Yes, its true, Nude Election '08 has claimed yet another NDP candidate: Skinny-dipper Julian West (Saanich-Gulf Islands) has gone beyond making apologies for his past lack of common sense and has resigned, making him the third in a week to quit the NDP campaign. One can't help but wonder about the man's sense of morality, given he asked minor girls to use their face paints on his nude form, "all over".

This resignation brings an interesting dynamic to the Saanich-Gulf Islands race where the incumbent, Conservative MP and Natural Resources minister Gary Lunn, faces off against Liberal candidate Briony Penn, well known to the area as an environmental activist and former Green Party supporter. The NDP vacuum might allow a real race against Lunn, an outcome I would welcome, although it does seem likely that vote splitting between the Green and Liberal candidate is likely to ensure an anti-environment Lunn is re-elected.

Lady Godiva

Although her moral compass is not in question, Penn is no stranger to public nudity herself, having taken on the starring role as Lady Godiva for a protest against Vancouver-based corporate logging interests. No minors nor horses were harmed in the event.

Of greater importance than the forgettable Mr. West's political future, for those who have not followed Conservative MP Gary Lunn's career, know that he is in favour of opening up B.C.'s west coast for oil and gas exploration and has been consistently opposed to progressive environmental measures and the fight against climate change.

Priddle Panel: Not Found

The last significant read of the public apettite for off-shore drilling was done by a NRCan (Natural Resources Canada) Public Review Panel - the "Priddle Panel" - in 2004 under the direction of then minister (Liberal) John Efford.

Panel Chair Ron Priddle was at the time a director of Talisman Energy, while another panel member, Don Scott, was a former mayor of Prince Rupert who had lobbied to have the moratorium lifted. The third member of the panel, Diane Valiela, is a lawyer currently working for B.C. firm Lawson Lundell in areas including energy law. Valiela had been a member of the National Energy Board, a tribunal principally concerned with approving requests from industry.

In short, this was not an unbiased panel but a panel with a mission, one which the Gorden Campbell-led provincial government happened to share: lift the moratorium.

Despite the obvious pro-exploration bias of the panel the report was forced to note that the public at large was not behind them. Public support strongly favoured (75%) retaining a continued moratorium or ban on offshore drilling. I'd like to link directly to the NRCan website to provide a copy of the panel report but, tellingly, since Lunn took over the NRCan ministry that link no longer works. Interestingly, there is a still-working link to the table of contents of the report, but no working link to the panel report itself.

One well-established rule of publishing on the internet - particularly for public bodies such as government - is that links should remain viable forever. This tenet doesn't trouble Stephen Harper's version of democracy, because transparency is clearly not a Conservative Party virtue.

Yet its worse than that. Not only does the link fail to function but the NRCan web site search facility fails to turn up any reference to the Priddle Panel, which is odd since almost 4,000 submissions were made to the panel; the process took months to complete; and the cost involved real taxpayer dollars. Question: Has Lunn or any of his staff ordered that the document be taken off-line or otherwise hidden from view? If so, when was this order made and why?

Search results for "priddle"

Frankly I'm surprised at how difficult it was to locate a copy of this report. Here permanently attached to this post for posterity is the report as well as a first nations specific study and a 2004 review of moratoria status. Interesting reading: