Elizabeth May

Canadian Officials Should Be Ashamed For Attacking Scientists

2013-04-26T08:00:33-04:00

Earlier this week, our Minister for Natural Resources, the Hon. Joe Oliver, went to Washington on what the Canadian media mistakenly insists on calling a "charm offensive." It really cannot be described as having anything to do with "charm" when the minister, fresh from having told La Presse that scientists are less worried about global warming; that 2 degrees is not a big deal, decided to insult one of the USA's most respected scientists, James Hansen.

Dr. Hansen is not just someone who used to work at NASA. He was NASA's top climate scientist. Thursday, I found this tribute to James Hansen that will give Canadians who do not know much about Dr. Hansen (and I guess that means Mr. Oliver, at least) a sense of his stature south of the border and globally. This tribute was written by another Joe -- Joe Romm (1).

I don't think I can improve upon it, and I ask you to read it. Joe Oliver said James Hansen should be "ashamed" for urging the President to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. He said Dr. Hansen has been "crying wolf." Whatever your views on any particular pipeline, I ask you to read this. And then ask yourself how long we will tolerate having our highest ranking Canadian officials embarrass internationally by attacking the most courageous of scientists? It is we who are ashamed -- of our government.

A Man For All Seasons: James Hansen Wins The Ridenhour Courage Prize

James Hansen was awarded the Ridenhour Courage Prize today. The Prize is "presented to an individual in recognition of his or her courageous and life-long defense of the public interest and passionate commitment to social justice."

I was given the great privilege of introducing Hansen. This is what I prepared:
James Hansen is being honored today in part because he told Congress: "The global warming now is large enough that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause-and-effect relationship to the greenhouse effect."

The courageous part isn't what he said, it's when he said it -- 25 years ago, during the sweltering summer of 1988. It was the first high-profile public statement by a US government scientist alerting the country to this grave threat.

Jim embodies the Ridenhour Courage Prize. When he was still NASA's top climate scientist, he blew the whistle on government efforts to silence him -- and others -- on climate change.

Jim is a modern day Paul Revere ... if Paul Revere's midnight ride had taken place in 1750 and the message was, "The British are coming, The British are coming -- in 25 years."

Yes, climate change is a challenging story to tell. And Jim has actually been telling it publicly since 1981, when he published his first warning that led to a major New York Times story, headlined, "Study Finds Warming Trend That Could Raise Sea Levels."

And yet carbon pollution has kept rising. We live in a spineless world, where being scientifically right for over 30 years gives you no more credit with the national media than being a professional disinformer funded by the fossil fuel industry.

How spineless is this world? If a doctor used the best science to diagnose a smoker as having early-stage emphysema and the doctor did NOT urge the patient to start quitting cigarettes, he'd be charged with malpractice.

But if a climatologist uses the best science to diagnose an entire planet as having early-stage climate change, and he urges the world to start quitting fossil fuels, well, then he is labeled an alarmist or an extremist by industry-backed groups.

The truth is we all should be alarmed by the great moral crisis of our time. By destroying a livable climate we are stealing the future from our children and grandchildren and countless future generations.

To save this spineless world from itself, supplying the truth isn't enough. You need to supply the spine, too. You need to be courageous. And so Jim has been forced by the times -- and by his moral convictions -- to become an activist.

There is a saying that applies to Jim, "One man with courage is a majority."

How many scientists have spawned an entire movement?

Five years ago Jim explained that "If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted," we need to return carbon dioxide levels back to 350 parts per million. That led to Bill McKibben founding the group 350.org.

Then Jim said burning the tar sands would be "game over for the climate" -- and that led to the fight against the Keystone XL pipeline -- and the biggest protests and civil disobedience the climate movement had ever seen.

And because Jim has the courage of his convictions he has had the courage to be convicted himself -- he's been arrested 5 times during peaceful protests.

Fifty years ago this month, another great moral crusader was arrested for protesting -- and he wrote a letter from his jail cell in Birmingham explaining why. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," wrote Martin Luther King Jr. on April 16, 1963. "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."

Now more than ever, we are "tied in a single garment of destiny," cloaked as a species in a protective climate that we are in the process of unraveling. And so the need for activism, the need for courage, the need to speak out, is as great as ever.

As King put it, "We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people."

It is my singular honor to give you a man who will not have to repent, a man for all seasons, literally -- the winner of the 2013 Ridenhour Courage Prize, Dr. James Hansen.

(1)From Wikipedia: Joseph J. Romm (born June 27, 1960) is an American author, blogger, physicist[1] and climate expert[2] who concentrates on methods of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and global warming and increasing energy security through energy efficiency, green energy technologies and green transportation technologies.[3][4] In December 2008, Romm was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In March 2009, Rolling Stone magazine named Romm to its list of "100 People Who Are Changing America".[5] In September 2009, Time magazine named him one of its "Heroes of the Environment (2009)", calling him "The Web's most influential climate-change blogger".[6]
Romm is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he writes and maintains their climate blog, Climate Progress. In 2008, Time magazine named Romm's blog one of the "Top 15 Green Websites".[7] In 2009, Thomas L. Friedman, in his column in The New York Times, called Climate Progress "the indispensable blog",[8] and in 2010, Time included it in a list of the 25 "Best Blogs of 2010".[9] Romm also writes regularly for several energy and news websites.

In the 1990s, Romm served as Acting Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy. Romm has published several books on global warming and energy technology. Technology Review wrote that his December 2006 book, Hell and High Water, "provides an accurate summary of what is known about global warming and climate change, a sensible agenda for technology and policy, and a primer on how political disinformation has undermined climate science."[10] Romm's 2010 book, Straight Up, released in April 2010, is a selection of his blog postings since 2007.

