What a week. Amidst the blur of World Cup shenanigans and Canada Day festivities, politicians dropped not one, not two, but three massive pipeline announcements. 

First, there was the multibillion-dollar federal commitment for infrastructure projects in B.C. What does this have to do with pipelines, you ask? Well, the agreement also included a promise to maintain the federal oil tanker ban off B.C.’s North Coast and $10 billion to upgrade the Roberts Bank export terminal (that’s the huge shipping terminal you can see from BC Ferries as you approach Tsawwassen, FYI). 

That brings us to the second announcement, which came just a few hours later when Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced a plan for a southern route for a new oil pipeline to the West Coast that would largely follow the right-of-way for the Trans Mountain pipeline, except — surprise, surprise! — it would end at Roberts Bank. This theoretical pipeline would be planned and built by the federally owned Trans Mountain Corp., with Pembina Pipeline Corp. taking a 10 per cent stake in construction. Oh, and it would cost between $35 billion and $44 billion (mostly in taxpayer money).

As if that wasn’t enough to process, on Monday Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Smith proposed another pipeline called Northern Shield, which would take oilsands bitumen to refineries in Sarnia, Ont. There’s also no private backer for this pipeline and, notably, no formal federal support. The chief of Aamjiwnaang First Nation, meanwhile, says the nation hasn’t been consulted on the proposal thus far and notes it’s still in the midst of a benzene crisis and dealing with the fallout of a March 2026 pipeline spill.

The headlines have been coming so fast and furious, it’s been tough to keep up. I spent the week scouring the internet, trying to get my head around it all. Some of the most insightful commentary I came across was from Amy Janzwood, an assistant professor in political science and environment at McGill University — so I called her up to pick her brain on, well, all of it. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

What have you noticed about the pipeline discussion in the media over the last week? 

All the media coverage I saw has been stenography, basically. Just regurgitating all of the talking points of [Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Tim] Hodgson, Carney and Smith. It’s been extremely uncritical coverage. The kind of making of a pipeline out of literally nothing other than taxpayer dollars has been quite dizzying and shocking to see. 

The questions I was asked a year ago about pipeline politics are very different than the questions I get now. Before I’d get asked: “What’s the prospect of another major oil pipeline? Is this a political fantasy?” But now there’s a slippage into engaging on the terms of the Smith government. The lack of context I’ve seen in the reporting on this is in part because of the firehose of announcements, and media outlets are just not able to keep up.

You have noted before that legacy media often uncritically repeat the narratives of the oil industry. It sounds like you’re still seeing that? Are any particular examples coming to mind? 

Hodgson has basically become the voice of the industry and I see that repeated verbatim, without any kind of interrogation. One very clear example I see over and over again is the profitability narrative around the Trans Mountain pipeline when we know this is actually not a profitable pipeline. You could argue there are good reasons to have it and we can have that debate, but [federal politicians] like to say that this is a profitable pipeline, which is straight up not true, so that’s one example of things that I see kind of repeated very uncritically.

Given that it’s not a profitable pipeline, what are the real reasons you think we’re seeing such broad political support for it in this moment?

There has been incredibly powerful messaging from the Carney government that we can have it all. We’ve seen this misconstrual of economic anxiety, sort of pinned on the hopes of another pipeline, which couldn’t be further from the reality. 

Pipelines have become kind of a stand-in for the future of oil and gas. It’s become a stand-in for a lot of really difficult conversations.

Canadians are still broadly supportive of climate action and renewable energy, but they’re also more supportive of pipelines now than they have been for at least the last decade. What do you make of that contradiction? 

As political scientists, we’ve long known that public opinion can largely be shaped by our political elites. I’m not surprised when I hear things from our prime minister and minister of natural resources around the need to build more pipelines, that there is this slippage or confusion that this is going to reduce our reliance in any way on the U.S. If you’re not following this closely, then that sounds great, if you’re being told this is what we need to keep Canada prosperous and strong. 

But as someone who has studied pipelines for over 10 years, those are promises new pipelines will not be able to deliver on. I think the public has largely forgotten the cost and divisiveness about Energy East, about Northern Gateway, about Trans Mountain. Unless you’re directly affected and witnessing and experiencing the impacts of these projects, those costs to you, those environmental risks are not salient. It has long been difficult for folks to make that connection when we’re told this is necessary for our economy, and when the economic benefits are as overstated as they often are.

Canadians are repeatedly told that pipelines are what’s needed to keep Canada prosperous and strong. What are political leaders misrepresenting when they say that? 

Fundamentally when we’re talking about major new pipelines, you’re going to need significant greenfield oilsands expansion to fill it. [A greenfield project is a new project built on undeveloped land.] We’ve seen the economics of the oilsands have not been trending towards that for the last several years to decades. Investors in the oilsands were really pressuring companies to deliver on their dividends. There was not an appetite for massive new expansions; it was not economic and it still is not. It would actually harm the industry if they can’t fill the pipeline. 

If we’re now talking about a hypothetical West Coast pipeline, the volatility and the reliance on global oil prices and very uncertain demand … there is not a long-term case to be made for increasing oil expansion to the degree that would be required for a major new pipeline.

This is not economic for the industry, so this will be taxpayer-funded. And there’s no certainty about demand for this hypothetical oil that the industry does not seem willing to produce, although Smith has alluded to doing whatever she can to stimulate further oilsands production with additional provincial support. 

It’s quite misleading to suggest we would need a new pipeline to diversify away from the U.S. I do think we do need to have important conversations about how to become more resilient in light of having the Trump administration. But spending billions of dollars for a pipeline that we don’t think the industry can fill is not the way to do it. 

Politicians also increasingly claim that Canada can indefinitely expand oil and gas production while meeting our climate commitments. Is that actually possible?

The short answer is no. This myth was alive and well under the Trudeau government. The Trudeau government really pioneered this narrative that we can have Trans Mountain and the oil expansion that comes with it and meet our climate targets and use the money from Trans Mountain to pay for the clean energy transition.

The latest iteration of this argument is this promise of carbon capture and storage. My take is that this is something the industry has never really been serious about doing.

Since Pathways Alliance [now called Oil Sands Alliance] announced its carbon capture and storage project in 2022, we’ve seen absolutely no significant investment of any kind in this project. And we know that they’ve just quietly stepped back from the amount of emissions reductions they’re promising.

It’s been quite troubling to see the Carney government so unquestioningly provide this narrative that we can have decarbonized oil — which is, of course, a contradiction.

You have described expanding fossil fuel exports as like saving for retirement by doubling down at the casino. Can you explain why that is?

Let’s not forget that oil and gas is a relatively small part of Canada’s GDP … but looking at the media coverage, you would not know that. 

The conversation we’re having right now is a federal government that has continuously found new and ever-creative ways to subsidize fossil fuel expansions, whether that’s LNG [liquefied natural gas], oilsands or carbon capture and storage, and telling the public that this is necessary. 

Let’s set aside LNG for now (the economics of LNG are a bit different), but about oil specifically, this is an industry that’s had record profits that’s been unwilling to pay for its own pollution — it is a cost the industry has very successfully avoided, whether that’s orphan wells and cleanup or carbon. 

We’re told we need to double down and it’s necessary for economic prosperity. But what we’re seeing is the bill that’s racking up that taxpayers are on the hook for — when there’s an industry that can very well pay for it, and is unwilling to because they know they have a government that will backstop it. They now have a government that will buy a pipeline and that now has a state-owned pipeline company that is promising to be a backer for another new pipeline, which honestly, if you had told me that even 12 months ago, I would not believe you. It is absolutely mind-boggling. 

The Narwhal is going to be following all of these issues closely. If you have thoughts or a story tip email editor@thenarwhal.ca

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On Thursday night, I did a rare thing for me these days: I watched a television newscast, drawn in by the on-the-ground coverage of the devastating toll of wildfires on Jasper National Park in Alberta. 

The shocking footage of the Jasper town site — where Alberta Premier Danielle Smith suggested 30 to 50 per cent of buildings have potentially been damaged by a massive wall of fire that swept into town Wednesday night — struck a deep chord with me. Like many others, I have cherished childhood memories of the park, but I won’t waste space waxing poetic about them here. 

What struck me most about the coverage was how deeply impacted Smith was by the loss of Jasper. Struggling to speak, Smith described that quintessential Alberta feeling of seeing the Rocky Mountains on the horizon. 

“With some of the most beautiful scenery in the entire world, our grandparents visited to experience the majesty of this place with its mountains, lakes and meadows. They took our parents, who then took us to this special spot that they’d spent time in as children,” Smith said through tears.

“And now we take our own kids and our own loved ones and visitors from around the world to feel that same feeling that you get. Your first glimpse of the mountains on the horizon. A feeling that even though you’ve just left home, you’re coming home.”

What Smith is describing is awe, a unique emotion with incredible powers. Dacher Keltner, the author of Awe: The new science of everyday wonder and how it can transform your life, defines it as “the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world.” 

You might feel awe when you step out under a night sky of stars, look up at an old-growth forest or watch a raging river tumble past you. 

Jasper induced that sense of awe in millions of people around the world, etching it into hearts and minds forever. I’ve long been fascinated by awe, because it makes us feel more connected to other people and the natural world. Indeed, it might just hold the keys to navigating us out of these polarized times. 

