Council should challenge dangerous Hamilton pipeline application

An environmental disaster is waiting to happen in Hamilton: the rupture of Enbridge’s Hamilton-to-Sarnia pipeline, pouring diluted bitumen from Alberta’s oilsands into the Beverley Swamp or one of the many creeks and rivers along the way that flow into lakes Ontario and Erie. The pipeline hub is at Westover in Flamborough.

 

Enbridge applied last month to the National Energy Board (NEB) to reverse the flow of its 37-year-old Pipeline 9 through Hamilton and ship diluted bitumen from west to east, rather than crude oil from east to west. Pipeline 9 uses the same type of steel pipe that ruptured last year in Kalamazoo, Michigan, causing a $750-million spill that’s still not fully cleaned up. It took Enbridge 17 hours even to turn off the flow of that pipeline after the rupture.

 

Crude oil isn’t corrosive but diluted bitumen is. Crude oil requires less pressure to move through a pipeline than diluted bitumen. And diluted bitumen, when bursting from a break in an outdated pipe that is under greater pressure than it was built for, does not float on water. Rather, it sinks to the bottom where it’s hard to remove, and releases toxic solvents into the atmosphere that could cause respiratory problems and even deaths among residents, first responders, livestock, and wildlife nearby. Six hundred people became ill during the Kalamazoo spill. Two later died.

 

Enbridge Pipeline 10 from Hamilton to Buffalo spilled once in Binbrook in 2001 and, according to Binbrook resident John McGreal, it took 12 hours for the company to shut off that 29-year-old pipe.

 

On Oct. 17, 2012, Enbridge was supposed to address Hamilton council regarding its proposal. For the third time, it failed to show up. Instead, Enbridge representatives privately lobbied councillors but apparently failed to tell them diluted bitumen was to be shipped. Hamilton, incidentally, does not have a compulsory lobbyist registry.

 

In Enbridge’s place, a number of citizen delegates addressed council. I argued that, because the Stephen Harper government recklessly cancelled the environmental assessment of the Enbridge proposal (along with 3,000 others in its omnibus budget bill), council should direct its legal staff to initiate a legal challenge forcing the project to undergo one. Until then, I recommended the city amend its building code to idle oil pipelines over 30 years of age within city limits. At the very minimum, I urged that Hamilton’s idle blast furnaces should be churning out steel for a brand new pipeline.

 

Harper, I pointed out, is the voice of the oil industry in Canada. Line 9 through Hamilton represents the last hope of the oilsands consortium to ship out its environmentally unfriendly product to world markets. The proposed Keystone pipeline for oilsands bitumen through the United States for refinement in Texas has been nixed for now by Barack Obama. The proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to transfer bitumen to the West Coast for shipment to Asian markets by supertanker (shades of the Exxon Valdiz) has been stopped by British Columbia. So, Enbridge wants to ship diluted bitumen through Hamilton to be refined in Maine.

I also explained why the oilsands development should be shut down. That mining operation is environmentally unsustainable and represents an obsolete 1950s paradigm of the use of fossil fuels to power a completely outdated system of private transportation using cars and trucks. It is the world’s largest single polluter producing CO2, a greenhouse gas that promotes climate change.

 

Other presenters called for council to demand a $1 billion performance bond from Enbridge, to be apprised of the results of 84 recent “integrity digs” on pipelines near Hamilton, to intervene in Enbridge’s NEB application, to approach other municipalities for joint action, and to force Enbridge to appear at public informational meetings, among other initiatives. On Oct. 17, with Brian McHattie in the chair, city councillors listened attentively and asked many questions of presenters and city staff. Hopefully, council will act promptly on these suggestions.

 

Hamiltonians wanting to learn more about this issue would be well advised to hear Andrew Nikiforuk deliver the annual Spirit of Red Hill Lecture on Wednesday, Nov. 28, at 7:30 p.m. at the First Unitarian Church, 170 Dundurn South. The topic of this award-winning journalist will be Bitumen, Pipelines and the Petro-State. Admission is free.

 

Ken Stone is a member of Environment Hamilton and Hamilton 350 Committee.

Tribute to Maggie Hughes

Maggie Hughes has died after a long struggle with multiple sclerosis. Maggie was an independent journalist and a tireless advocate for social justice, citizen activism and environmental sustainability. For 12 years she produced a weekly radio program on CFMU 93.3 FM called The Other Side that reported and examined news and events from a grassroots rather than an institutional perspective.

Her topics of interest included the Alberta Oilsands, global warming, pollution, corporate globalization, justice for First Nations communities, sustainability, civil rights, the concentration of wealth, environmental destruction, and government accountability. She published interviews with scientists, activists and advocates to present more detailed information and background that could not be found in the sound-bite media.

Just before her death, Maggie focused on the Enbridge plan to run diluted bitumen through a 37 year old pipeline that passes through Hamilton on its way east. On October 30, she published audio recordings of the citizen delegations to the City's General Issues Committee on the plan.

Maggie suffered from multiple sclerosis, a degenerative inflammatory disease that attacks the nervous system and leads to progressive physical and cognitive disability.

Despite her disease and its unpredictable but increasingly debilitating symptoms, Maggie continued single-handedly to publish detailed reports on important issues, producing thousands of hours of audio and video recordings from public meetings, protests, lectures and other events.

James Tennant, program director at CFMU, writes about her dedication. "We remember a woman who needed a motorized chair, yet hitched a ride on the back of a motorcycle to gather news from Caledonia in 2006."

In her last email to me, Maggie expressed her deep frustration dealing with MS:

"I can tell you it is like living in a circus of constant change. Very difficult. ... Be nice if I made some people understand that MS isn't just about going lame, or having speech struggles. It is far more."

Maggie's relentless dedication to social justice in Hamilton has long been a major inspiration for me, not only through her willingness to get involved but also as an example of what a difference one person can make with determination and skill.

She will be deeply missed.

Ryan McGreal

Published November 09, 2012 on RaiseTheHammer.org

What are we leaving for future generations?

On the issue of climate change, Canada is failing our global community.  Canadians are failing future generations.  We are also failing ourselves.

Public figures as diverse as Prince Charles and Stephen Hawking have declared climate change the biggest threat to human kind.  A report published earlier this year estimates that even early, relatively subtle, climatic changes cause as many as 400,000 deaths a year, mostly as a result of associated hunger and communicable diseases. 

It should not be surprising that climate change could be responsible for so much death and destruction.  Hurricane Sandy is just the most recent reminder of exactly the type of the damage we can expect.  Hamiltonians and local farmers are sure to remember the strange, early, warm spring followed by a cold snap which devastated so many local fruit tree crops.  Images of dead corn stalks as a result of this hot dry summer should also be fresh in our memory.  Climate change has the ability to diminish our most basic necessities: food, water and shelter.