What Does Joe Oliver Know About Science? Not Much

2013-04-13T11:32:25-04:00

Imagine you have this avuncular Uncle Joe. He doesn't read much about climate science, but he looks at the websites that tell you the whole thing is overblown and there's really no risk. It would become annoying. It would cast a shadow on the predictable dinner conversation at family gatherings at which you grit your teeth and to try to bring him up to speed on the science.

But when those same attitudes and willful blindness form the basis of federal government policy as expressed by our federal Minister of Natural Resources, it is a sign of negligent disregard for the public interest. It is unacceptable.

This is what Oliver told the editorial board of La Presse: "I think that people aren't as worried as they were before about global warming of two degrees...Scientists have recently told us that our fears (on climate change) are exaggerated."

Thank goodness the editorial board at La Presse knows how to ask questions. They pressed him to name any scientist who thinks our fears are exaggerated. He couldn't.

The extent to which the minister doesn't know his brief was further exposed when the editorial board asked him about the International Energy Agency's annual World Energy Outlook's concern for limiting carbon. Oliver had actually quoted from the report to justify his claim that fossil fuel production must ramp up to meet demand. When asked if he had not seen that the same report had made it clear that avoiding a two degree global average temperature increase is essential, and that in order to do so, two-thirds of known fossil fuel reserves must stay in the ground and not be accessed before 2050, Oliver drew a blank.

"I have no idea, I didn't read that conclusion," said Oliver.

Well, that's like saying, "I opened Moby Dick and I never saw that line 'Call me Ishmael.'"

Mr. Oliver must simply never have read the report at all. He must have had the selected quotes from briefing notes because to open the report at all is to see an executive summary in which climate concerns are front and centre.

"Successive editions of this report have shown that the climate goal of limiting warming to 2°C is becoming more difficult and more costly with each year that passes," said the report. "If action to reduce CO2 emissions is not taken before 2017, all the allowable CO2 emissions would be locked-in by energy infrastructure existing at that time. Rapid deployment of energy-efficient technologies ... would postpone this complete lock-in to 2022, buying time to secure a much-needed global agreement to cut greenhouse-gas emissions."

I keep trying to determine if Stephen Harper has ever had a briefing on climate science. This revealing exchange with the editorial board of La Presse confirms that if Joe Oliver has ever had a science briefing, he wasn't listening.

My Critics Favour "Truthiness" Over Fact

2013-04-02T09:29:45-04:00

I don't know Mr. McCullough, but in reviewing his blogs he seems to have embraced the weary cynic style of punditry. The strange attack on me as a pointless entity, "The Stonehenge of Canadian politics" as he would have it, is riddled with the kind of errors that favour "truthiness" over accuracy.

For example, he says I have been on the political scene for almost a decade. Which is true if you think seven years as leader of the Green Party is almost 10 years. And I have been an MP for less than two years. If we are thinking in centuries, it is a rounding error. But in terms of Canadian political reality, it's just wrong.

Even more bizarre is his assertion that "part of the reason she's even famous in the first place is because she once sat on some UN environment committee chaired by Maurice Strong." Well, it wasn't a UN Committee; it was the Earth Charter Commission and included a number of former prime ministers, presidents, and thought leaders from around the world.

It was co-chaired by Maurice Strong and Mikhail Gorbachev. I was appointed to it in 1997, when I had been a prominent part of Canada's environmental movement for more than two decades. I did not "win" the Order of Canada as McCullough would have it. I was honoured to be named an Officer of the Order of Canada for decades of work. It is not something one "wins."

The strangest thing about the blog is the assumption that the Green Party and I are the same. As though the Green Party, incorporated in 1983, simply wouldn't exist if I had never been born. McCullough even insults the entire party, and me for good measure, by suggesting the Green Party of Canada is a personal "vanity vehicle."

I am the ninth leader of the Green Party of Canada. Former Leader Jim Harris did an amazing job of getting the party better known. In both 2004 and 2006, he led a full slate of 308 candidates in the federal elections. We continue to be a party operating from coast to coast, and ran in over 300 ridings in both 2008 and 2011.

After the 2006 election, I joined the Green Party for the first time and resigned after 17 years as Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada. McCullough is quite wrong to assert that I find Stephen Harper "personally frightening." I have never said any such thing. He is not the least bit personally frightening. It's his policies that are frightening, My concern for what would become of decades of environmental law and policy under his rule is what caused me to leave the Sierra Club to run for the hotly contested leadership of the Green Party in 2006.

We need a Green Party in Canada precisely because none of the other parties are consistent in raising the spectre of the climate crisis, nor in advancing solutions to avert its most serious threats. Nor do other parties pay any attention to the way in which Harper's administration is dismantling the respected Canadian civil service and policy-making within it.

Contrary to McCullough's uninformed rant, Green principles actually reject the leader-as-boss model of other parties. Our governance is based on a national elected council. Under our Constitution, the powers conveyed by the Elections Act to every party leader to approve candidate nominations are constrained by insisting that three quarters of Council approve any decision to refuse a nomination.

We will have more MPs and when we do, Canadians will see what happens when a party respects Westminster Parliamentary democracy and does not whip votes or insist on mindless solidarity on every vote and issue.

More and more Canadians are shifting their allegiance from the old line parties to the principled and viable Green Party of Canada. Our policies are available in Vision Green on our website. We have a full platform for economic well-being and making a transition to a low carbon society, with social justice and accountability.

Canadian Democracy is healthier for us being part of it. No mystery there.

I Stand Behind My Tweet Comparing Canada To North Korea

2013-03-29T14:40:53-04:00

This is a larger, more esoteric blog than merely defending my use of North Korea and Canada in the same sentence. But, okay, I am also defending my use of North Korea and Canada in the same sentence.

Some of the Twitter comment reminded me of something one of my high school teachers told me when I saw her decades later. She said, "I don't get students like you anymore." To which I demurred, insisting students were just as bright now surely. And she tried to explain, "No, I get bright students. They just do not understand irony. I have to explain everything. They are overly literal."

