A Conservative MP from B.C. opens up on Northern Gateway: A highly conditional approval

Dan Albas handout
Newly elected in the 2011 general election as the MP for Okanagan-Coquihalla, Dan Albas is welcomed to the House of Commons by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. This photo was taken by a member of the prime minister’s staff.

Dan Albas is the Conservative MP for the riding of Okanagan-Coquihalla, a riding in the south, central part of the province that is a long, long way  from where Enbridge Inc. proposes to build the Northern Gateway Pipeline that will carry as much as 500,000 barrels of Alberta bitumen across the Rockies to the northern B.C. port of Kitimat. Kitimat, incidentally, is in the riding of New Democrat Nathan Cullen, while the pipeline runs through Cullen’s riding and then the ridings of BC Conservative Bob Zimmer (Prince George-Peace River) and Alberta Conservative MPs Rob Merrifield (Yellowhead) and Brian Storseth (Westlock-St. Paul)

Though Albas and his constituents live a long way from the Northern Gateway’s route or port — as do most who live in B.C. — this is a big issue for them. The federal NDP believe that, so far as votes in B.C. go in the 2015 general election, campaigning against the pipeline is electoral gold. Continue reading A Conservative MP from B.C. opens up on Northern Gateway: A highly conditional approval

Northern Gateway Pipeline opponents outnumber supporters, Abacus says

Did you see the latest poll from our friends at Abacus Data? Abacus finds:

  • B.C. Premier Christy Clark is getting a big thumbs up from Canadians outside Alberta for her stand against the Northern Gateway pipeline
  • More Canadians — again, outside Alberta — oppose the construction of a pipeline to ship Alberta crude to a northern B.C. port than support the project.
  • Outside Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, a majority of Canadians do not believe the oil sands in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan generate wealth for the rest of the country.

If you ask me, these findings add up to political trouble for Stephen Harper and federal Conservatives as well as Alison Redford and Alberta Progressive Conservatives who have pushed a pro-oil sands policy that includes support for the construction of the Northern Gateway pipeline.

Continue reading Northern Gateway Pipeline opponents outnumber supporters, Abacus says

Today's Lesson: Pipelines are evil!

The press release I’ve reproduced below just arrived at the Sun Media bureau in Vancouver from a teacher employed by the Vancouver School Board. She is leading her students in a protest of the Northern Gateway pipeline. The students are adults looking for high school credits and, as the teacher notes, many of them many not speak English as a first language. But, by golly, they’re going to learn that pipelines are bad!

Now surely, even opponents of the Northern Gateway Pipeline must agree that, as a pedagogical exercise, this is a bit over the top for a public school class. By all means, use the pipeline debate as a teaching moment. But taking a bunch of students who may have only a working knowledge of English and ask them to get high school equivalency credits if they produce work that agrees with a teacher’s particular policy or political bent bent seems to me to be a wee bit over the line. 

July 26, 2012

Press Release

Hello!

My name is Amie Wolf.I teach art at South Hill Education Center, Vancouver School Board, Adult Education. South Hill is located on Fraser Street at 45th Avenue in Vancouver, BC.

The center serves adults returning for high school credits, many of whom are immigrants and international students from all over the world.

On Wednesday, August 1st and Wednesday, August 8th, 2012, from 1-3pm, about twenty of my adult art students will create and then present a large outdoor graffiti moss mural on the North wall of the Sunset Community Center (6810 Main Street, Vancouver).

This imaginative mural will be in protest of the proposed Enbridge Pipeline. Juliana Bedoya, professional artist and founding member of Something Collective, has developed, secured funding for and executed this community building arts initiative.

Thank you for your consideration and we hope to see you!

Sincerely Yours,

Amie Wolf

[Address and phone withheld]

UPDATE: Bedoya, the “professional artist and founding member of Something Collective” was, to put it mildly, surprised to see this press release from Wolf. You can read her e-mail to me below. Wolf subsequently sent a letter to Bedoya “terminating” the project and Bedoya’s participation in the project.

