Read this blog from TheTyee.ca on the Clark Government's decision not to proceed with an outright ban on cosmetic pesticides after committing to do so last year under pressure from the NDP. (May 18, 2012)

A year ago British Columbia Premier Christy Clark promised a province-wide ban on the cosmetic use of pesticides. But now the government majority on the bi-partisan committee she appointed on the topic has recommended against such a ban.

"The evidence just simply does not support a recommendation to ban pesticides for cosmetic use in British Columbia," said Bill Bennett, who chaired the Special Committee on Cosmetic Pesticides.

He outlined the arguments the committee heard both for and against such a ban, saying that on balance he didn't hear anything that persuaded him the provincial government should overrule Health Canada and the federal scientists who make decisions about what pesticides can be sold and used in the country.

"The majority of the committee believed the government should base as much of their environmental policy as possible on science," he said. "Since this was a legislative committee and since we were unencumbered by pressures from cabinet and from the premier's office, and since I was lucky enough to have like minded committee members, we made our decisions on our understanding of the science and the process that everyone gets to in terms of their points of view."

A year ago the NDP opposition proposed a law to ban the cosmetic use of pesticides in the province and Environment Critic Rob Fleming, who was deputy chair of the committee, today said an NDP government would put such a ban in place.

Read more: http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/BC-Politics/2012/05/17/CosmeticClark/

Read this story from the Globe and Mail on the Harper Government's expected auctioning off oil drilling rights in the Canadian Arctic. (May 16, 2012)

Ottawa has placed 905,000 hectares of the northern offshore up for bids, clearing the way for energy companies to snap up exploration rights for an area half the size of Lake Ontario. The scale of the offer indicates eagerness in the oil patch to drill for new finds in Canada’s northern waters less than two years after such plans were put on hold following the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico and a major Arctic drilling safety review.

The Arctic exploration auction resumes as the Harper government is promoting greater development of the country’s resources. It has taken steps to speed regulatory approvals for major energy projects such as the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, promising to limit the ability of environmental groups and other opponents to block or delay new developments.

The prospect of further northern drilling fits squarely with that mandate, said Jason MacDonald, spokesman for John Duncan, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, which oversees the northern land auction.

“The bid call reflects the potential that we see for resource development,” he said. “The North is home to world-class natural resources that represent a tremendous economic growth and tremendous jobs potential for northerners – and, frankly, for all Canadians.”

The North is in the midst of change, as melting ice promises more open northern shipping routes, which might help companies bring northern oil to global markets.

The Arctic exploration auction resumes as the Harper government is promoting greater development of the country’s resources. It has taken steps to speed regulatory approvals for major energy projects such as the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, promising to limit the ability of environmental groups and other opponents to block or delay new developments.

The prospect of further northern drilling fits squarely with that mandate, said Jason MacDonald, spokesman for John Duncan, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, which oversees the northern land auction.

“The bid call reflects the potential that we see for resource development,” he said. “The North is home to world-class natural resources that represent a tremendous economic growth and tremendous jobs potential for northerners – and, frankly, for all Canadians.”

The North is in the midst of change, as melting ice promises more open northern shipping routes, which might help companies bring northern oil to global markets.

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/reviving-arctic-oil-rush-ottawa-to-auction-rights-in-massive-area/article2435284/

Read this story from the Toronto Star on Captain Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd's arrest in Germany and possible extradition to Costa Rica over outstanding charges stemming from an alleged 2002 incident while confronting illegal shark finning activities of the coast of Guatemala. (May 18, 2012)

Animal rights and anti-whaling activist Paul Watson, facing extradition to Costa Rica for a decade-old attempted murder charge, will be released on bail from a Frankfurt jail next Monday.

German authorities arrested the Toronto-born president and founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society last Sunday on an international arrest warrant issued by Costa Rica.

In 2002, Watson allegedly tried to intimidate and kill the crew of a Costa Rican fishing boat, the Varadero, which Sea Shepherd said was illegally cutting shark fins off the coast of Guatemala.