So when I heard Smith, who’s not exactly known for her love of the natural world, expressing awe at that feeling of seeing the mountains, I paid attention. Smith has come around to believing in climate change since her earlier days as a politician, but since taking office in the fall of 2022, she has thrown up roadblocks to renewable energy projects, fuelled misinformation about wildfires and pushed back against federal environmental policies like net-zero targets and carbon pricing.

Still, in these divided times, we need to spend less time looking for what separates us and more time looking for what unites us. And that feeling of seeing the mountains on the horizon? It transcends political parties, policies and posturing. Our shared grief for the loss of a place that so many of us cherish presents an opportunity. 

Just as fires rage across much of western Canada, so too do political debates about the causes of the fires. Is it climate change? Is it the mountain pine beetle epidemic? Is it a lack of prescribed burns and a banning of Indigenous burning practices? Is it bureaucratic and government inaction? 

When tragedy strikes, everyone wants to point fingers and come up with a clear answer. We all want certainty in an uncertain world. And yet, the causes of wildfires are complex and there’s no single answer as to why so many of our communities are threatened by wildfires in this moment. 

As Edward Struzik, author of Dark days at noon: The future of fire, writes for The Conversation: “Fire has no ideology or preferences; it will always be quite simply a chemical reaction, a propulsive oxidation of hydrocarbons shaped by terrain, weather, climate and the combustible material around it. We must learn to live with fire, and find ways of containing it for fire will never learn to live with us.”

Struzik says the devastation in Jasper reinforces just how much we need a national wildfire strategy to bring together all levels of governance to map out a blueprint for how to better predict, prevent, mitigate and manage fires, and how to provide small communities with the resources they need to make them more resilient.

The true solutions aren’t sexy and don’t make for great soundbites. They’re multi-faceted, and require coordination and funding. And even with our best efforts, we are still going to live with the reality that many Canadian communities are situated amidst vast forests, in a warming world more prone to drought, heatwaves and fire. So uncertainty around fires is going to be part of our reality moving forward, like it or not. 

Here’s what we do know: for every story like Jasper that captures international headlines, there are thousands more hectares of forest being burned to the ground, dozens more communities — many of them Indigenous — threatened by flames, millions of animals with no evacuation centres to run to and hundreds more families driven from their homes. 

Every place being burnt to the ground holds emotional resonance for the people who live there, just as Jasper has that power to connect deeply with people from around the world. Let’s remember that as we grieve for Jasper.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This story has been co-published with The Globe and Mail.

When I moved to Youbou, B.C., on the shores of Cowichan Lake in January, the first neighbour to come and say hello was Bob. 

He weighed approximately 800 pounds but had the curiosity of a kitten as he approached the fence moments after we pulled in the driveway. Word of Bob the elk had preceded him in this small Vancouver Island community. We knew who he was right away, thanks to the tag in his left ear. “Hey buddy,” I said as my husband took a video. 

Bob was not just any elk. At approximately 15 years old, he was about 100 in wild elk years. He injured his foot so badly a few years back that a B.C. government veterinarian examined him several times. On another occasion, Bob was tranquilized because he had a wire stuck in his antlers. He’d been featured on the local TV station and residents raised funds in an attempt to erect a statue of him in the local park. On the community Facebook page, residents regularly posted photos of Bob. People were quick to comment: “So cute.” “Bob is a sweetheart.” “I love Bob.” 

But it didn’t take long to learn the resident Roosevelt elk herd — listed as a species of special concern in B.C. — was a polarizing subject in this former sawmill town. “Everything you love, they eat it,” one of my new neighbours warned. Poachers have been known to shoot and kill elk here, sometimes leaving them whole.

Despite this, we couldn’t help but feel Bob’s greeting was something of a good omen. My husband and I had moved to this end-of-the-road community with hopes of a fresh start after hard times (think: three floods, a stolen car, an attempted break-in, a car accident and several more heartbreaking losses). It was Bob who had drawn our attention to our new home. As we drove around the area last summer, there was Bob, standing beside a “for sale” sign. 

A month after moving in, on Feb. 25, I was enjoying a slow morning reading in bed when my husband came upstairs and broke the news: “I think Bob might have been killed last night.” According to a Facebook post, a large male elk had been hit by a car near our house at 2:45 a.m. Everyone was worried it was Bob. By the afternoon, a photo of the dead elk on the road had been posted on the community Facebook page. Wendy Stokes — who gave Bob his name — confirmed it was him. Amid outcry, the photo was removed. 

When Stokes heard an elk had been hit, she got straight into her car wearing pyjamas and drove to the Lake Cowichan RCMP station, looking for answers. On the way, she passed Bob’s blood on the asphalt. Unable to confirm the elk’s identity, next she went looking for his body down a gravel road, in a place where highway crews often dump roadkill. But she couldn’t find Bob. 

The questions from the community were immediate: had the driver been drinking or speeding? Was it even possible to hit an elk if you were obeying the speed limit of 50 km/h? Where was his body? 

The story unravelled before me like a true-crime mystery, nature edition. 

I had my own questions about what had led elk to live here in the first place and why there wasn’t better signage warning drivers about them being on the road. And I wondered how many other elk had died in collisions. 

The night after Bob’s death, I lay awake and thought about him on the pavement outside my home, dying. I needed to know Bob’s story and what factors led to his demise. What did this community’s love for this animal tell us about our relationship with the natural world? And what could Bob’s death teach us?

The complicated history of Roosevelt elk in British Columbia

“Roosevelt elk are an iconic, genetically pure species of elk. They’re beautiful animals, they’re big and they’re co-existing across a human-altered landscape,” Leonard Sielecki, CEO of Wildlife Logistics, told me. Sielecki recently retired as the head of wildlife-vehicle collision monitoring and mitigation for the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, so I called him to talk about Bob. 

“There’s something about a Roosevelt elk: their colouring, the way their antlers are set, the way they present themselves, God, it goes right to the core of my heart,” Sielecki said. “They are an animal that people become attached to.”

Roosevelt elk — the largest subspecies of elk — were once abundant throughout much of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest. But an ever-expanding human population and overhunting led to declines. Roosevelt elk were largely extirpated from B.C.’s south coast in the 1880s; by 1986, scientists estimated there were fewer than 50 remaining there. Conservation efforts, including translocating elk from healthier populations on Vancouver Island to the mainland, enabled the population to rebound.

The population on Vancouver Island also bounced back. Between 1981 and 2024, the Roosevelt elk population here roughly doubled, from 2,700 to an estimate of 5,300 to 6,300, according to the Ministry of Water, Lands and Resource Stewardship. But the vast majority of those elk live on the north end of the island, whereas Bob lived in the south. 

The resurgence of Roosevelt elk is a rare conservation success story, according to Adam Ford, an associate professor of biology at UBC Okanagan, who studies the impact of human activity on the predator-prey relationship.

“Most major wildlife species in British Columbia are declining,” Ford told me. “These are little bright spots in a very dark landscape. Taken as a whole, the whole Roosevelt elk story is a positive. It speaks to the resilience of the species.”

Roosevelt elk graze on a variety of shrubs, grasses, sedges and trees. They tend to live along forest edges, river banks, recently burned forest stands or clearcuts. That makes a place like Youbou, a community built around the logging industry, prime habitat for elk. 

According to Ford, a key change that helped Roosevelt elk bounce back was improved forest management — chiefly setting aside blocks of mature forest as “ungulate winter ranges” which act as mini protected areas where elk can find food even when snow covers clearcuts.  

In a 2014 management plan for Roosevelt elk, the province stated a goal to remove the animal from the blue list — a list of species “of special concern, vulnerable to extirpation or extinction” — by 2024, while recognizing that has “potential implications for the forestry sector, agriculture and public safety due to the risk of vehicle collisions.”

In my quest to learn more about elk, I sent a lot of emails, texts and Facebook messages. I tried to speak with provincial biologists, the local conservation officer, the local director with the Cowichan Valley Regional District and the Ts’uu baa-asatx First Nation, but wasn’t able to get interviews with any of them. 

A public affairs officer with B.C.’s  Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship sent me a statement saying the management strategy for Roosevelt elk will be updated in 2025 and their conservation status will be reviewed then, too. Staff update population counts every one to five years, they added, and elk populations have increased in most areas across Vancouver Island. 

Human numbers have increased too, with the population of Youbou jumping by 20 per cent between 2016 and 2021, and now sitting at 1,300 people. Residents of Youbou report seeing more elk in town since about 2010. 

While elk have lived on Vancouver Island for at least 12,000 years — and continue to be a culturally important species for First Nations — there are several reasons why elk may be seen in Youbou more now than in the past.

Predators like wolves, cougars and bears are less keen on being close to humans, so populated areas can become something of a “human shield” for elk. 

“Over time, if their survival in town is really high, because there’s no predators and people are feeding them, it doesn’t really create an advantage to migrate,” Ford said.

Then there’s the food. The ministry told me that in addition to shelter from predators, “the availability of non-natural food” is a key attractant for elk.

In recent years, Bob lost a lot of weight, and his ribs started to show. That, combined with his foot injury and familiar presence, created a slippery slope. Some residents started feeding Bob. 

It’s easy to see how once it began, it became hard to stop. In the first couple of weeks in our new home, Bob was waiting for us nearly every time we stepped outside. The first time we tried to walk to our mailbox, Bob cornered us in our driveway. It wasn’t clear whether he wanted us to pet him, feed him or hand over our phones. Not wanting to further habituate him, my husband snapped his fingers and talked sternly to him. Dejected, Bob walked away. Another time he followed me and a friend to the general store, where he headed for the loading dock. “Bob’s eating the cardboard again,” one of the store clerks yelled to the other.

