NDP Says Final Deadline Missed In Protecting BC Coast
Prince George, BC – The BC New Democrats say today was the final day the Liberal government could have stood up for British Columbians and stopped Ottawa from 'ramming through' the proposed Northern Gateway project.
With the National Energy Board's Joint Review Panel set to report by December 31st, New Democrat environment critic, Spencer Chandra Herbert says the province had the right to serve 30 days' notice to withdraw from the 2010 Equivalency Agreement, which gives jurisdiction over a final decision on the Enbridge pipeline project to the federal government.
Chandra Herbert says, "The Liberal government has repeatedly failed to stand up for BC against the Enbridge pipeline, and has made it clear this province's environment is up for sale for the right price." The environment critic points out the BC Liberals also failed to submit evidence on behalf of the province during the hearings last year.
North Coast NDP MLA, Jennifer Rice, says, "The premier thinks she can have it both ways – appearing to be opposed to the project, while giving up the province's legal rights to do anything if the project is pushed through."
Rice says the facts of the project have not changed, "There is no capacity to responde to even a moderate spill, which would destroy coastal communities and cost the province thousands of jobs."
She says the risk to BC's economy and environment is just not worth taking.
Comments
How dare NDP Environmental Critic; Chandra Herbert and North Coast NDP MLA; Jennifer Rice stand up to over lord Stephen Harper and oppose this pipeline.
Now they are going to have our spy agency; CSIS all over their a$$es.
As far as Crusty Clark and the Lib-Cons missing the deadline to oppose this proposed pipeline⦠what would anyone expect from a double speaking, two-faced politician and political party?
Harper and Enbridge are kind of like rapists, they just won’t take “NO” for an answer!!!
Northern gateway is not the only project affected by this agreement signed in 2008. BC would have to start a new set of hearings on the project and the others as well. The NEB has to be higher standard than BCs EAO so spending extra millions on new hearings wouldn’t change anything other than pee off the public of BC except for People#1 by the looks of it. If the project meets NEB then it would also meet EAO guidelines unless biased, and if you are going to claim a bias then you need a lot of lawyers for the lawsuits you are going to face.
Easy to say as a critic, but why not tell people what the costs of withdrawing are to BC taxpayers and the ramifications for the province? All permits still have to come through BC, why have the BC taxpayer foot an extra bill that all Canadian taxpayers are paying for?
Well, Dix must be counting his blessings that he is not going to be in the line of fire no matter what he would do! Damned if you do, damned if you don’t!
Any deadline for our east coast? Not as valuable you say? Bummer! Ban tanker traffic in the St. Lawrence! How dare they? You heard it here first.
Harper’s has all is ducks in a row and he isn’t going to reposition them, no matter what the peasants say!
its not over folks. There are people ready to give their lives if equipment sets foot on indian land! You can’t put a pipeline thru if the cat operators are dead! Just watch. They are not coming thru!!!!
Yeah, threats and more threats. The so-called anti-pipeline crowd can’t even be bothered to come out for a peaceful rally, so what makes you think they’ll come out to lay down in front of a bulldozer and violently assault Cat operators?
This is a new twist I never thought of…
nice Ms Clark.. I knew you would sell us out but I never thought of this….
I wonder how well her retirement nest egg got lined?
The BC government has just as much power in the permitting process as they do in the environmental review.
If they do not pass the NEB review we just saved a few million bucks on this review alone not to mention the other 3 ongoing and others in the future.
IF they pass the NEB review how could an EAO review fail when its guidelines are less stringent than the NEB one? That is the whole purpose of the 2008 agreement reviewed and renewed in 2010.
In see slinky is hard at work spinning the oil industry mantra about money and how expensive a BC environmental assessment review would be.
Typical Conservative, always looking at the money part of the equation. What’s a couple of million to ensure any possible risks are identified and mitigated for our pristine rivers, lakes, wilderness and coastline?
Heck the Harper government lost 3.1 Billion dollars and you are complaining about a couple of million spent to protect our environment?
How about protecting our fishery which is worth over a BILLION annual, or our seafood industry that is worth 100’s of millions annual?
Instead lets put our faith in Harper, and his global warming denying government, the same ones that gutted our environmental protection laws and regulations!
Give their lives over a pipeline? Get real. Glad mine is a bit more important than that. Talk is cheap. Takes money to buy whiskey. When the time comes, show me. Other than that, blah, blah, blah. Indian land? Who’ve you been told that?
Harbinger it wouldn’t be the first time Aboriginal people have put their lives on the line!
The Gustafsen Lake Standoff was a confrontation between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Ts’peten Defenders in the interior of British Columbia, Canada, at Gustafsen Lake. The standoff began on August 18, 1995, and ended on September 17, 1995.
