British Columbia

Last month, the Canadian government announced its approval of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline. It was not unexpected. Neither was the reaction. On the one hand, it has given Harper’s opponents a convenient platform to score political points for the next election. On the other, it has given the NGOs the chance to try to boost their campaigns with predictable statements and rallies in the streets.

A chorus of critics that includes the province of British Columbia and the City of Vancouver claim that Kinder Morgan has failed to answer many of the questions put to the company through the regulatory review process for its proposed Trans Mountain pipeline.

The City of Vancouver submitted 394 written questions as part of the National Energy Board's regulatory review process, covering everything from emergency management plans to compensation in the event of an oil spill, but said the Texas-based company did not respond to 40 per cent of them.

. . . Koyama was visiting from Tokyo, where he's chief economist at the Institute of Energy Economics Japan, and an advisor to the country's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

He's also a globally recognized expert on natural gas markets. These days there's a lot to keep track of. So many countries are now scurrying to supply Asia with LNG that Koyama describes the competition as "very severe." As a result, he says it's "quite difficult to expect a big profit margin for any LNG supplier," especially for the costly projects being developed in B.C.

. . The decision prompted one Tsilhqot'in tribal leader to say Northern Gateway is dead, while another said Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) proposals may be sorely affected too.

VICTORIA — Three decades ago Nisga’a Chief James Gosnell declared in the midst of the national constitutional debate that aboriginal people owned British Columbia “lock, stock and barrel.”

Back then he generated headlines and more than a little outrage and disbelief. Today, thanks to a judgment for the ages from the highest court in the land, we should admit that he was well on the way to being right.

B.C. businesses worry a landmark high-court decision released Thursday that broadens First Nations’ land rights could create barriers to development and stall key industrial projects worth billions of dollars.

Proposed projects that could be affected include Enbridge’s $7.9-billion Northern Gateway oil pipeline, Kinder Morgan’s $5.4-billion Trans Mountain oil pipeline, and tens of billions more in liquefied natural gas plants and gas pipelines. Mining and forestry projects could also be at risk.

An oil spill recovery vessel ran aground en route to a federal announcement on oil tanker safety in Vancouver on Monday, officials have confirmed.

The vessel was making a 12-hour trip from its base in Esquimalt to Vancouver for a tanker safety announcement by Federal Transport Minister Denis Lebel and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver when it struck an uncharted sandbar near Sandheads at the mouth of the Fraser River near Steveston.

. . . I believe, and the federal government fears, that given the opportunity the public of British Columbia will massively reject this insult to their province. We have one of the most beautiful jurisdictions in the entire world. Once we get started on pipelines other similar projects will follow. We will become an industrial jurisdiction and the term "Beautiful British Columbia" will be a joke...

Twenty-eight individual First Nation bands and three Aboriginal organizations have signed to a letter announcing its intention to fight the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline proposal through legal battles. The federal government approved the project today, despite heavy opposition from BC.

"I've never seen a list of First Nations like that," Haida Nation president Peter Lantin (Kil tlaats’gaa) said, speaking of the number of First Nations signed on to challenge the Northern Gateway pipeline in court.

But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, the appearance to the essence… illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness. Feuerbach, Preface to the second edition of The Essence of Christianity