Dear David,
 
I am Juliana Bedoya, the professional artist member of Something Collective (somethingcollective.ca) that is working with the students from the South Hill Education Centre on this mural proposal using moss graffiti as a medium.
 
Today I have been dealing all day with the teacher herself, the principal at South Hill and all the parties involved from the city, with fact that the teacher Amie Wolf added the “protest against the Enbridge pipeline” as an item from her own personal agenda to the process I’ve been having with the students. She even sent this press release without consultation and previous authorization from my side. I strongly disagree with her attitude towards this community engagement process acting on behalf of the students and me. 
 
During this process I’ve been facilitating at South Hill, the students reflected on different environmental issues, but they didn’t even mention the pipeline was an issue of their concern to be added as a theme for their mural proposal. The teacher added this component as an external environmental issue that wasn’t addressed during the facilitated sessions. 
 
I would like you to take this press release back and make sure the project is tied to the We Are Here, A Community Mapping Project and not to an initiative derived from a collective reaction against the Enbridge pipeline. 
 
Thank you for all your help.
 
Sincerely,
 
Juliana Bedoya

Getting oil from Kitimat to the open ocean: Can we do that?

I’m looking to tap the brainpower of the blogosphere for a very specific question:

Can we safely move oil from Kitimat, B.C., down the Douglas Channel, and into the open Pacific Ocean?

Continue reading Getting oil from Kitimat to the open ocean: Can we do that?

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver avoids the key question on Northern Gateway

The federal government, you may have noticed, is frustrated at what amounts to filibuster of the Northern Gateway Pipeline review by individuals and groups opposed to the project.

This week, both Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Davos, Switzerland and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver here at home vowed to introduce legislation that would streamline regulatory review processes to avoid, in Harper’s words, “delay for the sake of delay.”

Ok, then: Does that mean the government will introduce legislation to short-circuit/streamline the Northern Gateway Pipeline review. Continue reading Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver avoids the key question on Northern Gateway

New 'green group' poll: Foreign oil patch money a bigger concern than foreign money in green groups

For the last month or so, there has been increasing attention (partly, I’d like to think based on some of the reporting our organization has done on the issue) of the influence foreign, mostly U.S., organization have had on what could broadly be termed the Canadian environmental lobby. This PR war is now heating to a fever pitch as the three-member independent review panel gets set to start hearings tomorrow into a proposal to build a $5.5 billion 1,177-kilometre from the Alberta oilsands to a port on the northern B.C. coast, from where supertankers would take Alberta bitumen to markets in Asia and the U.S.

Today, the green groups started firing back, Continue reading New 'green group' poll: Foreign oil patch money a bigger concern than foreign money in green groups

Oliver: "Environmental and other radical groups" would hijack job-creating development

On the eve of the beginning of a review process to determine the feasibility/suitability of building an oil pipeline from Alberta, through the Rockies, to a northern B.C. port, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver issues this “open letter”:

Canada is on the edge of an historic choice: to diversify our energy markets away from our traditional trading partner in the United States or to continue with the status quo.
Virtually all our energy exports go to the US. As a country, we must seek new markets for our products and services and the booming Asia-Pacific economies have shown great interest in our oil, gas, metals and minerals. For our government, the choice is clear: we need to diversify our markets in order to create jobs and economic growth for Canadians across this country. We must expand our trade with the fast growing Asian economies. We know that increasing trade will help ensure the financial security of Canadians and their families.
Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups Continue reading Oliver: "Environmental and other radical groups" would hijack job-creating development

BC Premier Christy Clark on resource development and foreign money flowing to Canadian green groups

BCLocalNews.com published yesterday a year-end interview Tom Fletcher did with British Columbia Premier Christy Clark. Here’s some excerpts, in which Clark stays on the sidelines of the debate on a Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific but frowns on U.S. groups mobilizing and funding Canadians: Continue reading BC Premier Christy Clark on resource development and foreign money flowing to Canadian green groups