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  • To Horgan: Get Serious about Kinder Morgan, Woodfibre LNG

    Kinder Morgan July 28, 2017 , by

    John Horgan being sworn in as Premier, with Environment Minister George Heyman looking on (Photo: Flickr/Province of British Columbia)

    Dear Premier Horgan,

    My congratulations to you and your new government. I can tell you that a great many British Columbians who do not usually support your party voted for you on May 9 last with the same feelings as Dr. Johnson ascribed to second marriages – a triumph of hope over experience.

    I realize that over the past few years I have not been flavour of the month for either you or Dr. Andrew Weaver but I know that you would think even less of me if I allowed that to bother me. It doesn’t.

    Until the Liberals came to power, it was not customary for the mainstream media to shower governments with praise. I intend to practice my profession the traditional way – the way I was treated when when I was in government. Continue Reading »

  • True Patriot Love: Why the Kinder Morgan pipeline will never be built

    Kinder Morgan June 19, 2017 , by

    The Trans Mountain pipeline [Kinder Morgan] expansion project will never see the light of day.

    -Grand Chief Philip Stewart, Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs

    Photo: Damian Manda / Flickr CC License

    If you live anywhere in Canada other than British Columbia, you’re probably convinced that the Kinder Morgan (Trans Mountain) pipeline from Edmonton to Burnaby, BC will be built, since no less than Prime Minister Trudeau says so. Well, you may get a shock with this candid advice but you’d best accept the fact that this pipeline will never, ever be built, period.

    Many much wiser and more powerful British Columbians than I will tell you the same in even stronger terms.

    In light of the domination of the mainstream media by the oil industry, with dedicated lackeys running our governments, you may not have heard the British Columbia side of this story. Here it is.

    Might my story not be biased? Of course that conclusion’s an option since there is no more loyal British Columbian than I, but remember that we who will fight Kinder Morgan have only one interest: the beautiful land and water we hold in trust for those as yet unborn. We have no Tar Sands to flog, no political payoffs owed, no juicy House of Commons seats to covet, no faraway investors to enrich, no personal ambitions to fulfill, no face saving to be done – all that’s at stake for us is the salvation and preservation of our home.

    Continue Reading »

  • Globe and Mail: Go Away!

    Kinder Morgan June 5, 2017 , by

    by Rafe Mair

    If there was ever the slightest doubt in the faraway recesses of my mind that Kinder Morgan must be stopped, it was dispelled by the June 4 editorial in the TORONTO GLOBE & MAIL which applied bullshit to the bread and called it peanut butter. All the usual ersatz Central Canadian definitions of nationhood are trotted out. One of those definitions you would think would be preserving BC’s rivers, harbours, seas, islands and channels not to mention the several breeds of whale including the truly iconic killer whale, seals, sea lions, porpoise, dolphins and most surely the 7 species of Pacific Salmon upon which so many of our First Nations depend for food and livelihood. Apparently when sacred sites are added up, pristine environments don’t matter. What does matter is that those who own, finance and tax the world’s most noxious chemical, deadly poisonous in the Ocean and Atmosphere, condemned by every world leader but Donald Trump and Trudeau, minor, and by the latter when he was using his Paris platform to primp his pretty image before getting his orders from the oil industry, can ship endless tankers of bitumen, the spills from which cannot be cleaned up, through the highly vulnerable waters of BC, to be thrown into the atmosphere where they can join LNG from Squamish in further damaging the world’s climate and impairing people’s health. Don’t forget, in fairness, that the safety of this murderous gunk has been subjected to “rigorous” testing by that paragon of fairness, independence, scientific acumen and political independence, the National Energy Board, one of Trudeau, minor’s, favourite whipping boys in the 2015 election.
     Continue Reading »

  • We will not give in on Kinder Morgan

    Kinder Morgan June 3, 2017 , by

    Kinder Morgan protest in Vancouver (Photo: Lu Iz/Facebook)

    by Rafe Mair

    Those who think that the feds and Alberta have got the only quiver with arrows in the Kinder Morgan fight are very sadly mistaken indeed.

    The overriding factor is the deep resolve of an angered British Columbia to keep out what are seen as almost foreign despoilers of their land. Damned near everyone is a British Columbian whether born here like I was or recently arrived, a dedicated convert of which there are thousands. The love of the British Columbian for the West Coast is very deep indeed and Kinder Morgan can’t be just counted as were environmental outrages of the past. We’re not talking here about beehive burners, leaky sewer pipes or distasteful, unhealthy and stinky garbage dumps. We are talking about something that is the heart and soul of British Columbia much like St. Paul’s Cathedral is to Londoners. If you think this is a stretch, please bear with me.

    One could say that St. Paul’s is simply a church dome and not even as big as St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and nowhere near London’s oldest building.

    Tell that to the Londoner who sees this fairly recent icon as the soul of his city, indeed an effort to destroy a beautiful edifice for a development would bring inconceivable reactions from a normally peaceful people – at least when they are civilians. Continue Reading »

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