Based on the Twitterverse response to my tweet about Canada being "the North Korea of environmental law," I am wondering if becoming overly literal is a general trend. Are we conditioned by political correctness or some more banal form of intellectual myopia to the extent that irony, metaphor and analogy have no place because alarm bells ring as though a literal comparison was being made?

So, here's the thing. If I had said, "Canada is just like North Korea" -- that would be irrational and loopy. If I had said, "Canada is a bit like North Korea" that would also be quite wrong. But in trying to convey to Canadians just how bizarre and shocking it is to people around the world, or to Canadians who have worked as diplomats or in multilateral efforts, that we would, for no reason and out of the blue, be the only country in the world to pull out of a legally binding treaty to address drought and desertification, I sought an analogy. It is clear we have gone rogue. Law-abiding nations simply do not break their treaty obligations as though they were last year's election promises.

We have a universally understood standard for a rogue nation. It is North Korea. So to say Canada has gone rogue, as many have said (The head of Oxfam said it on CBC national last night), does not really convey to Canadians how really shocking this is. It was shameful enough to be the only country on earth to legally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. That was the first time in our history we ever withdrew from a treaty we had ratified. But now, with no notice to other parties in the Convention, nor to the Convention Secretariat, Canada is cutting and running from the treaty to deal with growing droughts and deserts. The analogy is that in one context only -- global environmental treaties -- Canada is acting rogue, and since North Korea is the most shocking example of a rogue state, the analogy is to North Korea.

Here's the Mirriam-Webster definition for analogy: "resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise unlike."

Story continues after slideshow.

Clearly, tweets present a challenge in communication. Former diplomat Robert Fowler said much the same thing, but more eloquently, in a long email to journalists. Calling our withdrawal from the treaty "a departure from global citizenship," here's what he said:

"It [the Harper administration] has taken climate-change denial, the abandonment of collective efforts to manage global crises and disregard the pain and suffering of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa (among many others) to quite a different level."

Responding to Foreign Minister John Baird's defence that Canada won't "go along to get along," Fowler continued:

"No, by jingo, we're not going to go along to get along! Such vainglorious nose-thumbing at the international community's efforts to tame a very present threat to hundreds of millions of the world's poorest and most desperate is nothing short of incomprehensible."

Given the challenges of Twitter, I think saying Canada is the North Korea of environmental treaties captures it very well. Not literally true in any respect. But as an analogy, it explains just how shocking Stephen Harper's actions really are.

The way things are going, citizens in other countries may start using Canada as the standard for rogue environmental behaviour to shock their own compatriots. "New Zealand is becoming the Canada of...." And the Twitterverse in New Zealand will light up to attack such an analogy as unfair to New Zealand.

New and Improved Oil Spills!

2013-03-20T10:49:07-04:00

Harper’s public relations and spin team hit Vancouver last week to unveil their super-duper enviro-protection plan for pipelines and tankers. Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver and Minister of Transport Denis Lebel described their new regime for oil spill safety against the backdrop of the Port of Vancouver. On CTV Power Play, Oliver went so far as to say the Exxon Valdez spill could never happen in Canada. What should no longer surprise me is how little was unveiled.

In March of last year, Budget 2012 promised more pipeline inspections and new tanker regulations. Then ministers claimed the new measures were in the budget omnibus bill C-38. Since C-38 was over 400 pages long, perhaps they did not expect anyone to read it. Maybe they never read it themselves, as Minister Oliver trumpeted then, “Mr. Speaker, the bill will do a great deal to protect the environment... As I mentioned in my remarks, tankers will have to be double-hulled, there will be mandatory pilotage, there will be enhanced navigation, there will be aerial surveillance and additional measures will be taken in particular cases when necessary.”

None of this was in C-38. It is, in fact, what he announced in Vancouver on March 18, 2013. I imagine he wondered why he had such a strong sense of déjà-vu.

The only really new announcement was of an expert panel to review tanker safety and to study the specific risks of a spill involving bitumen and diluents. That is worth doing, as the entire Enbridge Joint Review Panel hearing has been dealing with a product it does not plan to ship -- crude.

Yesterday Harper’s ministers announced we would find these new measures in Bill C-57, the just tabled for First Reading Safeguarding Canada’s Seas and Skies Act. I have read C-57. This now takes top honours in the on-going competition for most over-hyped legislative title. I have read it and it is essentially a housekeeping act. It deals with the skies, through changes to inspections of aviation accidents and aeronautic indemnities. There is no environmental aspect to the “skies” component. Then there are the amendments related to “seas.” The Marine Act is amended to change the date for the approval of a new director of a port authority. The only oil-spill related components are in the Marine Liability Act. The act is brought into compliance with the 2010 International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in connection with the Carriage and Noxious Substances by Sea. So, nothing about double-hulled tankers.

The reality is that since 1993, all new tankers are required, by international agreement, to be double-hulled. According to a great summary on the issue by Mitch Anderson in September 27, 2010 The Tyee, (“No, Double Hull Tankers Do Not Ensure ‘Total Safety,’”) there were only 50 single-hulled tankers operating anywhere on the planet that year. None were allowed in North American waters.

Has the virtual removal of single-hulled tankers ended the risk of oil spills? Not actually. Despite the exuberance of Joe Oliver’s rhetoric, double-hulls possess no magical powers. Their use has not ended the risk of accidents and oil spills.

Collisions with barges and freighters have caused oil spills of millions of litres in ports around the world. Double hulls can be sliced open and oil spills out.

The Transport Canada website was prettied up for the announcement, with a “fact sheet” transparently designed to create the impression the British Columbia coast is routinely plied by hundreds of super-tankers.

Here are some of the claims from the Transport Canada website:

Oil tankers have been moving safely and regularly along Canada’s West Coast since the 1930’s.