“Feeding them can be bad for their health,” Ford said. “They get used to kind of a bad diet and their digestion gets set up for that … having respect for their wildness is really important.”

While some people admit to intentionally feeding Bob, there are also more indirect ways humans attract animals. The town of Banff, Alta., for example, has a bylaw restricting all animal attractants, from accessible garbage and recyclables, to fruit trees and gardens. The town also has a fruit tree replacement program that covers the cost of swapping a fruit tree for a native non-fruit bearing tree. 

But in Youbou, an unincorporated community within the Cowichan Valley Regional District, the garbage cans don’t have latches and elk can easily knock them over and eat whatever they find inside. And there are no rules about gardens or fruit trees to reduce the attractions for elk and bears alike.

Youbou grieves Bob the elk

Within days of Bob being hit by a car, tote bags, sweaters and mugs with his image were for sale. News of his death made the front page of the Victoria Times Colonist and the local TV station. Two weeks after Bob died, a memorial service was held for him. Torrential rains fell in the morning, but the sky cleared as about 45 people gathered in Little League Park, just 300 metres from where Bob was killed. Many people wore sweatshirts emblazoned with an image of Bob and the words “Youbou’s legend” on the sleeve. Among the attendees were a local RCMP officer and B.C. conservation officer. 

Youbou resident Matt Baird, who co-organized the event, started it off by saying how Bob helped bring him to this off-the-beaten-path community. 

“He had a soothing, yet fiercely powerful way about him,” Baird said, adding Bob would often come and visit his yard, eating from the trees. “After I knew that he was comfortable with me, I would go out and sit near him and enjoy his company. Often I talked to him, half expecting him to reply.”

Baird — a carpenter donning steel-toed boots — shared how when he moved to Youbou from Victoria, he struggled with anxiety, was impatient and sped regularly. 

“Being in Youbou and being around Bob and the other elk has a very therapeutic effect on you. Sitting outside watching and talking to him helped me and taught me to slow down and enjoy the nature around me,” he said, as many people wiped away tears. “I no longer feel so much anxiety. I’m a much more patient person. I enjoy the silence and the sound of nature. More importantly, I’ve learned to slow down while driving.”

For Sielecki, the former government employee responsible for reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions, “Bob represents a pinnacle in wildlife awareness.”

“He had a persona, he had a presence, he had an identity and he was part of that landscape,” Sielecki said, describing Bob as being like “the elder statesperson for the wildlife in your community.” 

“Bob represents a significant loss not just to his herd, but to the human community that he lived in,” he added.

While Bob and his kin are regarded as a nuisance by some in Youbou who roll their eyes at elk being given names, there’s no ignoring the fact he captivated many people here. “I have never heard of a community having a memorial for an animal before,” Sielecki noted.

At the memorial, Baird revealed he knows the person who hit Bob. “[He’s had] the worst couple of weeks of his life,” Baird said.

“It really could have happened to any one of us,” he added. “I was very angry at first, wanting the person to be charged with speeding or whatever. But I realized soon that that’s just a stage of losing someone that you cared about. It was an accident, period.”

The accident: when elk and cars collide

When humans and half-tonne foragers take up residence in the same place, you’re bound to have some conflicts. Just like elk love the fresh greenery in a clearcut, they are also drawn to gardens and the plants that pop up beside roadsides, especially in the spring. Grazing near a roadway poses a danger to humans and elk alike. 

For instance, in 2014, there were an estimated 87 elk in the herd that lives around Highway 18, which runs between Duncan and Lake Cowichan. Since then, about a quarter of the estimated population has been reported killed on the highway, according to data obtained via a freedom of information request. The province’s wildlife-accident reporting system recorded 23 elk as killed on the 40 kilometres of highway between Duncan and Youbou between 2018 and 2022. But wildlife fatalities are seriously underestimated. A 2016 study prepared for the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure found 66 per cent of wildlife-vehicle collisions were not captured. That means the actual number of elk killed could be three times the number reported. 

“Every large wild animal that dies on the highway is an animal that’s removed from that population of animals, it’s also removed from the First Nations food supply, it’s removed from subsistence hunters who are looking to put food on their table,” Sielecki said. (A small number of hunting licences for Roosevelt elk are awarded by lottery each year.) 

In fall 2019, two crashes involving elk happened within 12 hours on Highway 18, prompting police to issue a reminder to watch for wildlife. In one, a woman was killed and two other people were seriously injured. A year before Bob was hit, Lake Cowichan Mayor Tim McGonigle vowed to meet with provincial officials “before another fatality occurs and families are affected by that.”

At issue is how to reduce collisions between vehicles and elk in the region. It’s a surprisingly thorny debate over the merits of signage, the efficacy of lower speed limits and the need for higher-tech options. Before I knew it, I found myself flung down a rabbit hole, talking to expert after expert in the field known as “road ecology.” 

I connected with McGonigle the day after Bob was killed. He told me he has corresponded with the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure about elk collisions and is hoping to meet with the minister this year.

In September 2020, the ministry installed warning signs along Highway 18. These signs flash in low light conditions year-round and warn of elk for the next 20 kilometres. McGonigle said he gave the ministry a number of suggestions, including his conclusion the current signage is ineffective. “The more signs you have, the more you ignore them,” he said. “There’s no easy solution.”

He’d like to see an animal-detection system implemented — similar to those used on Highway 3 between Cranbrook, B.C., and Alberta. The systems use thermal imaging to tell drivers when wildlife is actually on the road, reducing the speed limit in real time.

Research backs McGonigle up. According to Marcel Huijser, a senior research ecologist at the Western Transportation Institute in Montana, the most effective option to reduce wildlife collisions is fencing with overpasses and underpasses. But if that’s not feasible, animal-detection systems can substantially reduce collisions. 

“If the warning is very time specific and location specific, then we see a response in terms of what the drivers do,” Huijser said. Static wildlife warning signs, he added, “are absolutely not effective.”

Huijser’s research has found the average cost of a vehicle collision (based on vehicle repair costs, human injuries and human fatalities) is US$45,445 for an elk and US$82,646 for a moose.

The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure told me it set up cameras from September 2023 through January 2024 to count elk crossing Highway 18. Despite the fact dozens of elk have been killed on that stretch of highway over the last five years, the pilot “recorded no elk at either of the two monitored crossing locations.”

In a statement, the ministry said “after a thorough evaluation” it concluded that elk fencing would not provide “effective ecological protection” on Highway 18.

In the case of Bob’s demise, the RCMP ruled out alcohol and speed as factors in the crash. Huijser’s research has found only half of people travelling at 60 km/h in the dark can see a moose in time to come to a complete stop. Add in rain and fog and we can’t stop as fast as we think we can.

When I asked Huijser how fast a car needs to be moving to cause serious harm to an elk, he had a question for me: “What speed are you comfortable with being hit by a vehicle?” 

After studying wildlife collisions for nearly 30 years, Huijser is frustrated with governments implementing ineffective measures.

“Driving in the dark in areas with large wild mammals is very similar to playing Russian roulette,” he said.

Too often, everyone loses.

‘I’m never gonna feed another wild animal again’

A week after Bob’s memorial, I sat down with Stokes  — Bob’s unofficial human guardian — at her dining room table. A set of Bob’s antlers that he shed in her yard hung above us. As her two rescue dogs buzzed around our feet, she told me she was still searching for Bob’s body. A few days later, she called me to say she’d found Bob’s body at a roadkill dump site, but his antlers had been cut off.

She said some people have blamed her for Bob’s death, due to her role in domesticating him. But others have dropped off flowers and condolence cards. She put a memorial up at her house, with photos and a wooden sign that reads: “R.I.P. Bob. You will be missed.” Another memorial 100 metres down the road marks the place Bob died and is a constant reminder to slow down. 

Bob’s death has given Stokes — and many of us in Youbou — a chance to reflect on our relationship with wild animals.

When Stokes spoke at Bob’s memorial, she didn’t mince words. “I fed Bob,” she said. “I’ve never kept it quiet.” While she’s sad not to see her constant companion any more, Stokes is crystal clear on one thing: “I’m never gonna feed another wild animal again.” 

She went on to describe how feeding him led to her being a prisoner in her own home for years. “Bob knew the sound of my car, the locking mechanism. I’d get out of my car and he’s right there.” Getting in and out of her house became difficult. She couldn’t even walk across the street to the coffee shop.

A new proposed regulation could mean a fine for anyone caught feeding elk and deer in an urban setting on Vancouver Island. “Let’s keep them all skittish,” Stokes said. “If I see people [feeding elk], I will report them.” 

For my part, after weeks of speaking to experts and locals trying to make sense of Bob’s death, I’ve started to come to peace with how the old guy left us. In the wild, an ailing elk would likely be killed by predators, and that’s not exactly a pleasant way to go either. 

When I think back on my limited time knowing Bob, I feel wistful. Some days I like to believe the way he graced us with his presence on our first day in our home really was a good omen, but other days I know he was simply a habituated geriatric elk looking for food. 

The very fact Roosevelt elk are a part of our communities on Vancouver Island is in itself a story of an animal brought back from the brink. 