Many prominent figures in the military industrial complex refer to climate change as a threat multiplier.  Gwynne Dyer, in his book Climate Wars often repeats the chilling mantra that “people always raid before they starve”.  It is no wonder that the United Kingdom’s Climate and Energy Security Envoy has officially made the same declaration we heard from Charles and Hawking. 

More alarming still, Jared Diamond popularized the idea that our unsustainable practices could lead to a collapse of civilization as we know it.  The casualties of such a serious event would be unprecedented.  The truth is that it is impossible to know how climate change will impact human civilization and our biosphere.  All we know is that the risks we are exposing ourselves to are immense.

Our Prime Minister is focused on removing oil from Alberta as quickly as we possibly can at the expense of significant action on climate change.  Canada is repeatedly been given Colossal Fossil awards for being the most obstructionist nation at climate change conferences, like the most recent one in Durban.  We also recently made headlines for lobbying against an international ban on oil subsidies, which tax paying Canadians still provide to the tune of $1.4 billion a year.

Canadians are some of the highest greenhouse gas emitters on the planet per populace, emitting more than a hundred times more emissions than people in undeveloped nations like Bangladesh, who will probably suffer most as a result of climate change. 

As a 29 year old, my generation has often been referred to as the new lost generation.  I wonder how all Canadians, young and old, will be remembered if we continue to contribute so heavily to the problem of climate change.  Surely, our behavior is an insulting tribute to the great generation that won World War II.  Many died for the democracy and freedom we have today and we have the responsibility to put these gifts to good use.  Canadian citizens have a moral duty to confront a problem as immense as climate change.

Please join Hamilton 350 as we fast for 24 hours starting November 23^rd at 8am in an effort to highlight the relationship between climate change and food security.  This is just one small part of the response we, as Canadians, owe our global community.  Visit Hamilton350.org for more information.

Hamilton 350 Blog

Rally October 17th urging Council to Oppose the Line 9 Reversal

Wednesday October 17th, 9:00am
Hamilton City Hall (Main St, between Bay and McNab)
Join us for a half-hour rally before your workday starts

On Wednesday October 17, the General Issues Committee (GIC) of the
Hamilton city council will be receiving a report from their staff about
Enbridge's reversal of their Line 9 pipeline. Line 9 runs through Hamilton
and is being reversed to move Tar Sands oil to eastern Canada, ports on
the Atlantic, and the United States. After the Conservative federal
government cancelled the environmental assessment of this plan (along with
thousands of other EAs), Hamilton city council decided to commission their
own study of the issue.

We are optimistic about the council's decision to study the Line 9
reversal, and we are gathering on the 17th at 9am to ask council to do
everything in their power to oppose the Line 9 reversal and any attempt to
move Tar Sands oil through the Hamilton area. We will rally until about
9:30, then attend the meeting of the GIC to support the speakers calling
on council to oppose the Line 9 reversal. A representative from Enbridge
had been scheduled to address council as well, but after twice changing
the date, they have now backed out all together. This is a continuation of
Enbridge's plan of secrecy and dishonesty, as they refuse to reveal their
full plan for Line 9.

The Tar Sands produces the dirtiest oil in the world – its extraction has
devastated the Athabaska river, and accidents in transporting the toxic
goop have lead to more than a dozen deaths in Michigan, following a
pipeline burst into Michigan's Kalamazoo river. All pipelines spill. If
Tar Sands oil travels down Line 9, this thirty-five year-old pipeline will
experience more frequent leaks of more toxic oil directly into the Beverly
Swamp in the headwaters of the Spencer Creek, Hamilton's largest
watershed.

This dirty inefficient oil also drives the catastrophic climate change,
of which Hamilton got a taste this past summer with the record-breaking
heat and drought. We also call for the Federal government to respect the
sovereignty and treaty rights of Indigenous nations, both in Alberta and
locally. Line 9 crosses the territory of the Haudenosaunee, and in the
spirit of the Two Row wampum treaty, we call on the municipal government
to help see these treaties upheld.

We organize in Hamilton as part of a broader movement to stop the flows of
Tar Sands oil, of the natural gas that fuels its extraction, and the money
that props the industry up. This movement did not begin with Hamilton's
council and it will not end with it. But this is a chance for Hamilton's
government to be on the right side of this issue and to lend their support
to the grassroots struggles that will keep stopping the Line 9 reversal
and the Tar Sands – with or without them.

For updates about this and other events, get on the Hamilton Line 9 mailing
list by writing to hamiltonline9@ecologyfund.net or visit
hamiltonline9.wordpress.com   

Hamilton 350 Blog

Enbridge bails as opposition grows

Canada’s largest pipeline company has withdrawn its request to speak to councillors about planned flow reversal for its 37-year-old Line 9 running across rural Hamilton. But local opposition is growing, fed by the expectation that the pipe will carry diluted bitumen from the Alberta tar sands to foreign markets. Opponents have called a rally at city hall on Wednesday morning and a protest next Sunday at Enbridge Inc’s pipeline hub in rural Flamborough.

A staff report going to the general issues committee on Wednesday says there are dozens of residential wells within a kilometre of the site where Enbridge will be carrying out construction activities near the village of Westover, as well as a Provincially Significant Wetland (PSW), and four city-designated Environmentally Significant Areas (ESAs). The construction activity is expected to employ 30 people for about four months and includes “installation of a short section of pipe”, but the report concludes that the city has no jurisdictional authority over federally-regulated pipelines and that no action is required by councillors.

“Based on the above, staff is satisfied that the National Energy Board has addressed the issues surrounding pipeline safety and emergency response protocol through their approvals process. Since there are no planned impacts to Hamilton’s Environmentally Significant Areas and/or to existing land uses, residents and water supplies as a result of Enbridge’s proposal to reverse the direction of flow within the existing section of pipeline between Sarnia and Westover, it is concluded that there are no foreseeable impacts to the City of Hamilton.”

While Enbridge has been unwilling to reveal what it plans to put through the pipeline, the Globe and Mail and other media have reported that it will carry diluted bitumen (also known as dilbit), an unrefined composite of materials extracted from the Alberta tar sands mixed with chemical solvents to make the heavy viscous material flow. The company is also considering expanding the capacity of Line 9 once it has approval to reverse the flows all the way to Montreal.

The eastern plan is apparently an option to the company’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline across hundreds of lakes and streams in northern British Columbia that is mired in controversy. Moving the unrefined tar sands material in that direction would also involve supertankers traveling through the Great Bear rainforest and other treacherous BC coastal waters.

