Washington Governor Jay Inslee meets with BC Premier John Horgan in Victoria (Flickr/Province of BC) By Joyce Nelson In a widely published June 3 op-ed for Postmedia newspapers, Thomas Gunton – a former B.C. Deputy Minister of Environment – decimated the Trudeau Liberals’ decision to buy Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain
Continue readingTag: Oil&Gas
The Common Sense Canadian: Why I got arrested for blocking Kinder Morgan
Citizens preparing to get arrested outside Kinder Morgan’s Burnaby tank farm (Photo: Alex Harris) By Kyle Farquharson This year, nearly 200 people — including federal parliamentarians Elizabeth May and Kennedy Stewart — have been arrested on Burnaby Mountain for civil disobedience actions against the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. Never
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Constitutional expert debunks “National Interest” argument for Kinder Morgan pipeline
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau (Photo: Premier of Alberta/Flickr) Read this April 13 Desmog Canada article on lawyer Jack Woodward’s view that the “National Interest” – often cited as a basis for forcing through the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion pipeline – doesn’t trump Aboriginal rights enshrined
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: There is virtually zero Asian demand for Alberta bitumen, new Kinder Morgan analysis reveals
Artist’s rendering of proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline and tanker expansion Read this essential analysis from Mitchell Anderson in The Tyee, torpedoing the argument that Alberta needs Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion in order to capitalize on pent up Asian demand for its bitumen: Canadians are often told the Trans
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: On Energy & First Nations, politicians want to have their cake and eat it too
Jonathan Ramos cartoon Canada can fight climate change and build more climate-ravaging pipelines. First Nations’ rights should be respected – just not at the expense of these pipelines, dams and other major projects they oppose. Got it? It’s hard to fathom, but these are the positions of our provincial and federal leaders.
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: Christy’s oily legacy is the stain that can’t be cleaned, as climate plan revelation reminds us
Photo: Province of BC/Flickr CC Licence In 1988, a year before the Iron Curtain fell, I was in Budapest and after a stroll I went back to my group in the hotel and said this: “Folks, this regime is in trouble…when I was in the main square, the money changers
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe to Horgan: Get Serious about Kinder Morgan, Woodfibre LNG
John Horgan being sworn in as Premier, with Environment Minister George Heyman looking on (Photo: Flickr/Province of British Columbia) Dear Premier Horgan, My congratulations to you and your new government. I can tell you that a great many British Columbians who do not usually support your party voted for you
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: As Big Oil tanks, why is Canada so slow to adapt?
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau (Photo: Premier of Alberta/Flickr) The business model of Big Oil has already started to collapse. The model is premised on strong growth to fuel high prices and render economically viable the exploitation of expensive-to-develop, non-conventional fossil fuels, including the tar sands and shale
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: True Patriot Love: Why the Kinder Morgan pipeline will never be built
Photo: Damian Manda / Flickr CC License The Trans Mountain pipeline [Kinder Morgan] expansion project will never see the light of day. -Grand Chief Philip Stewart, Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs If you live anywhere in Canada other than British Columbia, you’re probably convinced that the Kinder Morgan (Trans Mountain)
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: NDP-Green pact should mean good riddance to Kinder Morgan, but Liberal opposition won’t make life easy
John Horgan and Andrew Weaver seal their pact (Photo: @jjhorgan/Twitter) It will be a much postponed verdict but my initial reaction to the NDP-Green deal is positive. Whether so motivated or not, Andrew Weaver has done the right politically moral thing – contradiction in terms though that is – by
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe Mair: Rachel Notley can go to hell for threatening BC over pipeline
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley (Flickr CC Licence / Premier of Alberta) You can go to hell, Rachel Notley. Now, everyone, repeat after me. OK? Here we go. There is no risk in transporting Alberta’s bitumen through our forests, over our rivers, past our sparkling, azure lakes, through our cities, into
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Trumplandia vs. Clarklandia: How BC stands to lose on LNG, lumber and trade
Part one in a series by Kevin Logan February 17th 2017 As the faux populist facade fades and the new reality show “Trumplandia” begins to emerge from the ruins of the Democratic elite’s embrace of hedge funds and wall street masters, one thing is crystal clear: Big oil and gas
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Note to Justin: Pipelines don’t help transition to green economy
Photo: Canada2020 / Flickr When Justin Trudeau talks of oil pipeline projects as part of an energy transition, what exactly is he talking about? That we will be on the path to reducing our dependency on fossil fuels by increasing our oil dependency in the short term? And that by
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Despite Trump & Trudeau’s pipeline fetish, green economy will keep booming
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
Continue readingThe 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: 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 reading