“It’s just worth remembering that there are success stories out there and that we need to learn from not just our mistakes, but from our successes,” Ford told me. 

“Maybe Bob is both. Maybe what happened to Bob is an example of when we do things right. And an example of what we can learn from.”

In his life, Bob brought a sense of awe and wonder to many. His death has prompted a much-needed conversation about how humans and elk can share the same home. Many more elk will die on our roads this year. None will be as famous as Bob, but each one will be a life lost, and endanger human lives in the process.

— With files from Ainslie Cruickshank

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When I hop on a Zoom call with David Suzuki and Tara Cullis-Suzuki in late January, David is wearing a collared shirt with a red zip-up jacket over top, sporting his trademark wild white hair, beard and glasses. As for Tara, well, it occurs to me that many people probably don’t know what Tara looks like. That’s because she’s been largely behind the scenes orchestrating David’s success during her 51-year marriage to Canada’s most famous scientist.

But David isn’t letting Tara continue as the unsung hero any longer. He interjects several times during our 45-minute conversation to brag about his wife — about her “mind-boggling” thesis, about the time she learned Portuguese and chartered two planes for 40 people into the Amazon rainforest at the drop of a hat and that time she flew with a three-week-old baby and a three-year-old child to meet up with him in England.

At ages 87 and 74, David and Tara are mostly trying to stay out of the limelight these days and act like retired people. But on this day they’re doing publicity for their play, What You Won’t Do For Love, which makes its West Coast premiere this week in Vancouver. 

It’s a production they were initially reluctant to get involved in, but the more they shared their story, the more they realized the playwrights were helping to make sense of their lives. 

“It became clear that the hero of the play is Tara,” David said. Indeed, while he was becoming increasingly famous and travelling around the world filming TV shows, Tara was starting the David Suzuki Foundation, raising their children, finishing her PhD in comparative literature and being “the backbone of the whole thing.”

What You Won’t Do For Love is described as “an intimate experience that poses the question: can the love we have for each other save our planet?” During the 90-minute play, David and Tara are joined onstage by actors and real-life couple Miriam Fernandes and Sturla Alvsvaag. 

“We have to consider what kind of advice we’re going to give and it becomes quite emotional,” Tara says. “It isn’t just two old fogies sitting on the stage, reminiscing.” 

As in life, David and Tara spend the play balancing the dire straits of the planet with the need to have hope.

“Action is hope. Without action, there is no hope,” David says. “You’ve got to be doing something.”

He trails off, referring to them as “old and decrepit now” but Tara cuts in with a rebuttal: “He goes to the gym every day. He says exercise is his medicine.”

She has her own message of hope: “One of the things we’ve noticed is people feel that they can’t make a difference because they are just a drop in the bucket. And yeah, they’re a drop in the bucket. I’m a drop in the bucket. But there’s a hell of a lot of drops, and there’s a lot of us, and it’s so much fun when you suddenly realize, ‘Hey, we’re really powerful.’ ”

Read on for more on how David and Tara met, who hit on who and the best job David has ever had.

What is one of the most poignant moments in the play for you two? What does the other couple ask for advice on?

Tara: They’re really trying to figure out whether they should have children. And that’s a very personal and painful and difficult topic nowadays. And David has been telling them all kinds of things about where we’re going with climate change and species destruction and so on. And so they start asking: is there any hope and why would we bring children into this world? And since our great joy is our children and grandchildren, we’re left with a bit of a conundrum on how to answer that question.

Did you ever struggle with the decision to have children?

Tara: No, our first child was born in 1979. So that was pre real awareness of climate change, which for me came around 1988. There were murmurings of it, but it wasn’t really a daily topic.

David: Well, I like to think that when you have a child, you have made the greatest commitment to the future, and the planet.

Tara: You know, there is nothing a parent or a grandparent wouldn’t do to try to improve things for their offspring.

David: So the child wasn’t just a commitment for Tara and me, it was really reinforcement that we’re in it for the long run. And we’ve got to pull out all stops. I mean, they are what keep us going now. To me, when you stop and you say ‘I’m not going to have children’ deliberately, you’re stopping 150,000 years of evolution. That is a very, very profound moment that we have come to a time when we actually are beginning to say, ‘This is the end, I’m not going to even try to carry on with my species.’ It’s an evolutionary thing that is very, very profound.

How did you first meet?

David: Oh, that’s in the play.

Tara: It was epic really.

David: She picked me up.

Tara: He picked me up. We picked each other up. Well, I had decided that I ought to put in some effort to finding a partner who I was going to spend the rest of my life with because I was in the second year of my master’s degree and I thought ‘Gee, I’ve worked so hard for every essay I write but I never lift a finger to find a partner.’ So I said to myself, ‘Okay, so now if you meet somebody you think is interesting, you’ve got to make an effort. And make sure you meet the person. And don’t just let them wander off and say, “Oh, I hope we run into each other again.” ’ And then two weeks later, along comes David and I go to his lecture. And then I think, ‘Well, that’s the first person I’ve seen who I’d consider marrying, but now I’ve gotta do something about it.’

Okay, so you went to his lecture — and then did you make the approach?

Tara: I just hung around. I didn’t know what to do.

David: I saw her the minute she came in and sat down. It was like there was a light shining on her. But there was something that happened halfway through my speech. It was a big room with over 400 people, it was packed. And suddenly I realized nobody’s listening to me. There’s this kind of commotion. And so I look up and there at the window is a huge snowy owl and this is on the top floor of the highest building on campus. And there was this giant bird kind of looking in the window. And all my Indigenous friends say that was a sign, that owl was there to tell me something. When I finished my lecture, she came down.

Tara: But I didn’t have any question to ask. I was just trying to obey myself.

David: So I said, ‘I hope everybody’s coming to the party tonight’ and I left.

Tara: Then I had to find the party. Anyway, I found it.  

What experience tested you the most as a couple?

David: My being away filming was the real challenge. I mean, I spent so much time in the field and being apart was really the most testing.

Tara: I had two children, I was finishing my PhD. And he was travelling so much. And then I was often a single mother because he was gone. But it was such a blur that I don’t remember it too well, except I remember trying to feed the children at nine o’clock at night and thinking ‘It’s awfully late to be feeding young children and I’m a bad mom.’ My parents lived upstairs, so I could go off back to work. And there were times when I was there until three or four in the morning just trying to get the Suzuki Foundation up off the ground. And it was a lot to do. But it was really exciting and a lot of fun.

Did you ever feel resentful in moments like that, of what you were carrying while David was trotting around the globe being the star?

Tara: Oh, yeah. He always said, ‘Your turn will come. I’ll back you up at some point.’ But he’d always say the next trip is the last trip. And then I’d think, ‘Well, how can that be? He’s doing the show.’ And then I realized, ‘Oh, yeah, the next trip is the last trip. It’s the last trip before the next trip.’

David: But did you ever feel resentful?

Tara: Sure, I would feel resentful. It seemed like I was carrying a lot of the weight of the household. But as I mentioned, my parents were upstairs. I didn’t expect David to be able to carry half the weight because I knew he was doing Suzuki on Science, a national TV program. And I didn’t want him to stop, right? So it wasn’t as if I thought he should be home all the time. And I just felt well, okay, we got to spread the load out. And my parents were happy to help. Like, my dad took care of the house, his father and mother lived just up the road. So they were over every day to help with the kids. And we’ve always had at least a three-generation household. Even now. At one point, it was a four-generation household. And I feel like people need to know that for David to be David Suzuki, he had this huge team … that’s what it takes. 

What You Won’t Do for Love is about the question of whether our love for each other can save our planet. And so many people are struggling with a sense of despair about the state of our planet these days. How does love help you through that sense of despair?

David: Well, without the love, I think you give up. The love is what gives you the strength and the two of us, we both get down and despair, but thank God, it’s never been simultaneous. It’s one or the other. And she has pulled me out many, many times. But I also think it’s a love of Turtle Island, a love of nature.

Tara: I think it’s a very odd thing that when we are trying to work as environmentalists, we are always getting all these facts — we’re using our left brain and we’re trying to use logic and convince politicians and the public and so on. But what is really at the heart of everything we do is emotion, it’s a sense of what could be done to make life better. And that is a kind of love, and it’s not really logical. And that’s why I’m so pleased with the play because it gets at the fact we’re usually ignoring. 

If it weren’t for the love my parents had for us, we wouldn’t have been able to raise the kids well, we wouldn’t have been able to do the work we do. If it wasn’t for the love that all the people who donate money have for whatever their little river is or their grasslands or their trees, then they wouldn’t send any money, we wouldn’t be able to do the work we do. When you get down to it, it’s really based on love.

What is the pace like for you these days, play aside? In your older years, are you getting a chance to kind of sit back and relax and reflect on it all?

Tara: He just retired from The Nature of Things last June. And so you’d think we would be able to do some kind of classic retirement stuff, like go on a nice trip or something. But now he won’t fly because of climate change. And besides, he’s flown so much. So we can’t do that. So we have to kind of travel inside B.C. But our kids are at that stage where they need what we got from our parents.

David: Our youngest daughter is now a co-host of The Nature of Things. So I told her, ‘When you’re gone, I’ll take your place.’ So I’m now in the happiest, greatest job I’ve ever had: I’m a full-time grandpa.

Tara: He catches the bus and goes over to Victoria, and gets up at 6:30 and makes the kids breakfast and gets them into the car to get them to school and everything. They love him and they crawl all over him.

