British Columbia

Another court challenge involving Enbridge’s $7.9-billion Northern Gateway oil pipeline project was filed Tuesday, bringing the total to 19.

The suit in B.C. Supreme Court by the Coastal First Nations group (representing several First Nations including the Haida and the Metlakatla) and the Gitga’at First Nation was added to a growing list of court challenges over the controversial project, which received federal approval last June.

All the other court challenges have been filed with the Federal Court of Appeal.

Industry Minister James Moore who represents the Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam riding engaged in blatantly false fear mongering last week. He threatened a Lac Megantic disaster if we don’t accept Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. In order to springboard from a disgusting reliance on a horrific tragedy to reach his ridiculous conclusion, he had to make stuff up.

A proposed network of pipelines from natural gas fields in British Columbia’s northeast to liquefied natural gas export plants in the northwest will not be permitted to pump oil and diluted bitumen, the provincial government says.

The Natural Gas Development Ministry said a new regulation prohibits the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission from allowing any conversion of a natural gas pipeline supplying an LNG facility.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

05 January 2015

UNIVERSITY WAKE-UP CALL: PETITION DEMANDS CLOSURE OF MINING INSTITUTE

VANCOUVER, BC – Over 1000 individuals and civil society organizations are signatories to a letter petitioning coalition universities to dissolve the mining, oil, and gas think-tank headquartered at UBC.

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s B.C. lieutenant said he’s confident a new oilsands pipeline will eventually be built to the West Coast, and one of his key arguments for such a megaproject is public safety in the Lower Mainland.

Industry Minister James Moore raised the spectre of the deadly Lac Megantic rail disaster that killed dozens in an inferno of blazing oil that engulfed the Quebec town in the summer of 2013.

“The people of Lac Megantic wished they had pipelines instead of rail,” said Moore, who represents the Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam riding.

Despite environment minister's claims, it won't displace coal in Asia.

World leaders gathered in Lima, Peru, this month for global climate change talks. British Columbia's Environment Minister Mary Polak was among them. She shared the province's successful experience in implementing commendable climate policies, like B.C.'s carbon tax -- a policy that the president of the World Bank hailed as a "powerful example" of carbon pricing.

(Coast Salish Territory/Vancouver, BC) Recent media reports regarding the renewed calls for a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women quote Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt stating "if the guys grow up believing that women have no rights, that's how they are treated" and "It’s a question of people pulling together, addressing the issue, and taking action." More shockingly, Prime Minister Stephen Harper remarked “It isn't high on our radar, to be honest." 

(Ottawa, ON) – Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde today stated strong disapproval for the decision by the Government of British Columbia to go forward with the construction of BC Hydro’s Site C Dam project.  “The dam does not make sense legally, environmentally or economically.”  The dam would flood the Peace River Valley from Fort St.

Despite the B.C. government’s announcement that the $8.8-billion Site C dam is going ahead, First Nations and land owners in the Peace River Valley say the battle against it is still on and will spark opposition to other resource projects.

“It’s far from being a done deal. This fight is just getting started,” Chief Roland Willson of the West Moberly First Nation said Wednesday.

“We were shocked,” he said of the band’s reaction to Premier Christy Clark’s announcement on Site C, Tuesday. “It was basically a spit in the face.”

VICTORIA — For Premier Christy Clark, the decision to proceed with building Site C is one that will bear fruit over the next 100 years.

“Long after this announcement today is over, long after my working days in this job are over, I believe that the people of our province will continue to prosper and continue to create wealth and opportunity,” she declared Tuesday.

For Energy Minister Bill Bennett, the giant hydroelectric dam on the Peace River “will be the last of its kind,” here or anywhere else.