Trudeau’s centrist cabinet on the track of no return There’s an old song from the popular folk-rock album Working Man’s Dead about the infamous train conductor Casey Jones. As Trudeau’s new cabinet was sworn in at Rideau Hall, the lyrics wormed their way into my brain. The song retells the story of how an engineer […]
The spirit Canada needs to fight climate change is missing in action On September 10, 1939, Canada officially declared war on Germany. The vote to support that declaration occurred in Parliament two weeks earlier. It could not have been easy. The Canadian economy was only just recovering from the Great Depression. There had been no […]
Federal Court of Appeal tosses out cases on climate, orcas and Charter rights of youth In a rare public decision, the Federal Court of Appeal announced that six Indigenous groups can challenge Ottawa’s second approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline and oil tanker expansion. At the same time, it dismissed applications from two First Nations, […]
Photo credit: Andrew Forget How long will Canadians sit back and take what the “War Room” is dishing? Over the last couple of years, the tension over how to manage fossil fuel-induced climate change within provinces and states in North America has reached a boiling point. The petro-identity Conservatives have constructed for themselves faces an […]
Premier Horgan has announced a public inquiry. But it was British Columbians who sounded the alarm until he had no choice. There I stood, face-to-face with the beast. Do you know that feeling? When you don’t want to see what’s staring right at you? I couldn’t shut my eyes and make it go away. The […]
Jason Kenney is building a “war room”. B.C. needs a wartime mindset of its own During World War II motor fuels were strictly rationed across North America. Everyone pitched in to save precious gasoline and diesel for the fight against fascism. Governments lowered speed limits. Local businesses delivered by bicycle. Citizens took to public transit […]
Will Big Oil’s lobby succeed in reversing Trudeau’s North Coast tanker ban? At first it was refreshing, uplifting and hopeful. The come-from behind election campaign which caught pollsters and pundits by surprise. The warm embraces, locked-eyes and inspiring mandate letters as action-oriented cabinet members took charge of their files in the spirit of progress, openness, […]
Outdated laws, weak enforcement leave the public on the hook for cleanup The scale of the Mount Polley mine disaster is difficult to comprehend. We’ve read that Imperial Metals dumped 25 billion litres of contaminated slurry into Quesnel Lake, most of which they never recovered. That mud was laced with chemicals including arsenic, mercury, selenium […]
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