columbians are of the same mind but a significant minority supports the pipeline initiatives. In situations like this it can be helpful to seek out areas of agreement, common ground. Here’s an idea we
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Arctic Gateway Route Relies On Global Warming To Thin The Ice
Stymied by opposition on the West Coast, the Alberta government has prepared a technical report outlining the possibility of an “arctic gateway” as an alternative means of getting their bitumen to market. The entire report can be found here. And below is a graphic showing some of the proposed routes out.
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: A Gift from Chief Justice McLachlin: The Tsilhqot’in Decision on Aboriginal Rights*
On June 26, 2014, in a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin gave the First Nations (and the rest of Canada) a treasure map. Chief Justice McLachlin It wasn’t a crumpled piece of paper covered with a cryptic scrawl, but a comprehensive legal analysis
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: It’s the Climate, Stupid!
Not two weeks since the federal government’s long-anticipated approval of the Northern Gateway pipeline, the magnitude of the obstacles faced by the project are becoming clearer by the day. There is widespread public hostility — both in Kitimat, envisioned as the pipeline’s end location, as well as across British Columbia
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: On talking about priorities: Oil spills and teachers strikes
On the same day one week ago, teachers in British Columbia began a full strike and the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline was approved by the Canadian government. With such telling coincidences, it is hard not to juxtapose the two broad social conflicts in which BC has become a flashpoint: that
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Could Northern Gateway be Stephen Harper’s Final Act?
No sooner had I finished my last post, about Stephen Harper's decision to approve the Northern Gateway pipeline, when I was struck by a sudden happy thought.Could that be his final act? Could that be his final gift to Alberta? And could he be planning to resign, before construction begins,
Continue readingreeves report: Ottawa approves $5.5 billion Northern Gateway pipeline
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT has approved the $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline project from Enbridge, to carry 525,000 barrels of crude oil each day from Bruderheim in northern Alberta to the port town of Kitimat along British Columbia’s rugged Pacific Coast. Prime Minister Stephen Harper signalled his approval for the project late Thursday after the controversial pipeline received
Continue readingLeft Over: Chretien’s Lesson for the Harper at the Gate(way)
Northern Gateway decision holds no easy political options for Harper On the controversial B.C. pipeline, PM can say yes, no or not yet, but all answers come with a cost By Max Paris, CBC News Posted: Jun 16, 2014 6:02 PM ET Last Updated: Jun 16, 2014 11:13 PM ET All this bleating about
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Stephen Harper and the Day of Decision
Well the day of decision is finally here. The day Stephen Harper must decide whether to approve the Northern Gateway Pipeline.And no doubt he is psyching himself up in his bunker, by among other things reminding himself that David Suzuki was on that list of Canadian heroes I wrote about
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Stephen Harper and the Final Battle For Canada
For more than eight years he has waged war on Canada and its values.The Canada he once called a "second tier socialist country." The country whose values he hates so much.He has assaulted our democracy, smeared and bullied his opponents, muzzled scientists, gutted the census, burned books, and turned his
Continue readingEclectic Lip: Pondering a palatable pipeline…
I guest-hosted TWiE podcast episode 137 a few days ago, an episode devoted to the Alberta oil sands / tar sands. If you ask me (and I realize none of you have 🙂 ) it’s well worth a listen! The week’s guest was US energy analyst Robert Rapier, who had
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Obama Punts Keystone XL (Again) — Harper Learns a Lesson in Humility (Maybe)
“If you were a betting man (or woman) what odds would you place on President Obama approving the Keystone XL pipeline before the end of his term and why?” Ms Soapbox posed the question to a panel* discussing the future of Alberta’s energy industry. The panelists, bless their hearts, didn’t
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: How Ezra Levant Wrecked The Harper Government’s Energy Strategy
From Bloomberg: Still, the prime minister was unhappy that depictions of Canada as a “dirty oil” nation were not being adequately confronted by the industry or his ministers. He had become enamored with an argument put forth by conservative commentator Ezra Levant in a book called “Ethical Oil.” It posited
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