Tag Archives: cdnpoli

Link

Why The UN Is Getting Involved With 3 Big B.C. Energy Projects

While some First Nation communities have reached agreements in support of the energy projects, proper approval of these projects doesn’t come down to a vote where a simple majority wins, said Raven Trust director Ana Simeon. Raven is a charity that helps Indigenous communities enforce their rights and titles to traditional territory.

All Indigenous people impacted must agree to the terms after meaningful consultation, said Simeon. For large projects like the Trans Mountain pipeline there are dozens of communities along the route, and it can be challenging to fight back.

“Part of the problem is there is no easy mechanism for nations to enforce their rights,” she said. “They can go to court for judicial review of the project, but that costs millions and millions of dollars.”

January 10, 2020

Leave a reply

Link

UN Human Rights Panel Calls for Pause on Trans Mountain, Site C, Coastal GasLink – The Energy Mix

In response, the federal Crown corporation building Trans Mountain said its work is “approved and moving forward with construction safely and in respect of communities,” the news agency writes. BC Hydro traced its consultations with First Nations on Site C back to 2007 and said it had reached agreements with most of them, producing $230 million in procurement opportunities for Indigenous businesses and 400 jobs. The federal government, the RCMP, and Coastal GasLink did not respond to CP’s request for comment.

In a statement, Alberta Energy Minister and former pipeline executive Sonya Savage cast the UN as “an unelected, unaccountable body that has no business criticizing Canada’s energy megaprojects.”

January 9, 2020

Leave a reply

Link

Repeated N.W.T. wildfires can hit boreal forests hard | CBC News

Traditionally among forest experts, fires are often seen as
regenerative — critical periods in an ecosystem that clear away debris
and allow important plants and animals to grow.

But as climate
change and extreme droughts hit forests, woodlands in northwestern
Canada may wind up burning up more often before that cycle is complete.
That could lead to big changes for the landscape.

In a new paper from from Natural Resources Canada scientists published in the journal Scientific Reports,
scientists found that forests in the boreal region in northern Alberta
and Northwest Territories recovered differently from “short interval
wildfires” — fires that hit a region 10 to 15 years after a fire went
through — than they did from more common forest fires that come much
later to an area, from 30 to well over 100 years after a previous fire.

January 9, 2020

Leave a reply

Link

Trans Mountain Deal Was Structured to Bleed Billions, Finds Economist | The Tyee

But guess what? Canadian taxpayers are now paying $1 billion for the Ocean Protection Plan. (Even though no credible technology for cleaning up ocean oil spills exists.)

Put all the costs together and the purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline has probably cost taxpayers $8 billion in subsidies to oil and gas companies through unjustifiably low pipeline tolls.

And Canadians are still on the hook for escalating construction costs on a project that hasn’t been built.

None of this should surprise Canadians. Federal and provincial subsidies subsidies — tax breaks, royalty reductions and infrastructure credits — to the oil and gas industry total $3.3 billion a year.

Allan pointed out these disagreeable facts on Trans Mountain pipeline to Ottawa months ago and asked for a response from Morneau’s office.

“None has been forthcoming,” says Allan.

The promise of profit, from the Kinder Morgan pipeline the federal government bought, is that every dollar they make off the pipeline would invested in green energy and climate projects. I took a snapshot picture from their election platform. Here it is.

Now here’s the thing. Morneau is a business man. Read the article from the Tyee. It wasn’t/isn’t ever going to earn any money.

January 8, 2020

Leave a reply

Link

Who Sticks up for the Gig Worker? | The Tyee

Gig work leaves many people lonely, powerless and underpaid. Its current business model is built on stripping workers of basic rights. And more and more us face lives in precarious work, our futures determined by algorithms.

So what’s being done to restore balance to a system that’s now overwhelmingly weighted to favour the interests of employers?

In Canada, not much.

The gig economy companies — Uber, Lyft, Skip the Dishes and a host of clones — exploit weaknesses in employment laws developed half a century ago. Their main argument is that the people who work for them are not their employees, but independent contractors, and thus not entitled to protection under employment standards laws, minimum wage regulations or labour codes. Their lawyers craft coercive agreements designed to make resistance futile.

Canadian governments, including the BC NDP government, have chosen to ignore the attack on workers’ rights and resulting increase in inequality.

January 7, 2020

Leave a reply

← Older posts

Newer posts →

Steve MacLellan

Ramble On

Tag Archives: cdnpoli