Opposition to the Ontario flow reversal by Environmental Defence and others has focused on the shift from oil to the much more corrosive dilbit that also requires increases in both temperature and pressure in the pipeline. The staff report, however, makes no mention of dilbit, tar sands or bitumen, referring only to “crude oil” which it notes was transported easterly through the pipeline for many years after it was first constructed in the mid-1970s.

“However, in the 1990s, when off-shore oil from areas such as the North Sea, West Africa and the Middle East was more affordable, Line 9 was reversed to westbound to carry crude oil from the Montreal terminal to Sarnia.”

It was dilbit from the Enbridge pipe that feeds into Line 9 at Sarnia that contaminated over 60 kilometers of Michigan’s Kalamazoo River in July 2010, and sickened dozens of residents when the solvents spread into the local community. The company’s response to the spill has been lambasted by US regulatory authorities and last week the Environmental Protection Agency ordered it to expand a cleanup that has already cost the company over $800 million.

Huffington Post reported that “on the same day that Enbridge told its investors that its tar sands spill and cleanup had made the Kalamazoo River cleaner, EPA ordered the Canadian tar sands pipeline company to resume its cleanup of the Kalamazoo River after finding that submerged oil ‘exists throughout approximately 38 miles of the Kalamazoo’.”

Eight delegations have been approved to speak on the Enbridge report at Wednesday’s general issues committee that begins at 9:30 am in council chambers. They include representatives of the Six Nations Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

Opponents of shipping tar sands through Hamilton have called a rally prior to the meeting. They point to the cancellation of a federal environmental assessment of the Line 9 flow reversal and ask councillors to oppose the Enbridge project and to help uphold the treaties with indigenous peoples.

“This movement did not begin with Hamilton's council and it will not end with it,” their statement notes. “But this is a chance for Hamilton's government to be on the right side of this issue and to lend their support to the grassroots struggles that will keep stopping the Line 9 reversal and the Tar Sands – with or without them.”

The Hamilton 350 Committee on climate change is also inviting the public to a protest potluck picnic at Enbridge’s Westover hub at noon on Sunday, October 21. Cyclists are invited to ride there from Westdale, leaving at 10 am from My Dog Joe’s Café.

Hamilton 350 Blog

Our leaders fiddle as our planet burns

Have you noticed how the climate scientists keep getting it wrong?

Every prediction seems to come up way short.

The weird weather has come much faster and much weirder than expected. The Arctic ice cap was supposed to last until late in this century but now appears nearly certain to be gone by 2030 or maybe 2020. It hit a record low last week — with three more weeks of melting still expected. Greenland is also showing unprecedented melting, and sea levels are rising much quicker than anticipated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) even in its most recent report.

The droughts and extreme rainstorms have even shown up to some extent in Hamilton. Local farmers have been clobbered by a lack of rain, and hundreds of homes were flooded in the July 22 deluge that dumped six inches of rain in three hours on Binbrook and upper Stoney Creek. That was the 18th time in the last 100 months that Hamilton homes have been inundated by storms. All of this was predicted by mainstream climate science — but not so quickly and dramatically. It was supposed to be a problem for our grandchildren, not us.

In hindsight, we should have expected prediction failures. Scientists are super cautious, unwilling to predict until nearly certain. That reluctance is magnified in the IPCC reports where every sentence is negotiated by researchers from over 100 countries under substantial political pressure to be the least disturbing possible.
But this is not news to political decision-makers. It can’t be surprising to an intelligent man like Stephen Harper who seems to have so much personal power over the government of Canada. And it can’t be surprising to our local councillors who have adopted Harper’s targets as their own and refuse to do anything that might cost money to reduce climate change, while being forced to spend millions because of flooding.

The weather events this year — especially the devastating drought that made over half the counties in the United States official disaster zones — are giving us a taste of what has already happened in other parts of the world over the last few years. And all of this is occurring when average planetary temperatures have gone up by only four-fifths of a centigrade degree. The official target is a maximum two degree increase, and the only hope of stopping there is with drastic steps taken almost immediately.

So why are our leaders doing so little? The public may still be unclear because of the confusion-mongering financed by big oil and other fossil fuel corporations to protect their obscene profits, but our governments should know all about that kind of corporate lobbying, and should assume those companies have no more ethics than the tobacco magnates demonstrated in the past.

Have the elites already decided not to act, and instead hope their personal wealth or status will protect them and their loved ones from the worst effects of the climatic catastrophes coming at us? There seems no doubt that the federal Conservative party has decided exporting tar sands bitumen is the top priority.

The United Nations calculates that tens of thousands of people per year are already dying because of climate change and it’s likely that a planet that’s even just two degrees warmer will mean death for tens of millions more. What’s worse is the growing likelihood that vicious feedback loops will drive temperatures beyond the control of humans. A four-degree increase is expected to convert most of the planet’s most productive areas to deserts.

There don’t appear to be any Winston Churchills in Canada or the U.S. who will lead us back from the brink. That leaves it up to us — not just to drastically reduce our personal emissions (even if that’s cancelled out by the tar sands expansion) but to force a fundamental change in direction.

The Occupy movement provides an example. Until that began, the gross differences in wealth were ignored. It didn’t take many people in the street to make inequality a public issue, although it will take a lot more to actually force change.

But at this point, only a handful are in the streets demanding real climate action. That has to change — very fast!

Hamilton 350 Blog

Who should pay for climate disasters?

The weird weather that all but wiped out this year’s apple crop is a disaster for local farmers and a setback for those of us who try to support them by buying local fruit whenever possible. But when are we going to start really sharing the pain of climate change and doing something serious about it?

In the last 100 months, we’ve had 17 rain storms severe enough to flood homes in Hamilton. Nearly half of those storms have been only supposed to occur once every 50 years. Most of the costs have been borne by those whose properties and possessions have been flooded.

It’s good to see local councillors seeking more information about flood dangers arising from more development of rural Stoney Creek, but it should be obvious by now that paving over agricultural land and natural areas will inevitably make things worse.

Beyond our community, the damages from extreme weather are far more severe. In the couple of weeks alone, 350 homes were destroyed in the Colorado wildfires and more than 40,000 people evacuated, while18 people were killed and two million left without electricity on the east coast as the United States suffered through a massive heat wave that set or tied over 2,100 high temperatures records.

Overseas flooding and drought clearly connected with climate change are killing tens of thousands every year according to the United Nations.

Everyone knows this is the ugly face of global climate change, but incredibly, the media barely mention this – apparently frightened that some Conservative ideologue will denounce them. Instead, the weather forecasters talk about the “new normal” and the “unusually warm winter/spring/summer.”

And our politicians aren’t much better – especially the bunch in charge in Ottawa who only seem to work for the big oil companies, and who ‘combat’ climate change by firing or silencing the federal scientists gathering evidence about it.

So have we decided – without any official admitting it – that we’re not going to do anything and just hope that it won’t get really bad?

