To learn more, visit the Dogwood Initiative's No Tankers campaign information pages ; to sign the petition click here.

Per-vote subsidies for political party funding were brought in by former Prime Minister Jean Chretien in conjunction with tough new limits on corporate and personal political donations. The idea was to make political funding less of an impediment for a flourishing democracy. Stephen LeDrew, a former president of the Liberal Party, back then called the idea "dumb as a bag of hammers", yet since that infamous comment was made we've seen elections partly fought on this funding formula and here we are again. Stephen Harper has vowed to eliminate this funding formula.

Elizabeth May's Green Party are likely more reliant on the vote subsidy than any other party. Maybe this particular challenge should be a focus for her rather than participation in the leader's debates. Did the Green Party arrange its 2 million dollar line of credit for this election campaign in part on the promise or assumption that the vote subsidy will be there afterwards to help pay the debt?

Lest someone paint me as a carbon loving dinosaur, I'm a "green" voter through and through but these days can't bring myself to waste my vote on a local Green candidate because my vote truly is wasted here in my home riding of Vancouver-Kingsway. Truth be told I'm also of like mind with David Suzuki who once said, paraphrased, that he wished the Green Party would completely disappear because green politics needs to be a fixture of every party, not seen as a special issue for a special issue party. Our current political system is not friendly to parties seen as single issue focussed; maybe in some future Canada I'd change my mind altogether but not now.

One assessment we can make with certainty is that Stephen Harper's Conservative Party and government are the least green option out there. If you want to see carbon-loving dinosaurs walking the earth today, look toward the dark blue political signs.

Harper vows to end party subsidies (April 1, 2011 - CBC News) Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is still committed to scrapping party subsidies but says it would be impossible unless he formed a majority government.

Tired of constant campaigns, Harper says he'll scrap per-vote subsidy (April 1, 2011 - The Globe and Mail) Stephen Harper is blaming per-vote taxpayer subsidies for causing frequent elections and is promising to cut this assistance if he wins a majority government.

Should the U.S. government seize assets of British Petroleum (Seize BP petition) to block a potential corporate move to strategic bankruptcy? That's a debate which is happening right now, amid growing public pressure on the Obama government to do something, anything.

Experts Double Estimated Rate of Spill in Gulf - NYTimes.com

Could the "cure" be worse than the disease? Maybe. Seizing assets can lead to a falling domino chain reaction; the risk of bankruptcy is probably quite low at the moment however nothing prevents government from making matters worse.

If there were to be a time when risk of bankruptcy goes markedly higher it is likely years into the future when criminal and civil negligence and liability claims are making their way through the courts. Such proceedings took decades in the case of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and that company remains the largest and most profitable petro company on the planet.

Even though BP's market capitalization has fallen markedly, that in and of itself is not a portent of bankruptcy. If it were, thousands of public corporations would be dead in the wake of the 2008-09 meltdown.

A bigger issue for BP than the value of their issued public stock is their debt load, now and into the intermediate future. At present their debt load is an entirely reasonable $25 billion, supporting operations on assets worth more than $130 billion USD. The company has the potential to generate cash flow of about $40 billion annually, a key measure of solvency in the oil business. That cash flow doesn't stop from other operations while the disaster in the Gulf continues.

The credit markets are pricing in an uncertain future, with credit default swap spreads having risen very markedly - probably unsustainably so, given that due to its still very strong financial situation BP continues to hold a double A credit rating which is better than many sovereign governments around the world can claim. Credit ratings drive borrowing costs. Due to the uncertainty surrounding liability claims, that credit rating might well be reviewed downward, driving their cost of borrowing up, but at this point my expectation is that such changes would be incremental over time, not sudden and paralysing.

Even if borrowing costs did become a potentially fatal weakness for the company, the U.K. (and U.S.) government could risk the inevitable public opinion backlash and extend loan guarantees to allow the company time to get through the disaster they own, and make everyone as whole as is possible given the circumstances. No amount of money will make things fully right.

