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Let's go back to what Finance Minister Colin Hansen had to say about private energy projects and if you google "Colin Hansen power" you will see and hear for yourself. It is a tissue of fibs.
Growth is a self fulfilling prophecy. For as fast as we expand to the outer limit, that outer limit is handled by developers demanding and getting more
land to handle the growth, establishing yet another outer limit.
If you had just arrived from Mars and looked at old issues of the Vancouver Province and the Vancouver Sun going back a decade you would never, for a moment, know that there have been any environmental issues in BC let alone the disastrous Rivers and Fish Farms catastrophe. In fact you would assume that Premier Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell is a very popular politician.
The recent revelation that Richmond-based Kwantlen Polytechnic University has been acting as a paid lobbyist (though they eschew that label) for a highly contentious billion-and-a-half dollar real estate development atop farmland has brought to the fore some serious ethical questions. Namely, should publicly funded academic institutions be engaging in this sort of behaviour, and if so, do they have a duty to disclose such financial arrangements to the public and the bodies they lobby.
Any self-respecting publication needs good cartoons. And so it is our distinct pleasure to introduce The Common Sense Canadian's "Cartoonist in Residence," Gerry Hummel.
The environmental issues which have emerged as important in the last decade in BC are the fish farms and private power and both issues have been largely ignored by the media. In days of yore, Fotheringham and Nichols in the papers, Jack Webster and Gary Bannerman on radio, and Cameron Bell and Keith Bradbury at BCTV would have been all over the government on both of these issues. Moreover – and here’s the critical point – the Campbell government would never have got away with rank and demonstrable deceit on these two issues had Canwest, TV and print, and talk radio not badly let the public down - badly.
Damien Gillis discusses the dire threats to Clayoquot Sound and other stories The Common Sense Canadian is following with CJSF's Stuart Richardson.
Clayoquot Sound, the place everyone thought had been made safe for nature, sits on the edge of the precipice overlooking utter destruction while industry - and it must be said some First Nations - and the two senior governments are fighting to see who will give it the last and fatal push.
By increasing the amount of waste diverted away from landfills through recycling and composting, from 55% to 70%, Metro Vancouver has made a forward thinking decision that puts more focus on waste reduction. The controversy is over what to do with the remaining 30% of our garbage. The Draft Plan includes three possible options for the leftover waste. Metro’s favoured option is the construction of a new incinerator, followed by incineration in another location, or continued landfilling. Article includes song and two videos.
We, the public, must continue to demand proper hearings on environmental issues as a matter of right. But there is a much larger issue which we've all been avoiding - how long can we continue as a society which practices uncontrolled consumption?
Ideas on how to effectively deal with the big challenges of our time seem scarce. Perhaps this is the reason why 10,000 people felt they needed to flood the streets of Toronto to yell out their frustrations to what seemed like deaf ears within the summit.
Yes, I am cynical of fisheries commissions. The pacific salmon has been a gigantic political pain in the ass for the federal government since BC entered confederation. There is never any good news and this time will be no exception.
Clearly the Federal and Provincial Governments couldn’t care less. And maybe they don’t have to because at 9 Megawatt/hours the company messing up the area doesn’t have to go through any environmental assessment process. In BC, if a project is under 50 MW/h, no process is required and, as you will see, the environmental impact of smaller projects can be lethal.
John Cummins. MP, Delta-Richmond East (Conservative), a former commercial fisherman, has called into question the appointment of four men to the Cohen Inquiry into the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye with the mandate to inquire into, amongst other things, the actions or non-actions of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
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