In 2009-2010, there were about 1500 tanker movements on the West Coast....

A federal moratorium off the coast of BC applies strictly to oil and natural gas exploitation and development, not to tanker storage or movement.

I think most readers will not need any help from me debunking that bunk. The 1972 moratorium was precisely against oil tanker traffic along BC’s north coast. Moreover, the 1500 tanker “movements” refers to what Transport Canada defines as “every time a ship (or vessel) commences or ceases to be underway.

Underway is defined as "a vessel that is not at anchor, or made fast to the shore, or aground.” And by tanker, they mean “a cargo ship fitted with tanks for carrying liquid in bulk.” Not oil tankers. In 2011, the total number of oil tankers in and out of the Port of Vancouver was 82. None of them were super-tankers and none of them operate without risk.

In the on-going war of words to get super-tankers carrying bitumen crude into our waters, it is amazing any media covered Joe Oliver’s announcement as if anything meaningful had been added to the discussion.

This article appears in the March 28 print and online editions of Island Tides

Joyce Murray, I Salute You

2013-02-11T17:28:55-05:00

Greens favour a cooperative strategy in the next federal election. We need to move away from First Past the Post (FPTP), to a voting system that will ensure every vote counts and that the popular vote will be reflected in the proportion of seats held by each party in the House of Commons. And while we are discussing the impact of FPTP, it is clear we need some form of cooperation between the New Democrats, Liberals and Greens to avoid another term of Stephen Harper's agenda.

Even as strong a New Democrat as Murray Dobbin is now pointing out that the NDP fixation on destroying the Liberal Party is responsible for the seven year (and counting) reign of Stephen Harper.

It is clear that, at least for the moment, efforts at cooperation are being thwarted by the NDP and by most of the Liberal leadership candidates. It needs to be mentioned in this context that B.C. MP Joyce Murray stands out as the exception to all the rules. As a contender for Liberal leader, she is advocating many of the same things that I have been doing as leader of the Greens. She is calling for cooperation and for the end of the FPTP voting system.

Nathan Cullen called for cooperation in his bid to lead the New Democrats. Many Greens temporarily left the GPC and joined the NDP in order to support his candidacy. Some Greens have asked for advice, and all I can say is that we need our supporters to remain active in the Green Party.

As leader of the Green Party of Canada, I am not going to endorse candidates for leadership in other parties. As an MP, I know and work well with Joyce, as well as with fellow MPs Justin Trudeau and Marc Garneau, and I regard all three of them with respect and affection.

Nevertheless, it is pretty obvious that Joyce Murray doing well in the leadership race should advance the shared goals and objectives held by Greens, by NDPers who supported Nathan and by many across a political, progressive spectrum.

In that spirit, I want to publicly salute Joyce Murray for charting a difficult course, displaying political courage and integrity. Let's hope the goals of cooperation and electoral reform gain ground through her efforts.

No Time for a Victory Lap, Mr. President. Your Planet Is Calling

2012-11-07T10:27:27-05:00

While there were some nail-biter moments, the overall trend of election night was one of increasing confidence that Barack Obama would hold on to the White House. However, no one can mistake the difference in tone and mood of Obama's 2008 victory night for "hope and change" and the 2012 sense of reduced expectations. The people of the United States have given President Obama a second chance to pull their economy out of the doldrums, to rein in the greed of Wall Street, to protect the middle class, and to take action on the climate crisis.

No doubt the failures in his first term must be shared with, or even primarily laid at the feet of, Republican hyper-partisan refusal to meet half-way. With the fiscal cliff in view, those Republican law makers should now be chastened by the failure at the polls. The president has no time for a victory lap, he must get right to work.

In the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Sandy and the summer of parched earth and lost crops, the president must listen to his science advisor, Dr. John Holdren, and the head of climate science at NASA, Dr. James Hansen, and actually lead on climate. The world needs the U.S. to join the European Union in moving aggressively to a low-carbon economy. Barak Obama got a second chance. Let's hope that the rest of us did too.

Welcome Huffington Post, to Newsworthy B.C.!

2012-08-16T07:06:19-04:00

Welcome to the new British Columbia edition of HuffPost. And welcome to B.C., HuffPost!

The hot news of the country is increasingly tilting west. The epic struggle to keep our coast line oil-free is dominating the headlines and who knows it better than experts like economist Robyn Allen and mariner Brian Falconer? We have huge issues to resolve in protecting and restoring wild salmon populations, as the federal government chooses to reduce habitat protection. One of Canada's most respected and articulate climate experts, Dr. Andrew Weaver, has spoken out about our survival on this planet.

British Columbia issues extend beyond our environmental concerns. The National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Shawn A-in-chut Atleo, is a hereditary chief of the Ahousaht First Nation. With the Harper agenda set to take on traditional, Constitutionally protected and inherent rights of First Nations, British Columbia will be in the forefront. As we are in issues of harm reduction and progressive policies to assist those with medical issues of drug addiction.

I love blogging on HuffPost and so too does one of my most illustrious and eloquent constituents, a singer called Raffi. HuffPost already has some great and B.C. passionate voices for B.C., like blogger Matt Price. The new B.C. edition is bound to be a great addition to our media scene out here on the left coast.

When it Comes to the Pipeline, Harper Talks in Circles

2012-08-09T12:10:26-04:00

Yesterday in British Columbia, Prime Minister Stephen Harper tried to sound a note of reason on the subject of the increasingly unpopular proposal to build 1,100 kilometres of pipeline through the northern British Columbia wilderness between the Alberta oil sands and a proposed super tanker port in Kitimat, B.C. Here is what he said:

“The only way governments can handle controversial projects of this manner is to ensure that things are evaluated on an independent basis scientifically, and not simply on political criteria,” Harper told reporters at an elementary school.