Could the company try a strategic bankruptcy despite its financial strength? Maybe, but political pressure from both the U.S. and U.K. ought to prevent that, because at that point seizure becomes the threatened weapon of choice. The company or whatever form it might take in the future simply cannot operate around the globe without the express blessing of these and other major governments. Canada can play a role here, too.

Changes to Oil and Gas Regulations Required, Internationally

Don't get me wrong, public pressure is important right now. I'm all for extracting a huge punitive toll on BP and all those found to be responsible.

But even more important than getting even with those responsible for this latest assault on the planet is using the moment to achieve lasting change to industry regulation, not just in the U.S. but in Canada and hopefully in other major off-shore oil producing countries as well, including the UK (North Sea). Use the public's sudden awakening to the very real risks to drive important policy change that will help protect our land and oceans now and into the future.

Oil covered Brown (before oil) Pelican along Louisiana coast, 2010-06-03

There is clearly a need to revisit existing U.S. EPA legislation which provides for a ridiculously low cap on the liability of oil and gas companies. BP has already blown through all these caps in its spending. Affected states may have other legislation which supersedes the federal law in this case, and may have unlimited liability provisions. Canada similarly must have another look at corporate liability legislation, not just for the oil and gas industry but also for the nuclear industry which is subject to a cap on liability that amounts to pennies relative to the potential scope for nuclear disasters.

In the here and now we need to make the playing field level around the world to counter arguments such as those being pushed by Danny Williams (Deepsea relief well not feasible, Williams says - Nova Scotia News - TheChronicleHerald.ca) that costs would be disproportionate and lead to investment dollars going elsewhere.

Williams is parochial and wrong. Oil gushing into our oceans and their currents at the rate of one Exxon Valdez every eight days knows no borders. It doesn't matter if the problem originates in the Gulf of Mexico or in Nigeria or off-shore Canada's Atlantic coast.

If the billion dollar boondoggle that is the G20 were to accomplish anything of substance, it could work to achieve agreement on offshore exploration and production safety measures including mandating the provision of emergency relief wells. Sure, these are expensive, but not unreasonably so if all producers are subject to the same regulation. Come on G20, how about doing something that matters for a change?

Off-shore oil and gas producers are not the only component of the energy industry that need a renewed regulatory focus aimed at them. BP has unwillingly opened the door wide to a much higher degree of scrutiny and regulators around the world should be running through that opening before it closes. Regulators in Canada and the U.S. often act more as industry facilitators than as guardians of the environment, a global, public, asset. That has to change.

Make BP pay, yes. But make the entire industry subject to better regulation. That would be the best legacy this disaster could leave in its wake.

PS: Let's see a permanent ban on offshore drilling off Canada's west coast, and on export tanker traffic in our inland waters. Any parent knows there's a difference between need and want. Canadian's don't need it, and most of us here in B.C. don't want it. Read and take action:

• Ottawa Citizen: Federal ban on offshore drilling, oil tankers not legally binding says Harper government
• CBC News - British Columbia - Gulf oil spill fuels West Coast tanker fears
• Dogwood Initiative Responds to Enbridge Regulatory Application - Dogwood Initiative
• Send a letter to Michael Ignatieff and MPs - Dogwood Initiative

Federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice wants to turn our beautiful, abundantly productive, west coast from this:

... into this:

... or this:

Globe and Mail, Friday May 6 2010 -- Environment Minister Jim Prentice says there is no need for a moratorium on future offshore drilling in Canadian waters while the world tries to figure out what went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico.

The spill of thousands of barrels of crude a day into the Gulf, and the environmental devastation that now threatens the Louisiana shore, have prompted other governments to put future drilling on hold, even if it could mean higher energy prices.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued a moratorium on future oil drilling permits off the state's coast until it can be determined that a disaster similar to the one in the Gulf of Mexico can be avoided. [And U.S. President Barak Obama has put new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico on hold as well.]

But Mr. Prentice sees no need to follow the example set south of the border.

"I don't think the answer is a moratorium,"the minister told reporters on Thursday. "We are all appalled by what we are seeing in the Gulf of Mexico. Everyone is worried about that. Here in Canada, we've not had those kinds of incidents and that's because of the strong regulatory environment that we have had with the National Energy Board (NEB)."