The fossil fuel corporations make billions digging out tar sands, coal, natural gas and other causes of the problem, but no one dares demand that they at least be forced to pay the bills generated by their mad rush for profits. On the contrary, the Harper government continues to provide over a billion dollars a year in subsidies, and eliminates any environmental laws that might slow them down.

There’s a rumour out there that humans are the most intelligent species on the planet.

Too bad.

Hamilton 350 Blog

How do we stop Bill C-38?

 

Tar sands pipeline through Hamilton

Hamilton is being tossed into the middle of the latest tar sands battle, as Canada’s largest pipeline company shifts its attention to Ontario in response to the growing opposition to the proposed Northern Gateway route through British Columbia. The first step is a proposal to reverse the flows in the Enbridge Inc pipeline from Hamilton to Sarnia so it can carry diluted tar sands bitumen (dilbit) toward the east coast, and the hearing on that application opens this week in London.

The village of Westover in Flamborough is the hub of several Enbridge pipelines including line 9 which connects Sarnia to Montreal, the parallel line 7 between Westover and Sarnia, line 10 from Westover to New York State, and line 11 from Westover to the ExxonMobil refinery in Nanticoke. The portion of line 9 between Westover and Sarnia is the focus of the National Energy Board (NEB) hearings scheduled for May 23-25 in London’s Hilton Hotel.

That 37-year old pipeline currently carries imported crude oil west to Sarnia. Enbridge is seeking permission to reverse that flow in a move widely reported to be part of a strategy to ship tar sands products to Portland Maine for export to global markets. In a potentially related move, Enbridge is also seeking to double the capacity of a pipeline running across Michigan into Sarnia – the same line that ruptured in 2010, dumping more than 800,000 gallons of dilbit into the Kalamazoo River and costing the company over $700 million. 

The implications of routing the highly corrosive “dilbit” through Ontario has caught the attention of the London Free Press which announced Friday that “Enbridge pipeline battle comes close to home” and noted the Westover-Sarnia pipe goes under the city’s Thames River. It is also being challenged by Environmental Defence, the Pembina Institute and Equiterre, as well as a Cambridge community newspaper.

If approved, Enbridge says line 9 will transport between 50,000 and 90,000 barrels per day, but acknowledges that it is capable of carrying “beyond 150,000 bpd”. The flow reversal will mean higher pressures in the pipeline and some modifications to the Westover hub and a nearby densitometer located close to the intersection of Kirkwall Road and the 6th Concession of Flamborough.

An environmental assessment document submitted by Enbridge notes the presence of two environmentally significant areas and a provincially significant wetland near the Westover installations, as well as portions of both Spencer Creek and Fairchild Creek. However, crossings of major rivers such as the Thames, Grand and St Clair are likely of greater concern, as well as the prospect of tar sands refining in Ontario near the Great Lakes such as at the Nanticoke facility of ExxonMobil.

National and international attention has been focused on two other proposed routes for export of dilbit – the Keystone XL pipeline to the Gulf of Mexico, and the Northern Gateway pipeline across Alberta and northern BC to Kitimat on the Pacific coast. Both have generated massive opposition – with the Keystone XL blocked at least temporarily by environmental concerns in the United States, and the Northern Gateway facing unequivocal refusals by multiple First Nations to allow use of their lands.

The latter route would cross more than 1000 lakes and rivers on the way to Kitimat, but the use of supertankers to carry the bitumen to China and other markets is particularly controversial. Their passageway would be through the Great Bear Rainforest and other narrow and often storm-wracked coastal waters, and the memory (and the on-going ecological effects) of the disastrous Exxon Valdez crash in 1989 loom large in the debate.

Alberta media, on the other hand, are pointing out that the pipeline connections to the east coast of the continent are already in place and thus could prove easier for Enbridge to win the required approvals. That approval process is also about to get much easier as the federal government pushes through an omnibus budget implementation bill that transfers final decision making from the NEB to the Harper cabinet.

The omnibus bill – labelled the Environmental Destruction Act by Green Party leader Elizabeth May – will change more than 70 pieces of legislation in a single swoop, including a complete re-write of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act that makes all assessments an option of the federal Minister of the Environment. The bill also eliminates habitat protection features of the Fisheries Act, shifts the start of the old age pension to age 67, rewrites unemployment insurance rules, and eliminates long-standing institutions such as the National Council on Welfare and the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

Hamliton 350 Blog

Bill C-38, putting Profit before the Environment

Clarifying the deliberately confusing Bill C-38

- Elizabeth May

As a long-time environmental lawyer who has watched, and in some cases, played a role in the development of Canada’s environmental laws, I am devastated at the cynical, manipulative and undemocratic way the Harper Conservatives are weakening or destroying those crucial laws.

The Conservatives have hidden their destructive, anti-nature, health, and even jobs agenda in the 425-page Bill C-38, the Budget Implementation Bill. Due to their imposition of time allocation on the Bill’s various stages through the House of Commons, I haven’t been able to speak during Second Reading, although I have been able to ask questions and make comments. That’s why I decided to hold a press conference Thursday morning, May 10, to itemize the various bills, regulations, policies and programs that will be affected.

Bill C-38 Changes Clearing the Way for Resource Extraction:

Canadian Environmental Assessment Act – “Environmental effects” under the new CEAA will be limited to effects on fish, aquatic species under the Species at Risk Act, migratory birds. A broader view of impacts is limited to: federal lands, Aboriginal peoples, and changes to the environment “directly linked or necessarily incidental” to federal approval.

Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency – The Agency will have 45 days after receiving an application to decide if an assessment is required. Environmental Assessments are no longer required for projects involving federal money. The Minister is given wide discretion to decide. New “substitution” rules allow Ottawa to download EAs to the provinces; “comprehensive” studies are eliminated. Cabinet will be able to over-rule decisions. A retroactive section sets the clock at July 2010 for existing projects.

Canadian Environmental Protection Act – The present one-year limit to permits for disposing waste at sea can now be renewed four times. The 3 and 5 year time limits protecting Species at Risk from industrial harm will now be open-ended.

Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act – This legislation, which required government accountability and results reporting on climate change policies, is being repealed.

Fisheries Act – Fish habitat provisions will be changed to protect only fish of “commercial, Aboriginal, and recreational” value and even those habitat protections are weakened. The new provisions create an incentive to drain a lake and kill all the fish, if not in a fishery, in order to fill a dry hole with mining tailings.

Navigable Waters Protection Act – Pipelines and power lines will be exempt from the provisions of this Act. Also, the National Energy Board absorbs the Navigable Waters Protection Act (NWPA) whenever a pipeline crosses navigable waters. The NWPA is amended to say a pipeline is not a “work” within that Act.