The RCMP operation would end up being the most costly of its kind in Canadian history having involved 400 police officers and support from the Canadian Military (under Operation Wallaby).
The predominantly indigenous occupiers believed that the privately owned ranch land on which they stood was both sacred space and part of a larger tract of unceded Shuswap territory. ~Wikipedia
The Oka Crisis was a land dispute between a group of Mohawk people and the town of Oka, Quebec, Canada which began on July 11, 1990 and lasted until September 26, 1990. One person died as a result. The dispute was the first well-publicized violent conflict between First Nations and the Canadian government in the late 20th century.
The crisis developed from a local dispute between the town of Oka and the Mohawk community of Kanesatake. The town of Oka was developing plans to expand a golf course and residential development onto land which had traditionally been used by the Mohawk. It included pineland and a burial ground, marked by standing tombstones of their ancestors. The Mohawks had filed a land claim for the sacred grove and burial ground near Kanesatake, but their claim had been rejected in 1986. ~Wikipedia
If Harper insists on pushing this pipeline through, both of these past conflicts will look like picnic parties compared to the massive uprising that will happen! You are the one that needs to “get real” Harbinger. This will be much bigger in scale, and it won’t just be Aboriginal people, joining in civil disobedience will be many settlers as well.
I’ll join ya if I can get the day off work.
The pipeline will be going ahead. It will be a credit to decrease Canada’s carbon footprint. Deal with it, people#1. Reality sucks don’t it?
People#1 I aren’t no settler. I was born in dese contry. Grace Hospital. 33rd and Heather on the third floor in Vancouver BC. I got a paper that says so. So there. According to my Canadian Oxford Dictionary I are a native. Would my dictionary lie?
Ah people…..the supreme drama queen.
Didn’t settlers settle 2 centuries ago or so? Gots to get me a homestead then. Missed that boat I dare say…momma always said I needed learnin’
=.=
One day we will all be equal.
metalman.
Yep that is me the spin doctor, just stating the obvious I thought. We don’t need to hold up 3 other permits just because we hate Enbridge hey People#1. We have just as much if not more power in the permitting process as the review.
It is the critics job to nag the government of the day on every point they see fit, in this case we don’t need to charge our taxpayers more to do the same thing. We don’t need to shut down social programs to pay for 4 reviews at this time.
Before you become our Daryl Hannah, People#1 just keep in mind it is the governments job to attempt to keep taxes low for us.
PS: land mass makes a huge difference in your climate debate because, guess what, it is land that absorbs carbon along with oceans; and Canada has enough to cover all the carbon it produces and more, how many other countries can say that? The EU sends people over here to buy farmland to sell the credits back over there instead of changing industry, super green I tell ya. Move to China and work on activism where you can make a difference. Oh, and one last thing, we do have electric trains here where population dictates, they are called LRT and trams, guess that makes us greener than other places just starting to do that
Posted by: People#1 on December 1 2013 7:21 PM “Instead lets put our faith in Harper, and his global warming denying government, the same ones that gutted our environmental protection laws and regulations!”
How about that tanker record in Canada: “Canada has a lot of experience with managing oil tanker traffic successfully in sensitive waterways. The Irving oil refinery, for example, brings virtually its entire feedstock in by tanker through the Bay of Fundy, a stunningly beautiful body of water. No talk of tanker bans there. How about the St. Lawrence River, the heartland of ecologically conscious Quebec? Oil and petroleum products are constantly shipped there in large quantities, including to feed major oil refineries near Quebec City and Montreal. Newfoundlandâs burgeoning offshore oil industry only exists thanks to tankers.
Canadaâs record of managing this traffic safely is peerless. The number of maritime oil spills over the last 30 years declined from a high of 18 in the 1980s to six during the 1990s, to none in the 2000s. Only the Netherlands and Sweden can match Canadaâs record in the last decade, a record due not to chance, but to a tremendous effort to ensure that economic activity in ecologically sensitive areas is carried out responsibly under the most demanding and stringent conditions.”
So now you are comparing the east coast (Atlantic) with the west coast (Pacific) slinky. Yeah we all know how well they have managed their environment on the east coast, that’s why they no longer have a cod fishery.
Their number one industry, harvested to near extinction, guess they have no choice but to accept oil extraction jobs now.
We still have a BILLION dollar fishery that needs to be protected, and a multi-million dollar seafood industry that require’s the same protection.
Bottom line; the proposed pipeline, to be owned and operated by the keystone cops, has way too much risk compared to pathetic and pitiful benefits for British Columbians. GET LOST ENBRIDGE!!!
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