Canada hasn't had the sorts of incidents the U.S. and other nations has had only because our offshore oil industry is tiny by comparison. When you increase the rig count and number of areas being exploited, and increase the outbound tanker traffic, the probability of a serious accident increases as well.

The U.S. takes its coastal environment very seriously. If they can't get it right, 100% of the time, then how are we - relatively green to offshore oil and gas production - to be expected to get it right, 100% of the time?

Minister Prentice ought to know that Canada has quite enough environmental disasters on land, and our track record of managing our oceans is far from laudable. We should not sell out our coast for a fistful of dollars.

I can't believe I just heard Minister of Environment Jim Prentice exclaim in Question Period in reference to Copenhagen climate change talks:

We will not be the boy scouts at the table! Jim Prentice

Jim: the fact is most Canadians want Canada to be the boy scouts at that table.

I'm under no illusions that the Conservatives ever plan on being environmentally responsible. To them the only thing than matters is being responsible to business. Big business, increasingly owned by foreigners.

When Prentice says a key climate change report is irresponsible (Globe and Mail, Thursday Oct 29, 2009) he neglects to consider that the federal and Alberta governments have been giving the oil sands industry a free pass for the past thirty years. That of course was the plan all along - allow this incredibly dirty industry to grow unchecked and unsullied by meaningful regulation such that huge economic pain would be the consequence of real action too-late down the road.

Canadians have always wanted to be the boy scouts at the table, but our politicians have largely always stood in the way.

From the we-all-knew-the-Conservatives-don't-care-about-the-environment department

In Saturday's Globe and Mail:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed tough new measures to reduce the health toll from air pollution around the Great Lakes by forcing lake freighters to stop burning dirty bunker fuel.

Hey, the U.S. is on to a good thing! But wait for the Canadian torpedo:

But the plan has an unusual opponent: The Canadian embassy in Washington has quietly asked the EPA to weaken the measures, arguing that they could harm trade. It wants ships to be allowed to continue using the high-polluting fuel and to instead install smokestack scrubbers that would clean up their emissions. The Canadian recommendation, if accepted, could delay the clean-air measure for years, because the technology for the scrubbers does not yet exist.

Notice a pattern here? The approach is the same as their approach to climate change. Rather than address the problem today with solutions that exist now, the Harper Government wants to delay actual progress by artificially pinning hopes onto some future technology that either doesn't exist at all or doesn't exist in the scale required to solve the problem.

It's the same subterfuge used by Harper and his environment minister of the day (Ambrose / Baird / now Prentice) as the Conservatives try to sabbotage and scuttle any meaningful action on climate change.

Scrubbers that don't exist are like the equally false solutions "clean coal" and effective widespread "carbon sequestration". These two technologies are often promoted as a panacea by the conservatives on both sides of the border, but neither practically exists.

Clean coal is the same pipe dream George Bush also used to smoke, and carbon sequestration exists today only in four test-sized projects around the world, including one which has already operated for years. That project, co-funded by Canadian and U.S. governments in partnership with EnCana, saw a trial carbon sequestration project started in Weyburn, Saskatchewan. Since that trial has begun there has been no meaningful follow through by industry. Now the government is plowing money - our tax dollars - into these things rather than tapping on the energy industry to make the necessary investments.

Former NDP Premier of Manitoba Gary Doer is heading to Washington to take up his new post as Canadian Ambassador to the United States. Given his previous support for Kyoto, clean air and water legislation, his plans to eliminate coal burning factories, and his support for many other environmental initiatives, can we expect Doer to stand up to his new boss Stephen Harper and stop launching torpedoes at U.S. efforts to clean up our planet and most importantly, our own act?

Canadian scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) call upon May to use her vote power and influence to help defeat Conservatives

Strategic voting is tough for party loyalists. Using your party to help defeat another, rather than use any gains in perception, strength, breadth and membership to continue building your own party - well that's a hard road to travel for many. But it might be the right road to travel for those in a position to really make a difference.