“And as I’ve said repeatedly the government does not pick and choose particular projects. The government obviously wants to see British Columbia’s export trade continue to grow and diversify; that’s important. But projects have to be evaluated on their own merits.”

(Peter O’Neil, “PM insists pipeline projects not a political move,” August 7, 2012, Victoria Times Colonist)

He didn’t seem very comfortable as he said it. The words were a bit awkward -- “controversial projects of this manner”. “Manner?” No wonder. It was a complete abandonment of all Harper message machine management over the last year.

My favourite bit, if I am allowed favourite bits of howler whoppers, was the gratuitous, “As I’ve said repeatedly...” Where and when did he ever say anything like this before?

Let’s look at what he actually has said repeatedly.

In November 2011, the prime minister was interviewed by Global TV in Vancouver and asked specifically about the Enbridge project:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper: There are environmentalists who will oppose any of these projects. Obviously, there will be environmental assessments and there always have to be negotiations with First Nations but that all said, this is a critical and important project to Canada as a whole.

Global TV: Canadian opposition may not be the only stumbling block.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper: I think we'll see significant American interests trying to line up against the Northern Gateway project, precisely because it’s not in the interests of the United States. It’s in the interests of Canada.

Global TV: Could they do anything to stop it?

Prime Minister Harper: Well, they'll funnel money through environmental groups and others in order to try to slow it down but, as I say, we'll make sure that the best interests of Canada are protected.

(Emphasis added. The link is down to the actual interview on the Global website. This transcript comes from the website of Vivian Krause, www.fair-questions.com.)

On January 5, 2012, the prime minister appeared on the Calgary radio programme hosted by Dave Rutherford. He laid out much of his spring legislative agenda. Specifically, he emphasized approving the use of supertankers on the B.C. coast. He asked, since oil tankers ply waters off Atlantic Canada, why couldn’t oil supertankers move along the B.C. coast? (He made no reference to the 1972 federal-provincial moratorium on supertankers along the north coast of B.C.) Since there is only one project undergoing review that involves over-turning the moratorium to allow supertankers on the northern coast, the Rutherford show comments were directly supporting Enbridge.

On January 9, 2012, the day before the Joint Review Panel into the Enbridge project got underway, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, delivered the next blow in what was a carefully constructed PR barrage demonstrating that the Harper Conservatives supported the project. Joe Oliver issued a blistering attack on environmental groups and First Nations that may stand in the way of the pipelines and tankers. Here’s what he said:

“We must expand our trade with the fast growing Asian economies...Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade. Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth.

No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydro-electric dams.

These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda. They seek to exploit any loophole they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects. They use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest.”

January 30, 2012, in the House in response to a question from Bob Rae, Stephen Harper said:

“It is vitally important to the national interests of this country that we are able to export our energy products to Asia and, obviously, that is something the government hopes will happen in the future.” (Many similar comments can be found in Hansard.)

The one that rather caps it off comes from his February trip to China. Dateline: Guangzhou, China:

Canada PM vows to ensure key oil pipeline is built
By David Ljunggren, Reuters
Fri Feb 10, 2012

Canada's Prime Minister on Friday made his strongest comments yet in support of a proposed pipeline from oil-rich Alberta to the Pacific coast, saying his government was committed to ensuring the controversial project went ahead.

Enbridge Inc's Northern Gateway pipeline, which is strongly opposed by green groups and some aboriginal bands, would allow Canada to send tankers of crude to China and reduce reliance on the U.S. market.

An independent energy regulator -- which could in theory reject the project -- last month started two years of hearings into the pipeline.

In remarks that appeared to cast some doubt on the regulator's eventual findings, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said it had become "increasingly clear that it is in Canada's national interest to diversify our energy markets".

He continued: "To this end, our government is committed to ensuring that Canada has the infrastructure necessary to move our energy resources to those diversified markets."

Of course, it is not just what he said, it is what he did that makes a mockery of this entirely bogus claim that he does not “pick and choose projects,” or pre-judge any project prior to review.

The entire apparatus of environmental law has been turned upside down and eviscerated. The budget omnibus bill, C-38, repealed the environmental assessment act, replaced it with a far weaker review, applying to fewer projects, coupled with removing protection for fish habitat, endangered species and navigable waters.

Other resource extraction projects will no doubt benefit from fast-tracking and lax review, but the first one to benefit would appear to be the one the PM keeps talking about. And for further proof, go back to this bit of reportage from Reuters:

“An independent energy regulator -- which could in theory reject the project -- last month started two years of hearings into the pipeline.”

That is no longer the case. Bill C-38 removed the independence of the National Energy Board decision-making, ensuring that the Cabinet could overturn any NEB decision. (Since the NEB is pretty reliably an approver of pipelines, I suspect this change in our laws was made to reassure the Communist Chinese government. They may have had some suspicion that the PM could not really deliver on his promise of the Great Pipeline of China being built since, after all, Canada has an independent regulator. No more.)

There are more quotes that can be hauled out. Stephen Harper has talked about Enbridge and sending tankers full of bitumen crude to Chinese refineries quite a lot. One thing you cannot find is when he ever said he was interested in the evidence.

Bill C-38: The Tories' Soiled Green

2012-05-07T17:55:43-04:00

The budget omnibus bill was best "described by Terry Glavin recently as a "statutory juggernaut that introduces, amends, or repeals nearly 70 federal laws."

What Canadians are beginning to realize is that the budget omnibus bill, or Bill C-38, is an outrage. There is much in the budget that was never hinted at, but there are also claims of what is in the bill that simply are not there.

Aspects never even hinted at in the budget itself include removing over-sight from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and changing entitlement to Employment Insurance (this is still vague, but appears to allow refusing insurance to anyone if there is any job available, even not in their field).

Nearly half of the budget implementation bill is directed at rewriting Canada's foundational environmental laws. The budget never mentioned that the Fisheries Act was to be rewritten, gutting habitat protection, and restricting federal action in many instances to commercial, recreational, and Aboriginal fisheries.