National Energy Board Act – NEB reviews will be limited to two years – and then its decisions can be reversed by the Cabinet, including the present Northern Gateway Pipeline review.

Species at Risk Act – This is being amended to exempt the National Energy Board from having to impose conditions to protect critical habitat on projects it approves. Also, companies won’t have to renew permits on projects threatening critical habitat.

Parks Canada Agency Act – Reporting requirements are being reduced, including the annual report. 638 of the nearly 3000 Parks Canada workers will be cut. Environmental monitoring and ecological restoration in the Gulf Islands National Park are being cut.

Canadian Oil and Gas Operations Act – This will be changed to exempt pipelines from the Navigational Waters Act. Coasting Trade Act – This will be changed to promote seismic testing allowing increased off-shore drilling.

Nuclear Safety Control Act – Environmental Assessments will be moved to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which is a licensing body not an assessing body – so there is a built-in conflict.

Canada Seeds Act – This is being revamped so the job of inspecting seed crops is transferred from Canadian Food Inspection Agency inspectors to “authorized service providers” the private sector.

Agriculture Affected – Under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, publicly owned grasslands have acted as community pastures under federal management, leasing grazing rights to farmers so they could devote their good land to crops, not livestock. This will end. Also, the Centre for Plant Health in Sidney, BC, an important site for quarantine and virus-testing on plant stock strategically located across the Salish Sea to protect BC’s primary agricultural regions, will be moved to the heart of BC’s fruit and wine industries.

National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy – The NRTEE brought industry leaders, environmentalists, First Nations, labour, and policy makers together to provide non-partisan research and advice on federal policies. Its demise will leave a policy vacuum in relation to Canada’s economic development.

More Attacks on Environmental Groups – The charities sections now preclude gifts which may result in political activity. The $8 million new money to harass charities is unjustified.

Water Programs – Environment Canada is cutting several water-related programs and others will be cut severely, including some aimed at promoting or monitoring water-use efficiency.

Wastewater Survey – The Municipal Water and Wastewater Survey, the only national study of water consumption habits, is being cut after being in place since 1983.

Monitoring Effluent – Environment Canada’s Environmental Effects Monitoring Program, a systematic method for measuring the quality of effluent discharge, including from mines and pulp mills, will be cut by 20 percent.

In spite of the fact that most Canadians have no idea how seriously Bill C-38 will affect their lives, the Senate is beginning hearings so that Conservative Senators can vote on it as soon as possible. This railroading version of democracy is tragic for Canada.

The Green Party of Canada is launching its C-38: Environment Devastation Act campaign to engage Canadians in having their C-38 concerns heard. Please visit budgetdevastation.ca for more information.

Elizabeth May is the Leader of the Green Party of Canada and Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.

Hamilton 350 Blog

Connect the Dots

Climate change action starts at home

Global Day of Action
When: Saturday, May 5, at 1 and 3 p.m.
Where: King and James streets at 1 p.m. and Dundas Driving Park at 3 p.m.
Why: To “connect the dots” around climate change and its impacts locally. Bring a black umbrella to the King and James gathering if you have one.

Hamiltonians need to “connect the dots” between the odd shifts in weather they are seeing locally and the global impacts of climate change, environmental leaders say. A meeting at City Hall Thursday organized by seven groups emphasized the need for municipal action to address concerns around climate change. The news conference was held to advance Saturday’s Global Day of Action, which is being hosted by the Hamilton 350 Committee

In the past eight years, there have been 17 rainstorms that flooded homes in Hamilton and at least six of them were only supposed to come once every 50 to 100 years, said Don McLean, co-ordinator of the local 350 committee. “The very strange weather that we’ve had in the last two or three months, the winter that didn’t happen ... clearly the kinds of impacts it’s going to have on food production have to make it more and more urgent we do something,” McLean said.

The 350 Committee is part of a global campaign for the maximum safe level of carbon dioxide — 350 parts per million — in the global atmosphere. Right now, it’s sitting at 394 parts per million. “We’re at a point where you have almost unanimous agreement from climate scientists that this is occurring … Let’s pull up our pants and get the job done,” said Pete Wobschall, executive director of Green Venture.

Lynda Lukasik, the executive director of Environment Hamilton, said she wanted to see city council and the province take a vocal stance against Ottawa’s pipeline projects and approaches to energy resources. Lukasik’s basement was flooded in the storm of July 2009 that swamped the Red Hill Valley Parkway. She said some of her neighbours told her they had never had a flooding issue like that before. “As it starts to hit people personally more and more … it has made people reflect and think.”

Councillor Brian McHattie, who chairs the Hamilton Conservation Authority board, noted that the predicted rise in temperature in the Hamilton area by 2050 is 2.6 C.

The increase in rainfall over the past four decades was 26 millimetres, McHattie said.

dawong@thespec.com
905-526-2468 | @WongatTheSpec

Hamilton 350 Blog

The Great Bear Rainforest

The War in the Woods

More than six years after a historic agreement to save the Great Bear Rainforest, the promise of protection remains unmet.

A Forest like No Other

The dense web of natural life found in the Great Bear Rainforest has earned it the deserving nickname, "Canada's Amazon." 

A Double Threat

The proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline puts the unique ecosystem of the Great Bear Rainforest, and the communities that rely on it, at risk.

Journey into the Great Bear 

20-min video

Hamilton 350 Blog

Sinking of the RMS Titanic

April 15, 1912

The RMS Titanic sank.

One hundred years later,
we should reflect on this tragic disaster.

Why did the Titanic meet its fate?

The answer is a simple one – arrogance.

And yet we repeat the same mistake.

We are all on our Titanic.

We sail full steam ahead in uncharted waters,
ignoring the signs of danger ahead.

 Collapse

How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
 - Jared Diamond

Tell the whole story on the Tar Sands

Minister tells the Government side; Hamilton should challenge him.

Federal Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver is speaking to the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce on March 30th. His talk is described as “about the Federal Budget and the future of Canada's oil sands and associated manufacturing opportunities here in Ontario.”

Minister Oliver’s views and those of the federal Government are well known. They promote development of the tar sands as one of the main routes to economic growth in Canada. But there is another view that must be heard before deciding if the rewards of the tar sands exploitation are worth the cost.

The impact of developing Alberta’s tar sands is of national importance, so clearly there is some responsibility of civil society in Hamilton to ask if the growth and jobs created are justified. The City of Hamilton has for a long time promoted the “triple bottom line” as a way to view the merits of any proposal. It asks that we always view development in three ways – economic, social and environmental. The “triple bottom line” is also not a short term view, but asks what sort of City we want for future generations – more recently we’ve adopted “the best place to raise a child” which happily reflects a long term view.

So let’s look at the tar sands through the triple lens and for the long term - for generations to come - for Canada and the rest of the world.

