As Alberta launches its 10-year plan for “transformational change” in post-secondary education, a new study suggests the province’s universities and the government agencies that fund them are helping to prolong the worst aspects of the fossil fuel era. Alas, by trying to make oil and gas great again when there’s
Continue readingTag: University of Victoria
Alberta Politics: Report forecasts future of Alberta’s oilsands as more production, fewer jobs, and less spending
Thanks to technological advances and modular facilities, leading oilsands companies are increasing bitumen production while cutting the numbers of people they employ and spending less money, says a new Corporate Mapping Project report published this morning by the Parkland Institute. More than 34,000 oil and gas workers in Alberta have
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Regardless of Jason Kenney’s tweets, the Corporate Mapping Project is uncovering data of value to citizens
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has a well-known propensity to blame Justin Trudeau for things that were done by Stephen Harper, as the debate over who is responsible for the time it’s taken to complete the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project nicely illustrates. So condemning Liberal Prime Minister Trudeau for the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Corporate Mapping Project names top fossil-fuel emitters, enablers and legitimators, unlocks online database
“The fossil fuel industry … is the biggest obstacle to real action on climate change today,” says the co-director of the Corporate Mapping Project, which this morning published an eye-opening list of the 50 most influential players in the industry and a publicly accessible database with information on more than
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta Election Day 2: Will UCP scandals keep traction once parties start rolling out their policies?
Premier Rachel Notley’s NDP clearly hopes to make Opposition Leader Jason Kenney’s character the ballot box issue for voters in the April 16 provincial election, but will the United Conservative Party’s scandals have as much traction now that the election writ has been dropped? The risk for the NDP strategy,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: University of Calgary acted like ‘Big Oil U’ in 2015 controversy, paper by B.C. academic researchers concludes
It’s not every day you see terms like “corporate obstructionism” and “institutional corruption” used to describe the way things are done at one Canadian university in a peer-reviewed academic paper written by scholars from two other institutions and published in a respected academic journal. This is one reason I think
Continue readingAlberta Politics: While Albertans panicked about state of the oilsands, the Big Five bitumen-extraction corporations made billions
While Albertans have been in flap over the state of the province’s oilsands industry, the Big Five Oilsands extraction corporations have been raking in billions. “Despite the 2014 oil price crash and the ongoing hand-wringing over pipelines and the price differential, the reality is the Big Five oilsands producers have
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Highly concentrated ownership of Canadian fossil fuel sector leaves little incentive for change, study indicates
Highly concentrated corporate ownership of Canada’s energy sector and lack of government influence means there’s very little incentive for the fossil fuel industry to pay attention to the dangers of global climate change or worry about the communities and workers that depend on it. That’s the tough message behind a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: University top brass salaries capped; David Suzuki to get honourary degree from U of A! Stand by for fireworks!
PHOTOS: High-profile B.C. environmentalist, scientist, author and broadcaster David Suzuki. Below: Alberta Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt, University of Alberta President David Turpin (Photo: The Gauntlet), and United Conservative Party Opposition Leader Jason Kenney. The Alberta government has put a much-needed cap on the salaries of top university administrators, providing
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Forgotten amid pipeline war brouhaha, new study details failure of Oilsands Big Five to control emissions
PHOTOS: There’s no Plan B! And Alberta’s five largest oilsands producers have set no targets let alone taken action to get their emissions in line with the Paris Climate Agreement. (Illustration: Parkland Institute.) Below: Parkland researcher and study author Ian Hussey (Photo: Parkland Institute), Parkland researcher David Janzen (Photo: Facebook),
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Documents show B.C. ‘Climate Leadership Plan’ was cooked up in Calgary boardroom of powerful petroleum industry lobby
PHOTOS: British Columbia’s beautiful Legislature Building in Victoria – not, as it turns out, where the province’s climate policy is set! Below: CCPA-BC’s Shannon Daub, former B.C. Liberal premier Christy Clark (Photo: Wikimedia Commons), B.C. NDP Premier John Horgan, and environmentalist Tzeporah Berman. Using documents obtained through a Freedom of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Mapping the ‘Kleintastrophe’ – veteran journalist and researcher tracks energy policies of past Alberta PC governments
PHOTOS: Alberta premier Ralph Klein at the start of the Kleintastrophe in 1992. (Screenshot of CBC broadcast.) Below: Calgary journalist and researcher Gillian Steward, former Alberta Liberal leader Kevin Taft, the best premier Alberta never had, and would-be United Conservative Party leadership candidate Doug Schweitzer. As the years Ralph Klein
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Who needs old-time climate change deniers when we’ve got the ‘New Climate Denialism’?
PHOTOS: Shannon Daub, associate director of the CCPA’s British Columbia office and co-director of the Corporate Mapping Project, at the mapping project’s 2017 Summer Institute at the University of Victoria this week. Below: CCPA B.C. Director Seth Klein (Twitter) and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. VICTORIA, B.C. Just because there are
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Thinking about my dad on the 100th anniversary of his birth and Canada’s need for public post-secondary education
PHOTOS: My dad, John L. Climenhaga, as a University of Saskatchewan undergraduate. Below: My father, in the foreground, circa 1917, about the time the asteroid now named Climenhaga in his honour was discovered, and, many years later, in his modest office at the University of Victoria. Below those shots, the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Rachel Notley does remarkably well in face of unrelenting campaign of vilification … Sun newspapers? Not so much …
PHOTOS: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley. Below: Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, the Mr. Congeniality of Confederation if you believe his press clippings; Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister. Notwithstanding a flagging economy and an unprecedented campaign of continual vilification by mass media, Astro-Turf agitators, corporate-bankrolled think tanks, right-wing academics and a nearly hysterical online conservative rage machine, Alberta […]
The post Rachel Notley does remarkably well in face of unrelenting campaign of vilification … Sun newspapers? Not so much … appeared first on Alberta Politics.
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Calgary’s new ‘Band-Aid’ schools: just the thing for a government suffering the death of a thousand cuts
Temporary structures like the army huts in the background, built in 1939 and ’40, were still in use when this shot was taken at the just-formed University of Victoria circa 1963, and a few of them are still in use today. Below: Alberta Premier Jim Prentice, Wildrose education critic Jeff
Continue readingCANADIAN PROGRESSIVE WORLD: Canadians Mourn The Untimely “Death of Evidence”
“The Harper government is the most environmentally hostile one we have ever had in Canada.” – Maude Barlow, Chair of the Council of Canadians About 1,500 scientists, lawyers, students and activists from across Canada gathered on Parliament Hill yesterday and held a mock funeral to mourn the death of Canadian
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Heartland Payments to University of Victoria Professor Susan Crockford Probed
heartland logo.jpg University of Victory adjunct professor Susan Crockford doesn't seem interested in discussing the monthly payments she appears to receive from the climate denying Heartland Spinstitute. "Crockford would not respond to emails, and refused to speak with the Martlet," reports a UVic student newspaper attempting to probe the payments. The
Continue reading