David: Meanwhile, Severn, who’s now the executive director of David Suzuki Foundation, lives upstairs, where her grandma and grandad lived until they died. And so Tara is spending a lot of time with her two boys.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

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When Jane Goodall visited Victoria earlier this year, she had an air of serenity about her. The octogenarian began to walk on-stage in front of a sold-out crowd, leaning on an assistant’s shoulder and using a cane to assist her. But then she abruptly hopped across the stage, lithe as can be — no cane necessary.

“That was poor 88-year-old Jane Goodall,” she quipped from the mic. 

The world’s best-known naturalist isn’t slowing down for anyone or anything — least of all her age. But when I caught up with her five months after her visit to Victoria, via Zoom, she seemed a little weary of all of her time on the road.

Bundled up in a turtleneck and puffy jacket, she told me that wherever she goes she tries to find a little pocket of nature — even in downtown L.A., where she was travelling at the time of our call. 

“If I go to a hotel, and there’s one tree, I will sometimes move my whole bed around so that I can just be there and see the tree,” she said. “A little bird comes on the palm tree outside the window. I like it.” Despite her attempts to find these little pockets, a day spent in nature “doesn’t happen very often,” she said — in part because of her relentless schedule to spread the message she learned from observing chimpanzees in their natural habitat.

That message — that we are part of and not separated from the animal kingdom and that we all have a part to play in saving our planet — is arguably more important now than ever before, as the world grapples with runaway climate change and the sixth mass extinction in history. 

“The absurd thing is the idea that’s been prevalent in economics for so long, that you can have unlimited economic development everywhere. But the planet has finite natural resources,” she said. “We can’t go on demanding more and more … So we have to have a different kind of business and a different kind of economy and a different definition of success.”

I chatted to Goodall about how she stays hopeful, Zoom fatigue and the dramatic changes to the natural world she’s witnessed during her lifetime.

You talk often about hope. I’ve noticed lately that it seems almost a little bit fashionable to be cynical, to kind of throw up your hands and say ‘it’s all hopeless.’ But you’ve said that hope is a survival skill that enables us to keep going in the face of adversity. Why do you think so many people seem to be giving up hope these days?

Well, it’s very obvious. If you just look around the world, then you can’t help but lose hope. I mean, you have feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. If you look at what’s happening politically, socially, environmentally. You’ve got the war with Ukraine, there’s major loss of biodiversity, we’re still losing forests, we’ve got industrial agriculture poisoning the land and soil, with its pesticides and herbicides damaging biodiversity. And so, you know, the picture globally is grim. And you can’t look around and not feel sort of despairing. So when people come to me and say, they’re losing hope, or they’ve lost hope, I say, ‘Well, you know, stop looking all around the world, just think about where you are, or some project that you really care about, and roll up your sleeves and do something about that.’

Throughout all the things that have happened in your life, have you ever felt yourself personally lose hope?

Well, I’ve been in a situation. I don’t know if it’s losing hope, but feeling desperate, because things had gone so wrong. Like when four of my students were kidnapped, and all the funding melted away from Gombe, and it looked as though it would have to be closed. And I knew that that could not be. So I had to go around with my hat in my hand, at the same time as finding a new executive director for the Jane Goodall Institute in the U.S. It just seemed hopeless. But we managed to steer through. And that was a pretty bad time. But I don’t think I’ve ever lost hope. I’ve been with my back against the wall. But that makes me determined to fight.

So is one of your tricks to staying hopeful to kind of turn that sense of anger or pressure around?

Yes, into action. Because being angry and depressed isn’t helping anything. And feeling angry, yes, one of course feels angry. And then you can channel that anger into making a difference. And the same when you feel kind of desperate and depressed. 

You’re 88 years old now. Looking back on your life, do you have any regrets?

Not really. I mean, I’ve made mistakes. But you know, we all make mistakes. And I’ve tried to learn from them. I suppose, in a way, I wish my first marriage had lasted but it couldn’t. So that was a shame for my son particularly. But that’s life. It just wasn’t working. And so it had to end. But apart from that, I don’t think I’ve had major regrets. I mean, I’ve done things that were silly, and had to go back and redo them. 

Right now, scientists and leaders of countries from all over the world are meeting in Montreal, for COP15, the global biodiversity convention, and hoping to reach an agreement to reverse biodiversity loss. How have you witnessed biodiversity change during your lifetime?

Massively. I just need to think of the house I grew up in. Me and my sister, we own it, she lives there with her family, and I go back between trips. And I would say, 50 per cent of the birds that I knew around that area as a child have gone, due mostly to herbicides and pesticides on people’s lawns, the proliferation of roads and traffic. They used to have hedgehogs. Gone. No more hedgehogs around there anymore. And when I was a child, if you opened the windows at night, then with the light on, your room was filled with bugs of all sorts. Now I get excited if one moth comes in — the insects have just gone. And that, of course, is one of the reasons why we’ve lost birds. So just in that one place, I’ve seen the result of loss of biodiversity.

And what kind of commitments do you think world leaders should be making at this COP15 in Montreal right now?

Well, I wish they would do more than make pledges. And somehow, we could find a way of having them actually do what they say they’re going to do. Because so many of the COPs have been all these wonderful pledges. And if you go back to the Paris Agreement, I don’t think any country lived up to what they promised in the way of emissions. So I don’t know. I mean, one always hopes. I think the main thing that goes on at these COPs is the networking that goes on and brings groups all passionate about the same area of conservation getting together, agreeing to collaborate, because it’s collaboration that we need, if we’re going to reverse climate change and loss of biodiversity. And those two go together, because climate change is definitely affecting the loss of biodiversity.

Earlier this year, when you visited Canada after a three-year COVID hiatus, what conservation work did you learn about that you found the most interesting or exciting?

Well, for one, I actually visited the re-greening of Sudbury. I was there as part of an IMAX film. I was there before, and the change was enormous. So that’s very exciting. And then I know that the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada is doing an awful lot of work with Indigenous people. And they’re using the approach of community-led conservation that we use all over the world, that they’re trying to get protection for more and more of the Indigenous lands. 

Do you ever want to just kind of slow down a bit and travel less and do less? Like, what is keeping you going at this point?

Well, lots of people said it must have been lovely during the height of COVID to be at home and stop travelling. I’ve never ever been as exhausted in my entire life, because I was doing up to four Zooms a day, all around the world. And my voice has never recovered. It just got so overused. So it was virtual conferences, virtual lectures, virtual panels, then it was messages. It was stuff for the different Jane Goodall Institutes — 27 of them. And it was just nonstop. I didn’t have one day off. I didn’t have one weekend off. I didn’t have one holiday. We decided that because during the pandemic, the number of hits on social media for me went up dramatically from about a million at the beginning of the pandemic to now about 1 billion. So it was decided, well, Jane should travel less and do more Zooms and social media, you know, that kind of thing. So what happens? Now I’m doing the travelling and having to do the Zooms as well. 

So you’re doing even more? I mean, I guess that comes back to the why question. You know, theoretically, you could do less, but you keep doing all of these things. Why?

I think I came to this world with a reason. I think I have a mission. And the mission is to keep hope alive. And encourage people to take action now, not just moan and groan, not just talk about what should be done, but actually roll up their sleeves and get to work and do it, and help people understand every day we live, we make some kind of difference. And we can choose what kind of difference we make. So if enough people are making ethical choices in how they live, then that’s going to move towards a much better world.

And where do you recommend that people start? 

Well, I feel one of the major problems we’re facing vis-a-vis climate change, loss of biodiversity, is industrial agriculture, and particularly farming of animals — billions and billions of animals around the world are in factory farms, so that they all need to be fed, huge areas of land cleared to grow the food to feed them, lots of fossil fuel used to move the food, get the grain to the animals, get the meat to the table and sometimes around the world. And so, they also produce methane gas, which is a very, very virulent greenhouse gas, and all these things are contributing to climate change. So moving towards a vegan diet if possible, and you know, otherwise, please be vegetarian. But when you learn how the laying hens are treated, when you learn how the milk cows are treated, it makes you so sick that you don’t want to eat those eggs or drink that milk. So I just stopped.

How long have you been vegan for? 

I won’t say I’m 100 per cent vegan. During the pandemic I was because I was at home, and you could choose the food. But you know, when you’re traveling all the time, you just cannot be unless you take food with you. We ask people to do vegan meals. I went vegetarian in 1969 when I read Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation, and I am vegan as much as I can now. 

What does a perfectly happy day look like for you?

Well, a happy day for me is if I can be out in nature somewhere. 

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

In the depths of this record-breaking B.C. drought, pretty much everyone I know is tormented by two opposing sentiments: 1) Overwhelming joy at the endless summer we’re having and 2) A growing sense of anxiety about how nearly three months with no rain in much of B.C. is impacting, well, all other living things.

While much of southern B.C. smashes temperature records and wildfires run rampant in mid-October, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that we’re a bit like a frog in a pot of boiling water: slowly dying. 

A video posted on Twitter by William Housty last week, which showed a dry creek in Heiltsuk territory full of dead salmon, racked up nearly 200,000 views and inspired dozens of news articles.

“We knew that the water levels had been low because we had such a dry end of the summer,” Housty said, but still he was “shocked” to see how bad it was.