The economic impact of the tar sands

The cost of inaction on climate change in terms of lost GDP outweighs the costs of taking action to cut emissions. Yet the tar sands exploitation, far from helping meet any emissions goal, is making it harder to reach. We are trading off current GDP growth for much larger GDP losses in the future. Losses that come from drought reduced agricultural production, pine beetle devastated forests, poorer fishing yields and flood and storm damaged homes and property. Some pundits state that Canada will benefit from warmer weather, without discussing the disruption that comes from accelerated climate change and the broader impacts – which will affect global GDP. In these days of globalization, we are not immune to this – as we can see when Honda North America had to shut production last year due to floods in Thailand. Worse still would be the cost of the “climate wars” anticipated by Gwynne Dyer.

We’ve seen our Premier state that our “petro-dollar” is driving manufacturing away from Ontario. And where are the economic benefits really going? To large foreign owned oil companies who are mining the oil. Not to supply Canadians but to supply the gas guzzling life style of our neighbours to the south.

The social impact of the tar sands

It is clear that the exploitation of the tar sands has led to debate, much of it unpleasant. Locally, nationally and globally we see communities and governments who not only disagree (which is democratic) but resort to finger pointing, unjust accusations and sometimes unethical tactics.

Tell the whole story on the Tar Sands

At the local level the tar sands are having significant negative impacts on nearby communities – there’s evidence that mining the Athabasca tar sands has increased cancer causing levels in the environment downstream on the Athabasca River. Health Canada has asserted that “climate change is expected to increase risks to the health of Canadians through many pathways – the food they eat, the air they breathe, the water they drink”. So as the tar sands impact our climate, so they impact our health. Nationally we see the breakdown in civil discussion. We see the spat between Premier Dalton McGuinty and Alberta’s Premier Alison Redford in discussing the rising value of our dollar due to oil exports and its impact on our manufacturing economy. We see respected national organizations being tarred as “radical groups” when challenging the Northern Gateway pipeline.

Canada’s international standing has also been harmed. We lost the respect of many countries globally when we backed out of the Kyoto commitment at last December’s Durban Summit. For this we earned yet another “Fossil of the Year” award, for the fifth year running.

The environmental impact of the tar sands

No one, not even our Minister of Natural Resources, has claimed that the tar sands are good for the environment. They are affecting an area of 140,000 sq km in the primary boreal forest of Canada, an area the size of New York State or England. Due to oil sands operations, the Alberta landscape will never look the same again, as the forest is blasted away into huge opencast mines and vast tailing ponds filled with toxic waste water. Promises to reclaim the forests to their original state are unlikely to be possible. Canada is home to half the remaining boreal forest in the world, which contains 11% of the global terrestrial carbon sinks. In order to avoid dangerous levels of climate change, the International Panel on Climate Change has said that global emissions must peak by 2015 and fall by at least 80% compared with 1990 levels by 2050. Yet Canada’s emissions have grown by over 30% since 1990 and we have no real plan to bring them down by enough to come close to what is needed.

The production of oil sands is also water intensive, averaging three barrels of water to produce a single barrel of oil. The primary source of water is the Athabasca River, which is already down to critical levels as extraction from the river increases. Only 5-10 percent of the water is returned to the river. The rest is too toxic and is stored in tailing ponds so poisonous that birds who land there die. The huge volumes mean that enormous amounts of toxic wastewater are produced. Individual tailing ponds are up to 50 sq km in size and (so large they) can be seen from space.

What’s a job worth?

So when Minister Oliver stands up to promote the tar sands, lets also ask questions about the true triple bottom line, not just for today’s slightly bruised economy but also for the world of our children and grandchildren. Who will truly benefit from oil sands development?

Hamilton 350 Blog

The Ethical Path for Canada – Stop the Tar Sands, its Pipelines and Tankers

Atmospheric greenhouse gases are already past the maximum safe level and significant global climate change is obviously underway. By far the most rapidly growing source of greenhouse gases in Canada is from the exploitation of the tar sands (renamed the oil sands to make them sound less dirty that they are). 

Therefore, the ethical responsibility of Canadians is to stop the growth of tar sands exploitation and work to reduce it. That is the single largest contribution that Canadians can make to slow global climate change and hopefully avoiding or minimizing its worst effects.

The tar sands are the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada and already exceed – on a daily basis – one million cars each driving 500 km.

Nearly all tar sands products are exported, primarily to the United States. To increase these exports, efforts are underway to establish additional pipelines to carry the bitumen to foreign refineries.

One of these is the Keystone XL pipeline to American refineries on the Gulf of Mexico – a scheme that has at least temporarily been blocked by the US president under pressure from Americans worried about climate change and about the pollution danger from ruptured pipelines.

The second major pipeline scheme is Northern Gateway, an 1100-km pipeline across northern Alberta and British Columbia to the port of Kitimat where the bitumen would be loaded onto 225 oil super tankers each year. These mega ships would then have to make their way through the narrow channels and fjords of the Great Bear Rainforest, and along the pristine Pacific coastline. Their likely main destinations are China and the United States. As outraged First Nations and other BC residents are loudly arguing, it is only a matter of time before one of these tankers crashes and devastates the BC coastline.

The Pacific coast has already experienced the worst oil tanker spill in history – the grounding of the Exxon Valdez on March 24, 1989, that dumped between 11 and 32 million gallons of oil into the Prince William Sound on the Alaska coast. That spill spread over 2100 km of coastline and 28,000 square-km of ocean and its effects are still being felt more than twenty years later. The immediate effects included the estimated deaths of 100,000 to as many as 250,000 seabirds, at least 2,800 sea otters, approximately 12 river otters, 300 harbour seals, 247 bald eagles, and 22 orcas, as well as the destruction of billions of salmon and herring eggs.

This must not be allowed to happen again.

The Northern Gateway pipeline must not proceed and oil tanker traffic on the BC coastline must not be permitted.

These supertankers are longer than the height of the Empire State building (more than a third of a kilometre).

 The effort to stop the Northern Gateway pipeline and the tanker route is now recognized as the most significant environmental action in Canada.

The Hamilton 350 Committee fully supports this effort and is taking solidarity actions in Hamilton, including on March 24 – the anniversary of the Exxon Valdez disaster.

We also understand that the export of tar sands bitumen has very serious consequences for employment in Hamilton. As recognized by Premier McGuinty, Ontario manufacturing has been heavily damaged by Canada’s growing dependence on oil exports. The Canadian dollar has become a petrodollar – closely tracking the price of oil as it has climbed dramatically alongside the ramping up of tar sands exploitation. The resulting high dollar has hurt manufacturing exports and resulted in tens of thousands of lost jobs, particularly in southern Ontario.