Rumours abounded due to a leaked memo to retired Fisheries scientist Otto Langer, but there was nothing in the budget about it at all. But C-38 devotes a lot of space to the overhaul of protection of fish habitat. If a human isn't catching a fish, there is no protection for its habitat. There was nothing in the budget about changes to the Species at Risk Act, putting the National Energy Board (NEB) in charge of permitting the destruction of endangered species, and their habitat found on the proposed route of a pipeline; nor for the supplanting of the NEB as arbiter of pipelines under the Navigable Waters Protection Act (NWPA). The NWPA is amended such that pipelines are no longer considered an obstruction to navigation -- even if they are.

Although it was abundantly clear that a large focus was to be "streamlining" the environmental assessment process, the advanced hype focused on time limits for hearings. It was nowhere mentioned that the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act was to be repealed. C-38 wipes out the law, and introduces an entirely new approach to environmental assessment.

With so many new laws, repeal of old laws, and complex text, the Conservative ministers speaking in the House in support of C-38 frequently claim the act will include measures that are simply not there at all, or misstate how the new laws will operate.

I have heard members and cabinet ministers claim the act adds to environmental protection through increased tanker safety -- but that is not in Bill C-38. I have also heard members, and ministers claim that the substitution of a federal environmental review is only allowed if the province has an "equivalent process," or as Parliamentary Secretary Michelle Rempel would have it, only if the provincial review is, "As good or better." Whenever opposition members ask about the appalling nature of the omnibus bill, the conservative talking points include a gratuitous insult, "Perhaps if the member opposite would actually read the bill..."

I would find it refreshing if any of the Conservatives speaking for the bill had read it. I went over to one Conservative MP to inquire where he found the equivalency provisions, and he pointed to the bill's summary -- not a legislatively operative section. True, the summary section claims the processes must be equivalent, but the bill itself falls short of that, or any other objective criteria. The provisions allowing for a provincial government to sign an agreement to substitute the federal environmental review with a provincial review are a strange combination of discretionary, and mandatory language.

Discretionary: "If the minister is of the opinion that a process for assessing the environmental effects of designated projects that is followed by the government of a province...that has the powers, duties or functions in relation to an assessment of the environmental effects of a designated process would be an appropriate substitute (mandatory) the Minister must, on request of the province approve the substitution." (Section 32, on page 51 of C-38.)

What would make the minister think it was "appropriate?" "Appropriate" is not defined. Maybe Environment Canada is short of cash? Maybe the province is looking for a major development and wants it rubber-stamped quickly? There is nothing to rule out an exercise of discretion without any ability to justify it as "equivalent." Once the Minister has reached that conclusion, and a province requests a substitution, there is a mandatory duty to pass over the federal role to the province.

I am unsure if I have found everything alarming in C-38. I cannot, for example, figure out why one section of the Fisheries Act is placed more than a 100 pages removed from the rest of the Fisheries Act changes, and I also cannot figure out what the stranded "Fish Allocation for financing purposes" (page 289, section 411 of Fisheries Act) amendments are supposed to do. It looks like a scheme for selling fish, or equipment for financing government activities. But that is pretty bizarre.

I am sure that putting all this in a fast-track budget bill, with time allocation on debate, and heading to the Finance Committee, is a direct assault on the principles of parliamentary democracy.

Keep Fish (and Other Environment Issues) Federal

2012-04-18T08:23:46-04:00

The Harper Conservatives have dropped any pretense that they care about Canada's natural environment, and have reduced the federal government's oversight role to miniscule proportions. Their justifications to chip away at Canada's Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA) are inaccurate and should be corrected.

According to the Canadian Press:

Under the new plan, the government would have 45 days to decide if an assessment is needed, and if it's required, the review would take a maximum of two years.

The changes also include recognizing provincial assessments if they meet federal standards.

They would also cut the number of agencies responsible for reviews to three, down from 40.

First, it is a fallacy to suggest that the environment is provincial jurisdiction. Fish fall under federal regulation, even if the water is provincial. Since the 1970s and the Environmental Assessment Review Process Guidelines Order of the Federal Cabinet, the Federal government has played a strong role in the assessment process.

Second, not all organizations find the process "cumbersome." The Mining Association of Canada lobbied the federal government to leave CEAA alone. The association has found that the agency works well and is actually more predictable to deal with than other federal government agencies.

The most dangerous change is not the shortening of timelines -- although it is disconcerting since proponents missing their environmental impact statement deadlines cause a majority of delays. The biggest worry is downloading the assessment process to provincial governments. For example, former Minister Jim Prentice turned down the Prosperity Mine proposal after the B.C. government had approved it. Their plan was to turn a whole lake (Fish Lake, ironically) into a tailings pond. The difference was due to federal responsibility for health of fish populations.

The changes announced today may be open to a constitutional challenge. The issue was litigated in 2010 with a B.C. Supreme Court decision (Morton v. British Columbia) where the federal government had attempted to download jurisdiction of fish farms to the province. The
court ruled that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans could not do this; protection of fish habitat is squarely federal, and it seems Harper and company want to abandon this responsibility.

F-35s: It's Not that They are Expensive. It's that They are Useless.

2012-04-09T06:29:21-04:00

In July 2010, I wrote a column for my local paper, Island Tides, on the government's decision to buy 65 F-35 fighter jets. Now that the Auditor General has confirmed what everyone knew -- that the planes were wildly over budget and that we were being misled (lied to?) at every turn -- I decided to go back and look at my column.

On the costs I wrote:

"Like many military contracts in the US, the costs of the F-35 have spiralled and are way over budget. In March 2010, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates told the Congress that it was 'unacceptable' that the F-35 is 50 per cent over-budget. Costs of developing the new fighter jets is approaching $300 billion. With bureaucratic baffle-gab that takes your breath away, the Pentagon critique of the fighter jet programme concluded: 'affordability is no longer embraced as a core pillar.'"

On the question of whether the F35s met Canadian defence needs:

"Peter MacKay is enthused about the jets. Lockheed Martin's F-35 jets are exciting new toys. They are so exciting that our government did not hold an open contracting process. We only wanted these planes. They can take off and land on aircraft carriers. They have stealth coating. They can engage in air-to-air combat and rely on mid-air re-fueling...We don't have aircraft carriers. We have no plausible security scenario in which air-to-air combat is anticipated. (The Battle of Britain was a long time ago.) And stealth coating? Are we planning a surprise invasion?

True, our aging CF-18s need to be replaced. Our large geography has always led to a priority choice for two-engine planes, so if a plane is in a remote spot and loses an engine, the pilot can get to a safe place to land. The F-35s are single engine planes. Asked what will happen if the engine fails, Peter MacKay replied 'it won't.' We need planes for search and rescue. The F-35 is not appropriate for search and rescue."

My column concluded:

So, it seems Canada is spending money we don't have for planes we don't need. And it seems we are doing this to hold our place in some macho military solidarity with the Pentagon. The opportunity costs of $16 billion for fighter jets is enormous -- in lost opportunities to reduce poverty, create jobs, protect health care and fight climate change. None of this has been debated or discussed in the House. And it was not in the 2010 budget. I will work with other parties to reverse this sale and direct priorities to those Canadians value.

So, I was still using the Harper $16 billion estimate. But when the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Kevin Page, explained that those costs were off by about $10 billion or so in a March 2011 report, I believed him. Stephen Harper questioned him.

The point is that not even willful blindness of the most acute variety can be pleaded by the prime minister in his attack on Page. If I knew the planes were being chosen without criteria or a proper open bidding process, that the whole project was a boondoggle and that Canada was going to be spending $25 billion on planes we did not need, so too did everyone else.

The auditor general's report should be required reading for every voter who thought Stephen Harper had the qualities of a wise manager of the public purse.

Election Scandals Didn't Start With Robocalls

2012-04-03T07:32:02-04:00

Lately, a lot of allegations have been made that there were election irregularities and some outright crimes committed in the 2011 election. What we do not know is who was responsible.

But we may be dealing with a serial offender, or offenders. When one thinks about the election skulduggery of the last six years, it is clear that Canada does a poor job of getting to the bottom of some serious crimes.

Here's a short list of the ones that still bother me. They remain unsolved.

RCMP interference in the 2006 election. (Remember Zaccardelli issuing a press release about looking into NDP charges that the Liberals had leaked details about the income trust taxation issue? There was nothing to it, but it arguably changed the outcome of the election.) Issuing a press release in an election campaign was a violation of RCMP normal practice. Naming a finance minister in the release was unheard of. The Public Complaints Commission for the RCMP, under its director Paul Kennedy, tried to question former RCMP Commissioner Guiliano Zaccardelli. Zaccardelli refused to be questioned and Kennedy lacked subpoena powers. No one knows if there was any political involvement, inducement, or pay-off involved. Zaccardelli is now a senior Interpol officer in Lyon, France.

How hard did the Conservatives try to bring down the Martin government in spring 2005? Did the effort include the offer of a million dollar life insurance policy to Chuck Cadman? It was alleged, there was a tape. What happened to the investigation? If it happened, it was illegal.

The Conservative campaign in the Nova Scotia riding of Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley in 2008. Courageous MP Bill Casey had been expelled from the Conservative caucus for voting against the 2008 budget which violated the contract with N.S., known as the "Atlantic Accord." In 2008, Casey ran as an Independent. The Conservative candidate Joel Bernard left Stockwell Day's office to challenge him. (In an interesting sidebar, the entire Conservative riding association insisted that Bill Casey was their candidate. The Conservative Party fired the whole of the local executive and appointed a secret group to chose their candidate.) Casey was re-elected handily. After the election, Casey learned that Conservatives had gone to the RCMP and alleged that Casey had embezzled funds from the Conservative riding association. There was no truth to such charges, but it also emerged that efforts had been made to peddle the story to the local media during the election. Media did not cover it because Casey's reputation for integrity made it too implausible to treat seriously. But making unsubstantiated allegations and wasting RCMP resources were themselves possibly criminal acts.

In 2008, well-documented robocalls were made into the riding I now hold -- Saanich-Gulf Islands. There are many details of this case in my previous blogs. It was clearly illegal. The automated calls claimed to be from the NDP and demonstrably were not. The home fax line of the NDP riding association president had been "spoofed." (So that his number appeared to be the source of the calls.) Calls were made that urged citizens to vote for the NDP candidate who had withdrawn from the race. The robocalls may well have changed the outcome of the election. Yet Elections Canada dropped the case and ruled no laws had been broken.

Were Larry Smith and Fabian Manning given any promises that if they left the Senate to run for a Commons seat in 2011, and were to lose, they would be re-appointed to the Senate? Both Conservative senators vied for a seat, one in Montreal, the other in Newfoundland. Both lost and were re-appointed to the Senate within weeks of the May 2, 2011 election. Democracy Watch demanded an investigation as, if such a promise was made, it violated the Criminal Code.

Add these to the spate of calls in 2011 designed to misdirect voters to non-existent polling places, the allegations of a secret Conservative bank account in Vaughn. Add to that the legal, but unethical, use of "voter suppression" techniques -- attack ads, writ periods at the legal minimum length, disgusting behaviour in the House of Commons -- and you have a toxic recipe for poisoning democracy.

Canadians must not allow allegations of serious election crimes to be swept under the carpet once again. It may that the guilty party is a "win at all costs" attitude; an acceptance of the morally bankrupt idea that anything goes and the only sin is getting caught.

We need to know and we need to stop it.