“This isn’t just about the drought. This is about long-term persistent climate change that we’ve been living with for some time,” says Scott Hinch, a professor of fisheries conservation in the University of British Columbia’s department of forest and conservation sciences. “Salmon habitats have been changing over the last 20 to 25 years.”

Those changes include both higher water temperatures and big variations to water levels.

“Salmon are suffering death by a thousand cuts. If they’re not experiencing higher temperatures, they’re experiencing areas where there’s very little water, or they’re seeing water at levels either high or low that they’re historically not normally experiencing.”

While some salmon are being stranded as streams dry up, as was the case in Heiltsuk territory, in other cases salmon are waiting in the ocean or in a lake for their spawning stream to appear in the first place. All that waiting around causes its own problems. 

“These adult migrants are on a one-way ticket to death. Once they’ve initiated their migrations to leave the oceans, it’s a one-way ticket. They can’t turn around. They have to keep going,” Hinch says. “They can hold off for maybe a week or two, but their biological clocks are ticking … They are going to die, potentially unspawned, if they can’t get to their spawning streams.” 

B.C.’s drought isn’t just impacting salmon

Richard Hebda, an ecologist who has studied the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, predicted 30 years ago that western red cedars would struggle in a warmer, drier climate. 

“Most trees have a way of dealing with drought in the late summer, but this is well beyond, I suspect, what many of them can handle,” he said. “I never thought it would take place this quickly … These barometers are telling us in no uncertain terms that transformation of our natural landscape is taking place — and it’s irreversible.”

Several years of dry conditions are catching up not only with red cedars but also with Douglas fir trees — which are typically seen as more adapted to the drier climate of southern Vancouver Island — Hebda said. 

“They don’t like it when it’s dry in October,” he says, looking out his window at a Douglas fir to confirm that its needles are dying. “That’s unusual.”

Over the last four to five years, Douglas firs on rocky knolls and shallow soils have been dying.

“We have to save what we have now,” Hebda said. “This whole business of old-growth logging is just totally inappropriate in terms of climate change because it’ll never be replaced. There’ll never be old-growth of the kind we have now.” 

Hebda says on top of the more obvious die-off of salmon and trees, there’s the underlying biodiversity crisis that many people don’t see — the bears and the birds that rely on western red cedars, for instance.

“Everything is connected. If you take away one of the major elements of that connection system, you utterly alter it,” he said.

Hebda predicts red cedars will essentially disappear from eastern Vancouver Island by 2050. 

“Our demands on nature all over the globe are way beyond what nature can handle in terms of biological diversity, which is the basis for the diversity of life,” the 72-year-old Hebda says, trailing off as he watches a hummingbird pollinate his fuchsia. 

“It’ll be a very, very different place by 2050.”

Nature’s ability to adapt

While Hebda describes humans as “beyond greedy,” he emphasizes that there’s hope in that we know how to live in different climates and we now know more than ever about how to live sustainably. 

“We just have to change,” he says. 

It turns out that salmon may be better at changing than humans.

“The species are not going to just disappear,” Hinch says. “What we’re going to start to see over time is a shuffling of populations.”

Some salmon populations in the U.S. are on the verge of extinction and numerous populations in the Fraser Basin are listed as endangered or threatened, Hinch notes. “As climate change wreaks havoc it is going to push some populations over the edge.” 

“As evidence of how fast things are changing, we now have strong populations of salmon in the Arctic,” he says. “We didn’t have those a decade ago. The species are voting with their fins.”

For humans, however, moving can be more complicated. Andrea Reid, a citizen of the Nisg̱a’a Nation who leads the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Indigenous Fisheries, said she’s really cognizant of how drought is transforming her nation’s whole watershed. 

“I’m told by some of my Elders that we used to have more than 500 spawning creeks and streams in the Nass River valley. Now we have just over 300, so we have lost considerable habitat for salmon. The impacts are really large for fish and also for people here and across B.C. that depend on these organisms not only for food, but for core elements of our cultures, languages and traditions.” 

While many people are paying attention to the plight of salmon in this particularly dry moment, the issue is not a new one. 

“It is a tragedy and one that we’re already living,” Reid says. “We’re seeing communities effectively cut off from salmon access all over the province of British Columbia. We’re seeing that play out over the past many decades.” 

Reid recently co-hosted an international Indigenous salmon peoples gathering and heard stories from around the globe about the loss of salmon. 

“I heard from our brothers and sisters from Kamchatka to the Yukon to Sámi in northern Finland and Norway all talk about the centrality of salmon and what the loss of salmon means for all of our peoples,” she said. “For everyone, it’s a very scary future to look to because there is this question of ‘who are we without salmon?’ ” 

The importance of salmon in Indigenous cultures also means people are willing to fight to protect them, Reid said. 

“We see lots of creative solutions emerging but whether or not that can keep pace with the level of change, that remains to be seen,” she said. 

Housty hopes that the viral salmon video shows people “that this isn’t just a problem that the Heiltsuk are facing.” “The only way we’re going to turn things around is to do it together on a larger global scale,” he said.

For now, there’s still no rain in the forecast for most of British Columbia. And when the rains do come, the long drought will increase the chance of catastrophic flooding like we saw last year. 

It’s a disorienting roller coaster ride: heat domes, wildfires, floods, droughts. What’s clear is the climate is changing at an alarming rate — and whether you’re a fish, a fir tree or a human, the consequences are becoming hard to ignore. 

— With files from Lindsay Sample

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After a decades-long fight against the Site C dam, Monday was a bittersweet day for West Moberly First Nations Chief Roland Willson. 

The Nation and the province announced a partial settlement agreement has been reached over the beleaguered hydroelectric project on the Peace River in northeastern B.C., which will see the release of West Moberly’s claims against the Site C project in exchange for an impact and benefits agreement and contracting opportunities. 

“Site C has progressed to a point where it is unlikely that any judge will order the dam dismantled. Because of this, we have reluctantly agreed to settle that portion of our court case related to Site C,” read a statement from West Moberly First Nations.

“The final nail in the coffin was a while ago,” Chief Roland Willson told The Narwhal. “They had no intention of stopping.”

“We’re never going to be in agreement with Site C. That’s never going to happen. And every time we drive by that development it’s going to be a constant reminder of what’s been done to us,” Willson said. “Forcing us into this situation like this is not something to be proud of. They beat us into submission, basically.” 

A 2014 federal-provincial review of the Site C dam found the project would cause “significant adverse effects” to First Nations’ fishing, hunting and trapping. Construction on the project began in 2015, with then-premier Christy Clark vowing to get the project past the “point of no return.” In 2019, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called for the B.C. government to suspend construction of the Site C dam until the project obtained the “free, prior and informed consent” of Indigenous Peoples, but construction continued. 

Asked about the toll fighting the dam for three decades has taken on his Nation, Willson said “it’s massive.” 

“We’ve expended an enormous amount of energy, an enormous amount of goodwill from our supporters. And that’s the sad part of this is we kinda feel we’ve let people down. But the reality is we’ve done everything that we could do to try to stop this and they just kind of ran over us,” he said. “We’re at the point now where we’ve got to pick up the pieces.” 

The Site C dam is a 1,100 megawatt hydro dam that has been proposed as the third dam on the Peace River since the 1970s. The cost of the project has ballooned from $7.9 billion since 2014, when it was reviewed by a federal-provincial panel, to over $16 billion, making it both the costliest dam in Canadian history and the most expensive publicly funded infrastructure project in B.C. history. When Site C is completed, it will flood 128 kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries, putting Indigenous burial grounds, traditional hunting and fishing areas, habitat for more than 100 species vulnerable to extinction and some of Canada’s richest farmland under up to 50 metres of water.

In its decades-long fight against the dam, West Moberly First Nations launched judicial reviews and made an injunction application, before filing a civil lawsuit against the province. 

West Moberly will direct the benefits of the Site C settlement toward reclaiming and restoring land, revitalizing the community’s culture and “protecting the best of what’s left.” 

The remainder of the civil claim, which relates to the cumulative impacts of resource development and previous dams on the Peace River, has not been settled but has been paused while the Nation and the province enter confidential discussions to resolve matters.

“I appreciate that it has been a difficult decision for West Moberly to resolve its claims against Site C,” Chris O’Riley, president and CEO, BC Hydro said in a joint press release. “These agreements provide us a foundation to move forward together in a manner that fosters a mutually beneficial relationship.”

Site C dam ‘should have never gotten to this stage’ 

Peace Valley farmer Ken Boon, an outspoken critic of the Site C dam, said the settlement agreement seemed “inevitable.” 

“I tip my hat to West Moberly. They truly tried to stop this dam and save the valley and unfortunately that wasn’t to be,” he said. 

Boon had hoped that the West Moberly fight would help light a way forward to resolve this type of conflict differently in the future, but he doesn’t feel hopeful after reading the comments from government and BC Hydro in their press release on the settlement. 

“On the surface, I don’t see any change from the government or BC Hydro’s perspective on how projects will be brought forward or moved forward and that’s what we need. We can’t afford to do any more bad projects like this in the face of climate change and reconciliation,” Boon said. “We’ve got to have a better way of advancing projects. It should have never gotten to this stage.”

Asked if the fight against Site C is officially over, Boon said: “If anything is going to stop it now, it’s probably going to be geotechnical problems.”

An investigation by The Narwhal’s Sarah Cox in 2020 revealed that senior officials with the B.C. government knew about deepening geotechnical problems and budget issues for more than a year before the public was informed. 