Hamilton has another connection to Enbridge Inc, the company pushing the Northern Gateway pipeline. One of their pipeline hubs is in the village of Westover, in Flamborough. Enbridge is the largest transporter of crude oil in Canada (over 15,000 miles of pipeline) and exports 65 percent of western Canadian oil and bitumen. Enbridge is currently proposing to reverse flows in the 200 km Sarnia-Westover pipeline to allow shipping of tar sands oil to the ExxonMobil refinery near Nanticoke. This is a first step in making eastern Canadian refineries accessible to tar sands products, and another alternative to the Keystone XL and Northern Gateway pipelines.

Other Hamilton connections to the tar sands include four major gas station groups operating locally that are owned by tar sands companies – Esso, Petro-Canada, Shell and Husky. 

Hamilton 350 Blog

Corporations have no use for borders

What happened to Canada? It used to be the country we would flee to if life in the United States became unpalatable. No nuclear weapons. No huge military-industrial complex. Universal health care. Funding for the arts. A good record on the environment.

But that was the old Canada. I was in Montreal on Friday and Saturday and saw the familiar and disturbing tentacles of the security and surveillance state. Canada has withdrawn from the Kyoto Accords so it can dig up the Alberta tar sands in an orgy of environmental degradation. It carried out the largest mass arrests of demonstrators in Canadian history at 2010’s G-8 and G-20 meetings, rounding up more than 1,000 people. It sends undercover police into indigenous communities and activist groups and is handing out stiff prison terms to dissenters. And Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a diminished version of George W. Bush. He champions the rabid right wing in Israel, bows to the whims of global financiers and is a Christian fundamentalist.

The voices of dissent sound like our own. And the forms of persecution are familiar. This is not an accident. We are fighting the same corporate leviathan.

“I want to tell you that I was arrested because I am seen as a threat,” Canadian activist Leah Henderson wrote to fellow dissidents before being sent to Vanier prison in Milton, Ontario, to serve a 10-month sentence. “I want to tell you that you might be too. I want to tell you that this is something we need to prepare for. I want to tell you that the risk of incarceration alone should not determine our organizing.”

“My skills and experience—as a facilitator, as a trainer, as a legal professional and as someone linking different communities and movements—were all targeted in this case, with the state trying to depict me as a ‘brainwasher’ and as a mastermind of mayhem, violence and destruction,” she went on. “During the week of the G8 & G20 summits, the police targeted legal observers, street medics and independent media. It is clear that the skills that make us strong, the alternatives that reduce our reliance on their systems and prefigure a new world, are the very things that they are most afraid of.”

The decay of Canada illustrates two things. Corporate power is global, and resistance to it cannot be restricted by national boundaries. Corporations have no regard for nation-states. They assert their power to exploit the land and the people everywhere. They play worker off of worker and nation off of nation. They control the political elites in Ottawa as they do in London, Paris and Washington. This, I suspect, is why the tactics to crush the Occupy movement around the globe have an eerie similarity—infiltrations, surveillance, the denial of public assembly, physical attempts to eradicate encampments, the use of propaganda and the press to demonize the movement, new draconian laws stripping citizens of basic rights, and increasingly harsh terms of incarceration.

Our solidarity should be with activists who march on Tahrir Square in Cairo or set up encampamentos in Madrid. These are our true compatriots. The more we shed ourselves of national identity in this fight, the more we grasp that our true allies may not speak our language or embrace our religious and cultural traditions, the more powerful we will become.

Those who seek to discredit this movement employ the language of nationalism and attempt to make us fearful of the other. Wave the flag. Sing the national anthem. Swell with national hubris. Be vigilant of the hidden terrorist. Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver, responding to the growing opposition to the Keystone XL and the Northern Gateway pipelines, wrote in an open letter that “environmental and other radical groups” were trying to “hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.” He accused pipeline opponents of receiving funding from foreign special interest groups and said that “if all other avenues have failed, they will take a quintessential American approach: sue everyone and anyone to delay the project even further.”

No matter that in both Canada and the United States suing the government to seek redress is the right of every citizen. No matter that the opposition to the Keystone XL and Northern Gateway pipelines has its roots in Canada. No matter that the effort by citizens in the U.S. and in Canada to fight climate change is about self-preservation. The minister, in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry like the energy czars in most of the other industrialized nations, seeks to pit “loyal” Canadians against “disloyal” Canadians. Those with whom we will build this movement of resistance will not in some cases be our own. They may speak Arabic, pray five times a day toward Mecca and be holding off the police thugs in the center of Cairo. Or they may be generously pierced and tattooed and speak Danish or they may be Mandarin-speaking workers battling China’s totalitarian capitalism. These are differences that make no difference.

“My country right or wrong,” G.K. Chesterton once wrote, is on the same level as “My mother, drunk or sober.”

Our most dangerous opponents, in fact, look and speak like us. They hijack familiar and comforting iconography and slogans to paint themselves as true patriots. They claim to love Jesus. But they cynically serve the function a native bureaucracy serves for any foreign colonizer. The British and the French, and earlier the Romans, were masters of this game. They recruited local quislings to carry out policies and repression that were determined in London or Paris or Rome. Popular anger was vented against these personages, and native group vied with native group in battles for scraps of influence. And when one native ruler was overthrown or, more rarely, voted out of power, these imperial machines recruited a new face. The actual centers of power did not change. The pillage continued. Global financiers are the new colonizers. They make the rules. They pull the strings. They offer the illusion of choice in our carnivals of political theater. But corporate power remains constant and unimpeded. Barack Obama serves the same role Herod did in imperial Rome.

This is why the Occupy Wall Street movement is important. It targets the center of power—global financial institutions. It deflects attention from the empty posturing in the legislative and executive offices in Washington or London or Paris. The Occupy movement reminds us that until the corporate superstructure is dismantled it does not matter which member of the native elite is elected or anointed to rule. The Canadian prime minister is as much a servant of corporate power as the American president. And replacing either will not alter corporate domination. As the corporate mechanisms of control become apparent to wider segments of the population, discontent will grow further. So will the force employed by our corporate overlords. It will be a long road for us. But we are not alone. There are struggles and brush fires everywhere. Leah Henderson is not only right. She is my compatriot.

- Chris Hedges

Time to fight back

Dear friends in Canada,

I've been visiting Canada all my life, but I'm a little worried about my upcoming trip.

In late March I'm supposed to come to Vancouver to give a couple of talks. But now I read that Joe Oliver, your country's Minister of Natural Resources, is condemning "environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block" Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline from the oil sands of Alberta to the Pacific.

I think he's talking about people like me.

So I’m pushing back a bit, and I need your help. Let’s tell Joe Oliver that preventing the combustion of the second-largest pool of carbon on the planet isn’t “radical” -- it’s exactly the opposite. It’s rational. It’s responsible. And it’s just plain right.