Why the 2012 Budget Is the Worst in Canada's History

2012-04-02T08:26:58-04:00

No doubt the Harper Conservatives are strategic -- even clever. The major national media seems to take the budget as somehow "less" -- less awful, less ruthless, less impact than they had expected. Even changing retirement age from 65 to 67 had lost its shock value with the prime minister's surprise announcement in Davos in January.

For a principled Conservative like Andrew Coyne, the budget failed to meet traditional conservative values. I agree. One of those values was conservation of natural resources.

Killing a deficit is never easy. It involves choices. With our Green Scissors package of proposals, we found lots of places to cut. Cuts to government advertising, the Prime Minister's Office budget, subsidies to fossil fuels, nuclear and biotechnology and many other areas are all areas that could provide serious savings.

The choices made in Paul Martin's time as finance minister were devastating to social services. In recent history, I think most progressive voters would think those were the worst budgets with cuts to health care, downloading to the provinces and so on.

The measure of harm from budgets has become percentage cut in funding. So a six per cent cut in Environment Canada spending or four per cent cut in Parks does not sound like an anti-environmental budget.

Here is why this is worse. The most serious threat to our future is the climate crisis. A responsible government would be working to reduce fossil fuel dependence and maximize jobs in energy efficiency retrofits, conservation, and investments in renewable energy. This budget does not even mention climate change.

Instead, it is re-writing environmental laws and regulations to speed the development of fossil fuels. The Enbridge pipeline and supertanker scheme was clearly a beneficiary of the budget. The so-called "streamlining" of environmental assessment is all about ending environmental reviews at the federal level wherever possible, passing them to the provinces. Incredibly, the budget time limits on environmental reviews are claimed to apply retroactively to the review already underway (and already weakened by the 2010 budget implemention act changes to CEAA) on the Enbridge mega-pipeline across the Rockies to Kitimat to run supertankers through the most treacherous waters on Earth.

Money is being spent in the millions on pipeline agencies, more green-washing for "tanker safety" and money to help develop the off-shore from what looks like the government undertaking seismic testing for the industry.

The budget targets as its primary focus the development of fossil fuels -- off-shore drilling, even targeting the sensitive and highly productive fisheries resource in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on export of bitumen crude for jobs in refineries in other countries, and expansion in the oil sands.

The voices of critics are being silenced. Even the tame, in-house agency, the National Round Table of Environment and Economy is being killed. Created under Brian Mulroney, the NRTEE had continues to talk about climate change. Its reports were developed in multi-stakeholder processes always involving the industry, but even mentioning climate change is dangerous if you are by statute an advisor to government. So its legislation is to be repealed, budget eliminated.

And environmental groups have prompted a new $8 million to the Canada Revenues Agency -- $8 million to develop the new rules to shut down criticism -- to develop "sanctions" against charities that become too "political."

This is devastating. Taken together, this is a war on the environment. It cannot go unchallenged. In the House, Stephen Harper has the votes and after a heated and likely unpleasant round of political theatre, it will pass. We need a grassroots mobilization that says to Stephen Harper, "We will not abandon our children and grandchildren to the ravages of the climate crisis. You have no right to turn your back on our kids. We will stop you."

Harper Turns Green to Black

2012-03-14T17:20:10-04:00

Confession: I am a pack rat who rarely throws out files. Last night I found the environmental assessment [EA] from the first EA process in which I participated. The Wreck Cove Hydroelectric Project EA was mailed to me on April 28, 1977. So that makes 35 years experience in environmental assessment.

Back then environmental assessment was under a guidelines order of the Privy Council, called the Environmental Assessment Review Process. Just how binding this cabinet order was remained an open question until a Federal court case on the Rafferty-Alameda Dams decision. Back in 1988, I had resigned on principle when my boss, the environment minister, signed the permits for the dams, without any environmental review. This caused the landmark Federal Court ruling.

Before my resignation, we had already been working on getting clear and effective environmental assessment law passed. As the senior policy advisor to the minister, I had steered the white paper through the Privy Council Office to get permission to draft what became the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA).

I have watched the painstaking process of bringing Canada into the 20th century of environmental law (that's right, I meant 20th century). CEAA was never the world's best EA law. It has been riddled with concessions to industry from the get-go.

It is a tool of planning to start an EA as soon as possible in the process. Tens of thousands of Canadian projects have been reviewed. The majority have seen improvements in the process. Ninety-nine per cent proceed to be built, but many have modifications to reduce the impact upon the environment.

But the Harper Conservatives have turned it into a whipping boy for delay. Delay? It is an outrage that our limited, cautious approach to EA, so much weaker than the law in the U.S., is too much for Harper.

First they weakened it in the 2010 Omnibus Budget Bill, forcing through taking energy projects out of EA and weakening comprehensive study. Then they cut CEAA's budget by 40 per cent.

This week the House Committee for the Environment issued a pre-ordained set of recommendations to further destroy environmental review. Under CEAA every five years, there is a mandatory review of the Act. In 2000, the review took over a year. Hearings were held across the country.

The process ran from January 2000 to March 2001. This time, the committee pulled the plug after hearing witnesses for nine days. That's right -- the previous government studied the law for 15 months. The conservatives didn't give it 15 days. Many witnesses, who had been informed they would be heard, were turned away. I thought at the time that PMO must have told the Conservatives who control the committee to deliver ASAP a report to gut the process. And they did.

I fear that the sweeping changes -- removing CEAA jurisdiction from any province with "equivalent" EA, removing the requirement to consider alternatives, ordering fixed time lines for reviews, giving the Minister increased powers, "streamlining" First Nations consultations -- all point toward more nails in CEAA's coffin.

After 35 years of working on environmental assessment, I am watching the current government weaken the process to less than we had in 1977. No government has a mandate to un-do environmental law. No government has a mandate to destroy our natural world.