“We’ve already seen how the B.C. government and BC Hydro will literally move mountains of dirt and mountains of money to keep this thing going and I expect they’ll continue doing that and probably get a project built,” Boon said.

Boon said many people have already left the Peace Valley, but he and his wife Arlene are still living in their third-generation farmhouse, enjoying a lush, green landscape after a wet spring. On Tuesday morning, just like hundreds of mornings before, they got up at 6 a.m., listened to the birds singing and put on a pot of coffee. 

While they are feeling sad about news of the settlement, they are still finding beauty amidst it all. 

“Right here, at our house, we still look out and it’s still fairly beautiful, despite some of the destruction that you have to look at,” Boon said. “The swallows are here in force. They’re just a joy, hey? You can’t help but be a little cheerful when there’s literally hundreds and hundreds of swallows of three different species that converge on our yard every year. I like to think that they’re old buddies that come back every year.” 

Once the reservoir flooding begins in 2023 the Boons’ future is uncertain, but they are going to do everything they can to stay in the valley. 

“I can’t think of any place I’d rather live,” Boon said. “We know our days are numbered in the current situation. We’re kinda just rolling with the punches.” 

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Reaction to The Narwhal’s investigation into allegations of verbal abuse and safety issues at Pacific Wild was swift this week, with The Globe and Mail, Politico, The Tyee and the Capital Daily sharing our story and dozens of readers reaching out to thank us for taking it on, despite its difficulty. 

“If something like this were happening at an organization I worked for — or even led — I think it would be important for these stories to be told. Our sector has to be accountable,” tweeted Chris Rider, executive director of CPAWS Yukon.

“Well-evidenced and enlightening. Truly a reflection of The Narwhal’s commitment to the truth and professional reporting and investigative journalism, even when uncomfortable,” tweeted Clayton Lamb, a wildlife scientist at the University of British Columbia.

“Thank you for your conviction to tell the truth. It’s why I am an avid donor,” wrote long-time member Renee Mikaloff. 

But it wasn’t all praise. We also heard from a few readers who thought the environmental good accomplished by Pacific Wild outweighed any alleged harm done to workers.

It’s worth noting that the vast majority of those who felt this way are older men. If you’ve never been in a workplace where you were targeted by a boss or yelled at by someone twice your size perhaps it’s difficult to imagine how deeply harmful these experiences can be. As a woman in her 30s, I don’t have to imagine what these experiences are like — I know. This is why it’s important to have a diverse array of people making decisions about what’s newsworthy. This story, perhaps more than any other we’ve published, has demonstrated how the values and lived experiences of readers influences what they think is important.

The question for some readers is whether these experiences are worthy of reporting on — or whether they weaken the environmental movement. This line of reasoning reminds me of the point made by a former Pacific Wild worker, who we called Taylor in the investigation, who said environmentalists often feel they can’t “air dirty laundry” because it will “undermine our achievements and goals.” 

The conclusion I’ve come to over the years is this: allowing environmental organizations to be poorly run with low levels of accountability doesn’t help the movement. It drives young talent and future leaders out of the movement. Furthermore, if environmental groups are going to call for transparency and accountability from governments and corporations, they ought to be willing to hold themselves to at least a minimum standard themselves.

If The Narwhal’s investigation into Pacific Wild serves as a clarion call for non-profits to examine their governance structures and ensure they have bullying and harassment policies in place, that’s a good thing. In fact, I’d argue that is going to help save the planet, not hinder the cause.

It’s no surprise that our investigation has caused cognitive dissonance — the tension that occurs when a person holds two beliefs that are inconsistent — for many. Cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable, and when humans are uncomfortable, we grasp for ways to ease that discomfort. 

“Resentment is like a drug. It feels good to go home and say: ‘Those assholes! Those jerks! Those liberals. Those conservatives … I’m right, they’re wrong,’ ” Roger Conner, a now-retired law professor and conflict resolution practitioner at Vanderbilt Law School, told James Hoggan (a former board member of The Narwhal) in his book I’m Right and You’re an Idiot. 

“The truth is we all have some degree of uncertainty and we go to this self-righteous place to protect ourselves from that uncertainty.”

Hoggan’s book also features social psychologist Carol Tavris, author of a book called Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me). 

“The greatest danger we face on the planet is not only from bad people doing corrupt, evil and bad things but also from good people who justify the bad, evil and corrupt things they do in order to preserve their belief that they’re good, kind, ethical people,” Tavris told Hoggan.

“In all social movements, you are not only justifying the beliefs you’ve acquired, but you became part of a group of like-minded people, all echoing the reasons you’re right.”

It’s tough when you learn that someone you saw as being on your “team” may have acted in a way that’s inconsistent with your broader values. Speaking out against someone on your team is even harder. 

As Brene Brown writes in her book Braving the Wilderness: “Belonging so fully to yourself that you’re willing to stand alone is a wilderness — an untamed, unpredictable place of solitude and searching. It is a place as dangerous as it is breathtaking, a place as sought after as it is feared. The wilderness can often feel unholy because we can’t control it, or what people think about our choice of whether to venture into that vastness or not. But it turns out to be the place of true belonging, and it’s the bravest and most sacred place you will ever stand.” 

Here’s what I know for sure: many, many people braved the wilderness for this investigation to come into being. For The Narwhal’s part, the decision to tell the story of Pacific Wild was not made lightly. What I keep coming back to is this: one of the key purposes of journalism is to shine a light on what powerful people and organizations do in the shadows. While sometimes we may not like what we see, it doesn’t make it any less worth seeing.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Charges have been dropped against journalists Amber Bracken and Michael Toledano, who were arrested and detained for three nights on civil contempt charges while reporting on militarized police raids on Wet’suwet’en territory in northwest B.C. on Nov. 19. 

Their arrests drew international media attention and marked an escalation in an ongoing battle between journalists and the RCMP over the right to report from within injunction zones without risking arrest.

The plaintiff, Coastal GasLink pipeline, owned by TC Energy, filed earlier this week to discontinue proceedings against the two journalists on charges of civil contempt of court. Bracken and Toledano have also been relieved of the terms of their release, which included agreement to appear in court on Feb. 14, 2022, and to obey a Coastal GasLink injunction. 

Bracken, who was on assignment for The Narwhal at the time of her arrest, said she’s relieved the charges have been dropped, but the fundamental issue hasn’t been resolved. 

“I should never have been arrested or charged, let alone detained, in the first place,” Bracken said. “I can’t get those days of my life and work back. Nothing in these proceedings provides any feedback to RCMP for their gross interference with journalists, so what’s stopping police from just doing it again?”

As The Narwhal reported at the time of Bracken’s arrest, the RCMP were tracking her and Toledano in a database of police investigations, a practice which raises questions about the RCMP’s characterization of journalists who report on social conflict or within injunction zones. At the time of their arrests, the RCMP seized recording devices and professional equipment from both journalists, actions that prevented the public from witnessing police conduct during the raid where more than a dozen land defenders were also arrested.

Although the charges against Bracken and Toledano have been dropped, The Narwhal, the Canadian Association of Journalists and other news organizations are exploring other legal avenues to hold the RCMP accountable and ensure arrests of journalists don’t continue happening. 

“It’s a huge relief that sanity has prevailed, and that the erroneous charges against journalists Amber Bracken and Michael Toledano have been dropped,” said Brent Jolly, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists. “We hope this moment serves as a reminder that the right to report freely, and without interference, is a legal right that will never be subject to negotiation.” 

In August, The Narwhal, the Canadian Association of Journalists and a coalition of media filed a successful legal challenge against the RCMP, which asked the courts to remind law enforcement of the rights of media to report on the Fairy Creek logging blockades. 

In two scathing written rulings, B.C. Supreme Court’s Justice Douglas Thompson determined that the vast exclusion zones, affiliated checkpoints and media restrictions set up by RCMP officers at the injunction area are unlawful and “seriously and substantially” impacted important liberties. 

Justice Thompson refused to extend the injunction when he issued his second decision in September, stating the way the RCMP continued to violate charter rights when enforcing the injunction was causing a “depreciation” of the court’s reputation. 

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

With freedom of the press under attack in Canada, we here at The Narwhal are grateful for all of you, our loyal readers. (Especially the 6,000 of you who sent messages to the federal public safety minister, calling for an investigation into RCMP conduct in recent days.)

When we sent photojournalist Amber Bracken to Wet’suwet’en territory to report on one of the biggest stories in the country, we didn’t anticipate she’d become part of the story. Then, Friday came: the RCMP arrested Amber and 14 others, including Wet’suwet’en land defenders, as officers enforced an injunction for the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

It should go without saying: journalism is not a crime. Amber was one of the only journalists present to document a story of vital public interest — and the RCMP took her away in handcuffs, despite the fact she clearly identified herself as a journalist.

The actions of the RCMP prevented us from publishing photos last week of police destroying the door of a tiny home with an axe and a chainsaw, and then pointing assault rifles at Wet’suwet’en people defending their unceded territory. While Amber sat in jail for three days, she could have been reporting on an alleged assault on Indigenous Rights, and the role of government officials and a private gas pipeline company.

Amber has finally been released from jail, on the condition she appears on contempt of court charges in February. But we have a long battle ahead of us in defending Amber — and, ultimately, the right for all journalists to report from within injunction zones.