Click here to sign the petition to Prime Minister Harper and Joe Oliver, and help show that Canadians everywhere are committed to stopping the oil sands.

Here’s the thing: I've spent much of the last year helping rally opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline from the oil sands to the Gulf of Mexico. I was arrested outside the White House in August, and emceed the demonstration that brought thousands of people to circle the White House in November. And just yesterday, I helped lead a crew of hundreds of "climate referees" to blow whistle on the influence that Big Oil has over our democracy. But this fight knows no borders, which brings me back to my concern about my trip to Canada in March.

When I come to British Columbia, I'll urge everyone I meet to join a growing movement standing in solidarity with First Nations Peoples across Canada who oppose Enbridge's Gateway project. Since a majority of Canadians, according to the polls, also oppose the pipeline, I'll be in good company. But Oliver, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the organizers of the “Ethical Oil” campaign don't want any outside voices. As the latter explained on its website, "It's our pipeline. Our country. Our jobs. And our decision."

Fair enough. But you know something? The atmosphere belongs to all of us. There's not some wall at the 49th parallel that separates Canada's air from everyone else’s. Since the oil sands is the second biggest source of carbon on the planet, that makes their development everyone's business. As NASA's James Hansen, the planet's premier climatologist, put it recently, if you heavily develop the oil sands, it's "essentially game over for the climate." That's why I'm doing everything I can do build this movement -- and that's why I need your help to unite a groundswell of activists in Canada.

Click here to add your name to the petition saying you're ready to take a stand to stop the oil sands -- if we can get 10,000 Canadians to sign on, we’ll stage a high-profile delivery that Joe Oliver, Prime Minister Harper, and the oil companies won’t be able to ignore.

It's much easier for Ottawa to pretend that anyone who raises doubts about the oil sands are ideological extremists who hate Canada, much easier to demonize the scientists and citizens who ask uncomfortable questions. You can judge for yourself, but I don't think I'm some kind of extremist. I'm a Methodist Sunday School teacher who happened to write the first book for a general audience on climate change.

To me, the extremists are the ones running the oil companies, because they're willing to alter the chemical composition of the atmosphere; those of us who want to keep the planet a little like the one we were born on seem more like conservatives.

I know I don't hate Canada. I spent five years living in Toronto as a young boy, while my father worked for Business Week magazine. I remember with great fondness Mrs. Reesor, Miss Beer, Miss Conway and Miss Wright, who taught my first four grades. I remember rooting for Davey Keon, the Toronto Maple Leafs centre, and I remember waiting with great impatience each summer for the CNE to open.

In later years I've traveled the country stem to stern, written about fishermen struggling in Newfoundland, hiked the mountains above Jasper, skied the trails of the Gatineau. The Canada I remember was open to the world: It welcomed the rest of the planet to Expo 67, it hosted the Olympics, it helped crack the Great Wall of China.

I don't know how that changed, but my guess is that the wealth of the oil-sands had something to do with it. Canada's government doesn't want to hear from the rest of the world because paying attention to their legitimate fears might cost it some money.

To judge from Oliver's nasty little letter, those vast pits of bitumen across Alberta aren't just dirtying the sky, they're starting to do some damage to the country's soul.

Help start to undo that damage, and sign on today.

Onwards,

Bill McKibben for 350.org

P.S. If we're going to have any shot at stopping the wholesale burning of the oil sands, we're going to need a massive movement of Canadians willing to take a stand. Please help spread the word on Twitter and share it on Facebook -- it only takes a couple of clicks. Many thanks in advance.

MORE LINKS AND INFO

- Oil Lobby Lagging Reality - Financial Post

- An open letter from Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver - The Globe and Mail

It's time to fight back. Prime Minister Harper and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver are waging a dirty campaign to discredit anyone who is opposed to burning the oil sands or building Enbridge's Northern Gateway Pipeline.

Sign the petition to help build a groundswell of Canadians who are ready to stop the oil sands:

Sign the Petition 



www.350.org/canadian-groundswell

Pipe Dream to Nowhere

The good news for now is that on January 18, 2012, US President Barack Obama rejected the application from TransCanada Pipelines to build the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to Texas. But now is not the time to celebrate. There is still another battle being fought right here at home in Canada, the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline planned to stretch across Alberta and British Columbia to the Pacific coast.

On January 9, 2012, federal Minister of Natural Resources, Joe Oliver wrote a letter to the Globe and Mail.

On January 18, 2012, Joe Oliver spoke on CBC Radio, The Current, with host Anna Maria Tremonti defending his government's position on the Northern Gateway Pipeline.

What Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver had to say reeks with the stench of dirty oil for big profits for Big Oil companies.

"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."

"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."

Joe Oliver states that "radical" environmental groups are delaying the review process.

In the minds of Joe Oliver, Stephen Harper and his government, the Northern Gate Pipeline is a "done deal". The review process is a hindrance to corporate progress. Why have a review process for the public to tell the government it is dead wrong? The review process is there as an opportunity for both sides to voice their arguments. It is the Harper government that wants to curtail the due process in order to accelerate its own agenda.

"In many cases, these projects would create thousands upon thousands of jobs for Canadians, yet they can take years to get started due to the slow, complex and cumbersome federal Government approval process."

What jobs? All of these so called jobs are temporary, transient jobs. Once the pipeline is built, these jobs will be gone. The jobs and legacy that will be left behind will be the ones to clean up the ongoing pollution, contaminated water system, environmental damage and escalating damage to human health and well-being.

"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."

Nonsense. You cannot fool the public all the time. The Northern Gateway Pipeline and the entire Alberta Tar-sands project is all about big profits for Big Oil Companies. We give away non-renewable resources to Asian countries for what?. We supply Chinese manufacturing industry with cheap energy in exchange for cheap plastic goods that end up in landfill after less than a year of usage. We are not creating jobs in Canada. No, we are exporting jobs to China.

The Keystone XL Pipeline is the fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet. The Northern Gateway Pipeline is the Harper government's backup fuse.

We have already released a significant amount of carbon into the atmosphere from the Saudi Arabian oil deposits. If we release the carbon from the Alberta Tar-sands you might as well kiss your kids goodbye. The best place for fossil fuel is to leave it in the ground.

Dr. Jim Hansen, head of Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA has said, "Einstein said that to think and not act is a crime."

Now is the time for all of us to act and stop the Northern Gateway Pipeline.



Hamilton 350 Blog

Oil in Eden: The Battle to Protect Canada's Pacific Coast

Stop the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines Project

Tar Sands Oil Extraction - The Dirty Truth

Canada's Disgrace - Tar Sands - The Dirty Truth