Three Canadian climate change scientists are asking Canadians to look within their hearts and consider smart strategic voting. This builds upon the momentum the popular movement Vote For Environment has achieved and which, I believe, offers real hope for our country. What makes Vote for Environment effective is that its an organized effort to maximize our power as individuals.

A list of ridings (PDF) where progressive / green oriented voters can really make a difference is attached to this post. (Source: voteforenvioronment.ca).

VICTORIA – Three senior Canadian members of the 2007 Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are calling on Elizabeth May to lead Greens to make the difference in more than 50 close ridings where the Conservatives are set to win with a fraction of the expected Green Party vote. The leading Canadian climate scientists making the call are Dr. Andrew Weaver from the University of Victoria, Dr. William Peltier from the University of Toronto and Dr. John Stone from Carleton University.

Riding projections on VoteForEnvironment.ca and seat models from various polling companies show that in the so-called 519 and 905 regions, and across southern BC the Green Party vote is many times greater than the Conservative margin of victory.

"We face a critical moment," said Dr. Andrew Weaver, a lead author of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winning IPCC report.

"It looks like the unprecedented desire to vote for the environment could result in a terrible three way split of environmental voters in key ridings. Elizabeth May and her appeal have an extraordinary opportunity to make the change the Green movement wants to see in our government. Ms. May and the Greens alone can help make the difference between the Harper majority that the climate scientists fear and a Liberal minority under which great progress can be made to fight climate change." More

Consider this: if Stephen Harper wins a majority, we shall likely see him at the helm of this country for at least four more years but more likely he'll strive to gain at least eight years with which he can fundamentally change the country. One of his goals is to cripple any real progress on the important issue of our generation, climate change. Another, perhaps less obvious goal but no less important to environmentalists, is that Harper is, and will continue to, permanently hobble the power of the federal government to enact new national programs.

In short, by continuing to slash taxes - whether it puts Canada ultimately in a deficit or not - Harper has made it nigh on impossible for the government to put any significant new program in place. There simply won't be the money, and it'll be extremely difficult to go to the public to ask for funds. Its Harper's strategic yet simple (all the most workable diabolical are simple) to destroy the power of federalism.

This is not an abstract problem green or progressive or indeed any voter can afford to dismiss. Weakening the authority of the federal government, whether by treaty or by reducing taxation revenue, helps Harper build a case for increased provincial autonomy. That sounds good as a sound bite but when one considers the deeper issues, its a terrible idea.

We live in one large but connected country. What Alberta or British Columbia or Nova Scotia does, affects others. Environmental issues do not halt at provincial boundaries. Harper wants a weaker federation so that provinces can be emboldened to cater to their own narrow interests while ignoring issues and concerns which are in fact national in scope - like climate change.

This stuff isn't sexy to talk about on the campaign trail, but its fundamentally important.

The bottom line is Harper doesn't believe the federal government should even exist beyond a very narrow definition. Its not merely that he doesn't like Ottawa but that he wished it didn't exist at all. He will concede that defence is a natural federal obligation. But if he could wheel back the hands of time, Canada would not have a national health care system. Canada would not sign on to international treaties such as Kyoto, which obligate the entire country to meet certain standards. Harper wants no national authority to have teeth to take on provinces when its required.

There certainly will never be a national pharmacare or real day care system under his watch, and by cutting government revenue to the bone, any future government will have to raise taxes in order to create such a program. As you've no doubt witnessed through this election, the very spectre - real or artificial - of raising taxes is enough to make a villain out of any politician.

There'll be no real movement on the environment if Harper stays in office, minority or not. For even with a minority government we've seen Harper slash taxes deeply and he won't stop until he hits bone. He's not doing it because its the best plan for the country, he's slashing taxes because it helps win elections so that he can finish the job of dismantling government. We'll be adding to the national debt soon and that will give Harper an excuse to start slashing program spending. What's he going to cut?

In an upcoming article I'll demonstrate how his aggressive tax give-away is likely to push Canada into the largest annual deficit seen in over a decade.