Watson’s bail is set at 250,000 Euros (roughly $325,000), but must remain in Germany until the conclusion of the extradition proceedings, according to Frankfurt’s higher regional court.

The extradition case will now go before the Ministry of Justice, Sea Shepherd spokesman Peter Hammarstedt said.

Before he was arrested, Watson, 61, had been en route to Paris to promote the French-language book Interview with a Pirate, its author and Sea Shepherd France president Lamya Essemlali told the Star earlier this week.

In the days since Watson’s arrest, Sea Shepherd, known for its violent encounters with whalers and poachers, has waged a virulent campaign against its founder’s detainment and Costa Rica’s “bogus allegations.”

Captured on film and shown in the 2007 documentary Sharkwater, Watson’s boat confronted the Costa Rican poachers, spraying water from high-power hoses to frighten off the ship. The boats later collided, prompting claims Watson intentionally endangered the lives of crewmembers.

After reviewing the documentary footage, a Costa Rican judge dismissed the charges. They were re-issued in October, 2011.

Read original article: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1180744--paul-watson-granted-bail-as-sea-shepherd-founder-faces-extradition-to-costa-rica

Read this story from the Victoria Times-Colonist on the brazen theft of a massive 800 year-old Western Red Cedar from the Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park on Vancouver Island. (May 17, 2012)

Tree poachers have stolen one of the largest red cedars in Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park in what is believed to have been a two-part operation over the past year.

"If poachers can run around roughshod in the parks, it's a terrible thing for B.C.," said Torrance Coste, a Vancouver Island campaigner with the environmental group Wilderness Committee. He reported the theft to B.C. Parks and RCMP, but was told there was little chance of finding the thieves.

Coste, who measured rings on the stump, said the cedar, which is valuable for roof shakes, was probably about 800 years old and measured 2.75 metres across.

"I believe the poachers have access to heavy-duty equipment. Firewood salvagers in pickup trucks can't handle trees this size," he said.

The demise of the tree started one year ago when parks staff found it had been 80 per cent cut through with a chainsaw.

"It's hard to say why it was cut like that and just left. It created a hazard to public safety and park safety," said Andy Macdonald, B.C. Parks west coast regional section head.

"There was no other option than to hire a professional faller to complete the job," he said.

The tree was left on the ground to decompose and provide habitat for insects and wildlife, Macdonald said.

But someone had other ideas.

"The trunk has been hauled out, cut up and taken away, presumably to be further processed and sold," Coste said. He assumes it was the same person who initially cut the tree.

Macdonald said the parks department discovered the tree had been dragged out about a week ago. There was little evidence to investigate as even tire tracks had been obscured.

"It's one of the more remote parks on Vancouver Island that doesn't see a lot of visitation, so I would guess the illegal activity occurred when no one else was present," he said.

Coste said tree poaching is an example of what can happen when there is no staff to monitor what is going on. "We have been concerned about the cutting of park budgets for a number of years. Until about 18 months ago, people would have been watching," he said.

Read this story from Alberta Oil Magazine on BC Premier Christy Clark's idea that BC could share in resource revenues from Alberta Tar Sands to help compensate the province for risks associated with piping and shipping bitumen across BC and down its coast. (May 14, 2012)

British Columbia Premier Christy Clark is becoming a particularly uncomfortable thorn in Alberta’s side.

In a wide-ranging interview with Brian Hutchinson at the National Post, the B.C. Liberal Party leader suggests – without explicitly saying so – that her government will not lend its support to Enbridge Inc.’s $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline without first seeing a commitment to oil sands royalty sharing.

“Because at the moment, what we know about it is, we’re moving an Alberta product through British Columbia, with no value added in our province, and we’re taking 100 per cent of the risk,” she said.

Clark is understandably reluctant to back the Pacific-bound oil sands pipeline. With a provincial election on the horizon, Hutchinson notes, polls show the B.C. Liberals trailing a resurgent New Democratic party. Adrian Dix, the NDP leader, is blunt about his party’s opposition to the Gateway scheme.

From an April 30 caucus letter submitted to the Gateway Joint Review Panel:

We believe that the NGP will cause significant adverse economic and environmental effects and is not in the public interest. Therefore the NGP should not be permitted to proceed.

Against this backdrop, Clark has wholeheartedly endorsed plans to liquefy and ship tanker-loads of super-cooled natural gas to many of the same markets targeted by Enbridge.

The B.C. premier is so enthusiastic about LNG that she is prepared to alter the western province’s climate-change policies to take credit for greenhouse-gas reductions in countries that import B.C. gas, Justine Hunter reports at the Globe and Mail.

Overlooked in her zeal for natural gas – a jobs plan calls for three LNG terminals to be built by 2020 – is the fact that a good deal of B.C. exports currently pass through Alberta (via the Alliance Pipeline) en route to the Chicago market.

Read more: http://www.albertaoilmagazine.com/2012/05/b-c-premier-floats-oil-sands-royalty-sharing/

Read this blog from CBC.ca on BC Premier Christy Clark's recent dismissal of Federal NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair's concerns about the net economic impacts of unchecked Tar Sands development on Canada's economy is simply "goofy". (May 12, 2012)

B.C. Premier Christy Clark is firing back at federal NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, calling his stance on the oilsands "goofy."

Clark told CBC Radio's The House that Mulcair's comments about the negative economic impact of Western Canada's resource sector on provinces that rely heavily on manufacturing don't make sense.

"I really thought that type of thinking was discredited and it had been discredited for a long time. It's so backwards," Clark said. "I think that's just goofy."

Clark was responding to an interview with the NDP leader on CBC Radio's The House last week. Mulcair told host Evan Solomon that the resource sector in Western Canada is driving up the dollar artificially and straining the manufacturing sector in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick.

The Opposition leader compared Canada's economic realities to "Dutch disease," referring to the collapse of the Dutch manufacturing sector in the 1960s after oil-industry development raised the country's currency.

Clark said that comparison isn't accurate.

"The NDP talk their gobbledygook, but really ... they want less economic development," she said. "We all know it's a recipe for disaster."

Clark said British Columbia is stepping up investment in mining and forestry and that Mulcair's perspective clashes with the province's philosophy on economic development.

"What I hear him saying is 'you know Western Canada, we don't want you to make that big contribution anymore. It distorts our ability to be able to do things in Eastern Canada,'" she said.

"I'm sorry, that is not what this country is built on."

Clark isn't the first premier to criticize Mulcair's comments. Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said earlier this week that Mulcair's take on the oilsands is divisive.

"It's a concern for people out West," Wall said. "I think his economics are wrong. And there's a lack of recognition there that the resource strength for Western Canada is a strength for the whole country."

Clark was set to leave for her second trade mission to Asia on Saturday. She has made exporting Canadian resources to Asia a priority and the route for the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, which would ship crude from the oilsands to the Pacific coast, passes through British Columbia.

Read original post: http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/politics/story/2012/05/12/christy-clark-tom-mulcair-the-house.html

Read this story by David Sassoon at InsideClimate News about the influence of the Koch brothers in Canada's Federal government, the Alberta government, the Fraser Institute, and the tar sands.

Read this story from the Vancouver Sun on BC NDP Leader Adrian Dix's decision to seek legal counsel on stopping the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. (May 13, 2012)

B.C. NDP leader Adrian Dix is predicting a "businesslike" relationship with Prime Minister Stephen Harper if the NDP wins next spring's provincial election, even though he's investigating ways to challenge a critical component of Harper's economic plan: Enbridge Inc.'s Northern Gateway pipeline megaproject.

Dix said Friday he's assembling a legal team headed by Vancouver lawyer Murray Rankin, a specialist in aboriginal, natural resource and environment law, to consider his legal options to oppose the controversial $5.5-billion pipeline proposal now before a federal review panel.

Dix said the legal team is looking at various legalities surrounding the issue, including the federal legislation and the Harper government's approach to the joint review of the Enbridge proposal by a panel drawn from the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.

One matter they're looking at is a 2010 deal in which the B.C. government said it accepted that a federal environmental review would be equivalent to a B.C. process.

The agreement notes that the federal review will "take into account" the views of the public and first nations. Dix said there may be questions about whether Ottawa has fulfilled that commitment.

The NDP leader had tough words for Ottawa's handling of environmental reviews of two controversial natural resource projects: Calgary-based Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline and Vancouver-based Taseko's New Prosperity gold-copper mine.

The Harper government is aggressively championing the pipeline, tabling legislation certain to ease the project through the regulatory review process despite aggressive opposition from many B.C. first nations.

The project is also the centre-piece of Alberta Premier Alison Redford's so-called national energy strategy, which is seeking cross-Canada approval for infrastructure to get natural resources - especially oilsands crude - to key markets like China.

Read this story from Scott Simpson in the Vancouver Sun, reporting on the glut of cheap hydroelectric power in BC and Washington State due to overflowing reservoirs from a big Spring runoff; despite this, BC Hydro is forced to pay top dollar for private power, unable to avail itself of more affordable alternatives. (May 12, 2012)

After a bumper year for precipitation in the Pacific Northwest, BC Hydro stations around British Columbia are sitting idle while independent power producers run flat out.

There’s so much water available for hydroelectric power that a Washington-Oregon utility, which runs full-time to protect salmon and trout, is paying other utilities to take electricity off its hands.

That means bargain-priced import electricity is available to BC Hydro from the Bonneville Power Authority, but it’s a bittersweet opportunity.

It’s difficult for BC Hydro to tap into the cheap power because of contractual obligations to purchase power from about 75 independent power producers (IPPs). Hydro is forced to buy from IPP operators, including big industrial ones such as Rio Tinto Alcan and Teck Resources, even as its own generation stations wait on standby. For example, at Peace Canyon generating station downstream of W.A.C. Bennett Dam on the Peace River, the primary source of hydroelectricity for all of B.C., the turbines are sitting idle for the first time in a decade.

Prices paid to IPPs vary by season, from an average winter high of $100 to a springtime low of about $60. By contrast, the Bonneville price in recent weeks has averaged less than $20 US.

Overall, according to Hydro’s 2011-12 annual report, IPPs earned $676 million from Hydro in the 12-month period ending March 31 ­— at a price per megawatt of power that was more than twice the cost of imported electricity during the same period of time

The water is pouring in just as warmer spring temperatures push down electricity demand. Data this week from the U.S. Energy Information Agency shows Oregon with 172 per cent of its long-term average precipitation supply, and B.C. with 131 per cent.

Meanwhile, a continuing U.S. economic recession is curtailing industrial power requirements south of the border.

That means there’s no market for B.C. electricity exports to the U.S. Nor do B.C. residents need Hydro to crank up domestic production.

Read this update from the Vancouver Sun on the motion filed today at Enbridge's AGM by NEI Investments regarding First Nations opposition to the company's proposed Northern Gateway pipelines.

The motion filed by Ethical Funds to push Enbridge to address the risks associated with first nations’ opposition to their proposed pipeline has failed.
The vote was 28.5 per cent for, 60.7 per cent against, and 10.7 per cent abstained, said Jamie Bonham, manager, extractives, research and engagement at NEI Investments, the parent company of Ethical Funds.
My story today  explained how NEI Investments filed the motion to be voted on at Enbridge’s annual general meeting today in Toronto.
The $5-billion Enbridge Northern Gateway oil pipeline project would transport oil from Alberta’s oilsands to Kitimat, where it would be loaded on tankers and shipped around the world. The legal, operational and reputational risks cited by Ethical Funds include a possible lengthy court battle, delays from protests or blockades and potential damage to Enbridge’s reputation, NEI Investments said in their proxy alert to shareholders.

A coalition of Northern B.C. first nations called the Yinka Dene Alliance and their supporters have taken a train across Canada to the AGM in Toronto to protest the proposed pipeline.

Ethical Funds holds Enbridge shares in their Ethical Balanced Fund. Enbridge is one of the top 10 holdings in the fund with 148,700 shares worth about $6 million, Bonham said, adding that they’ve owned the shares for more than six years.

Read original blog post: http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2012/05/09/ethical-funds-motion-fails-at-enbridge-agm/