Greens and NDP are not the only ones who have had to wrestle with these questions. I'm sure Liberals have at times thrown their votes elsewhere to stop an unworthy candidate or party. I've voted strategically myself. As a Progressive Conservative (readers will understand my emphasis has always been on progressive) I have voted strategically more often than not. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I voted against the Conservatives in the last two elections even through I was an member of the Conservative Party, however unenthusiastic. Why? I could no longer support a weak local candidate, one I knew had no chance of a) winning or b) standing up to Stephen Harper any more than I would cast a vote for Stephen Harper directly myself.

But this is not news. My lack of enthusiasm for the new more muscular Conservative Party was not because it did not measure up to expectations. The party, led by Harper, has met and exceeded my darkest expectations. At the time of the merger it was more than clear that the resulting party would be the Reform / Canadian Alliance, just with a new name. That first impression is exactly what we have today - a western rump protest party which doesn't truly believe in a strong united Canada is actually now a national party running the country, only the party's brain trust remains indifferent to whether Canada ends up being 10 little "canadas" or 1 big one. Incroyable!

For those who live in a riding on the edge, and who, like me, are concerned that any more time Harper spends in office is like a death sentence not only for the environment but for all social issues and future national aspirations, then I urge you to think carefully about voting strategically and encouraging your friends and neighbours to help in this great effort to take back our country from the most destructive prime minister it has ever seen.

The Conservatives need to go to the penalty box for bad environmental, bad fiscal, bad social, and bad federal behaviour. Lets do one better and eject them from the game!

Please consider strategic voting if it makes sense for your riding. You can determine if your riding is in play by consulting the Vote for Environment web site.

The author is a former Progressive Conservative former Conservative that has never voted for Stephen Harper directly or indirectly in his life. Progressive Conservatives fought for years against Stephen Harper and his Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance Party. Some still do.

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:

The end of the petroleum age is a notion which might have been laughed at fifty years ago but which is looking increasingly close on the horizon--for those who are paying attention. At the same time, climate change as a result of the burning of fossil fuels is an issue which, despite the best efforts of politicians like George Bush and Stephen Harper to deny and ignore, has garnered global attention and concern from every day citizens of the planet.

The conjoined issues of climate change and energy scarcity have created an environment where politicians can ram through bad policy.

We shall increasingly hear that nuclear power is the only way to meet green house gas reduction obligations while at the same time power our energy-hungry lives.

There has been precious little public discussion on the role of nuclear energy going forward, despite a clear acceleration of the nuclear industry's agenda by politicians in Canada, the United States, and Australia.

There are vast sums of money at stake: Canada is the world's largest producer of uranium, followed by Australia. The United States, China, and France are the worlds largest present-day or near-future consumers of uranium.

Vested business and military interests exist in both producer and consumer states, but particularly so here in Canada. We have AECL pushing for reactor sales; our world-leading uranium deposits eyed hungrily by miners; and the worlds largest nuclear consumer - the United States - directly across our borders.

In Stephen Harper, the U.S. has found a Prime Minister who quite happily will work on their behalf to create a policy and political under which an acceleration of nuclear-related exports can occur.

Canadians largely live under a cloud of illusion when it comes to our participation in the nuclear arms industry. Our uranium has ended up in U.S. nuclear weapons, by proxy or in actuality, it matters not. While our politicians have in the past called for a re-thinking of NATO nuclear policy, we've never backed up our policy with principled action.

Former foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy in his 1998 speech to NATO quoted a poll showing 93 percent of Canadians wanted Canada to take a leading role in the elimination of nuclear weapons. [1]

Yet it was Canadian nuclear technology that led to India becoming a nuclear power; our uranium finds its way, directly or by proxy, into the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Liberal governments allowed the transport of plutonium into our country for experimental test burns, despite prior recommendations from House of Commons committees that such a program was unfeasible. [2]

Given our historical inability to match our citizens' desires with working policy, what confidence should we have that the current government will do any better? In fact there is every reason to believe, and evidence to prove, that Stephen Harper will increase Canada's role on the nuclear stage, without having consulted parliament or Canadians at large.

Imagine a world where the most productive farmland (total output) in the world – North America – is a barren wasteland – and you’ll be imagining what this U.S. government report imagines will happen if we do not bring greenhouse gas emissions under control and effect reductions.

Complete with pretty charts, its a must-read.