And we need your help: our insurance won’t cover the legal fees for Amber’s ordeal. So I’m turning to all of you, our most loyal readers: will you help ensure The Narwhal can continue to stand up for press freedom by becoming a member today? As a token of our appreciation, anyone who signs up by midnight on Friday will get a Narwhal toque.

Amber was on the ground documenting the fight of Wet’suwet’en land defenders against a pipeline that runs directly through their unceded territory. As legal experts have noted, the restrictions on press freedoms are by their very nature an effort to silence land defenders seeking to assert their Indigenous Rights.

That’s why I’m reaching out to you to keep The Narwhal’s fearless, independent reporting alive and well — especially at a time when those in power want to limit our freedoms. As a non-profit, reader-funded news organization, we rely on everyday people, not advertisers, to help us shine a light in darkness.

Will you become a member today and stand up for press freedom?

Thanks for believing in what we do,

Emma GilchristEditor-in-chief

P.S. Our existing 3,700 members provide us with the reliable cash flow necessary to send Amber to Wet’suwet’en territory in the first place. But here’s the thing: Amber’s legal battle isn’t our first and it won’t be our last. That’s why we need you to become a member for any amount you can afford. If you sign up by Friday at midnight, we’ll even pop a Narwhal toque in the mail for you.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

In good news, at least 20 per cent of the two-hour English-language federal leaders’ debate last week centred around climate change. 

In bad news, it was pretty tough for voters to gain a whole lot of, um, clarity on the differences between the party platforms during that 23-minute-long climate change section. That’s unfortunate because there’s a lot at stake for the environment in the 2021 federal election. 

“Right now, climate policy and environmental policy isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s not something you do if you have time for it,” said Merran Smith, executive director of Clean Energy Canada. 

“If you look at the world’s leading economies, they’re using climate policy as their economic policy … Good, ambitious climate policy is linked to investing in the industries of the future, not rooted in the industries of the past.” 

We spent hours poring over the federal platforms of the Liberals, Conservatives, NDP and Greens for the 2021 election so you don’t have to and have done our best to boil down three key points to help you make your choice at the ballot box. 

1) Conservation, nature-based climate solutions and Indigenous protected areas

Let’s start with a topic that gets overlooked a lot in the media: plans to protect Canada’s vast wild spaces. 

With Canada being home to 25 per cent of Earth’s wetlands and boreal forests, as well as endangered Prairie grasslands and the world’s longest coastline, we have a vital global role to play in the fight against climate change. 

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2017 found protecting and restoring these landscapes, known as nature-based climate solutions, could provide more than one-third of the emissions reductions needed to stabilize global temperature increases below 2 C by 2030 under the Paris Accord.

“We have this extraordinary treasure trove of carbon that plays a global role,” said Justina Ray, president and senior scientist at Wildlife Conservation Society Canada. 

Liberals: The Liberal election platform commits to protecting 25 per cent of Canada’s land and oceans by 2025 and 30 per cent by 2030. The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society released a report card on conservation efforts in June, which gave Ottawa an A- on land protection and a B+ on ocean protection, while giving many of the provinces failing grades. This speaks to the challenge of any federal commitment on protected areas, which is that meeting those targets requires cooperation from other levels of government. 

That may be why the Liberals emphasize new national parks in their platform, committing to creating 10 new national parks and 10 new national marine conserved areas in the next five years. They also promise to create 15 new urban national parks by 2030. 

On the federal election campaign trail, the Liberals have also promised to create a $50 million B.C. old-growth nature fund — something that advocates for old-growth have been calling for to help resolve conflicts, such as the Fairy Creek blockades, which have continued for more than a year under B.C.’s NDP government.

The Liberals also promise to support Indigenous communities to build capacity to establish more Indigenous protected areas and Indigenous Guardians programs. The Liberals started funding Indigenous Guardians in 2017. The party also makes a vague commitment to “restore and enhance more wetlands, grasslands, and peatlands, to capture and store carbon.”

Conservatives: The Conservative election platform commits to reaching the previous Conservative government’s target of protecting 17 per cent of Canada’s land and water and to “work towards 25 per cent,” but doesn’t name a date by which it intends to do so.

The party’s federal election platform highlights the importance of working with Indigenous communities to expand the creation of Indigenous protected areas managed and stewarded by Indigenous Guardians and makes a general commitment to “develop parks and protected areas in all parts of Canada.” The Conservatives also emphasize the importance of protecting endangered ecosystems in the “southern working landscape.”

“Much of the land is already in productive use, making it harder and more expensive to set aside, but protecting this land is essential: it can significantly benefit local communities and is important for things like flood and drought protection and carbon sequestration,” the platform notes.

In terms of nature-based climate solutions, the Conservatives commit to investing an additional $3 billion between now and 2030 focused on management of forest, crop and grazing lands and restoration of grasslands, wetlands and forests. They also commit to continuing work that’s currently underway to establish a national carbon offset market.

NDP: The NDP election platform commits to the same target as the Liberals: protecting 30 per cent of our land and oceans by 2030. The party also commits to support Indigenous-led conservation and Indigenous Guardian programs, but doesn’t mention nature-based climate solutions. Much of the platform is vague. Case in point:  “We will expand urban national parks and restore urban biodiversity, and ensure the Species at Risk Act is enforced.”

In a more concrete proposal, the NDP say they’d create a new Civilian Climate Corps that creates new jobs supporting conservation efforts by undertaking activities such as helping restore wetlands, and planting trees. They also commit to enshrining the right to a healthy environment in a Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights.

Greens: The Green election platform also pledges support for Indigenous-led protected areas and commits to protecting 30 per cent of land and oceans in each Canadian ecosystem by 2030. The Greens ratchet up that target to protecting 50 per cent of Canada’s land and waters by 2050, prioritizing carbon-rich ecosystems and also promise to scale up funding for nature-based climate solutions. 

2) Climate targets

While this subject received a bit of play in the debate, it was so confusing, it deserves re-visiting. After all, a lot hinges on the level of climate ambition (and sincerity) of the next government. 

“There’s no time left for delay,” said Smith of Clean Energy Canada. “We need to move forward, not go backwards. That’s the bottom line. We have three major federal parties that want to move forward, and one that wants to move us backward.” 

For the first time, all parties have put forward real climate plans with credible policies, but the Conservatives dialled-back climate target “means a step backwards for Canada’s long-term economic competitiveness,” according to Smith. 

It’s worth noting that U.S. President Joe Biden has committed to cutting his country’s emissions by 50 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. Meanwhile, the European Union has promised to reduce emissions by 55 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030.  

Liberals: The Liberals have committed to maintain Canada’s current emissions reduction commitment at 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and to reach net-zero by 2050. Critics point out that under the Liberals, emissions have actually increased since signing the Paris Agreement in 2016. The Liberals have also come under fire for purchasing the Trans Mountain oilsands export pipeline at a time when emissions need to rapidly ratchet down. All of that said, independent modelling indicates that the Liberal platform includes the policies required to achieve the 40 per cent emissions reduction target. 

Conservatives: The Conservatives have committed to lower Canada’s emissions by 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, which is a step backward from our current target. Modelling indicates the policies in the plan could reach the lowered 30 per cent target, but only if the industrial carbon price increases to $170 a tonne by 2030, something the party has only said it will do if Canada’s trading partners do the same. 

NDP: The NDP has committed to lower Canada’s emissions by 50 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050. Their plan is not detailed enough to assess whether the proposed policies would lead to reductions in line with the target, according to experts. 

Greens: The Greens committed to lower Canada’s emissions by 60 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and to reach net-zero before 2050. But experts say their plan is also not laid out in enough detail to assess how the party would reach the targets. 

For a further breakdown of the policy proposals, check out Marc Jaccard’s analysis in Policy Options. 

3) Economic diversification and a responsible transition

This is where the rubber hits the road on any climate plan: how will the federal parties handle the tough choices and tradeoffs that come with an energy transition? Tens of thousands of jobs may disappear in the coming decades and could be replaced with new clean energy jobs or jobs in other new sectors. The billion-dollar question is where those jobs will be located and what opportunities workers will have to retrain to access new opportunities. 

“Let’s not forget: this is where the world’s leading economies are going,” Smith said. “We are seeing the U.S., the UK, the EU that have at least the level of ambition that we’re seeing in the Liberal, the NDP platform and Green platform, if not more. They’re going to be looking for low-carbon products. I’m looking for a platform that understands this is the way the world’s economy is going.” 

Liberals: The Liberal election platform commits to establishing a $2 billion diversification fund for oil- and gas-producing provinces and sets five-year emissions reduction targets for the oil and gas sector to achieve net-zero by 2050 (starting with 2025 and 2030 milestones to ensure the oil and gas sector makes a “meaningful contribution” to meeting Canada’s 2030 climate target). Greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector have risen 20 per cent since 2005 and now make up 26 per cent of our country’s total emissions, so this is an extremely important (and previously missing) piece of the puzzle. 

The Liberals also commit to move forward with just transition legislation, guided by consultation with communities that launched shortly before they called the election, and to launch a clean jobs training centre to help workers upgrade or gain new skills to work in low-carbon industries.

Conservatives: The Conservative election platform is a mixed-bag on this front, with some good commitments to help workers transition, such as a training loan that would help workers pay for skills upgrading and a $250 million investment to establish a “Canada Job Training Fund.”

But other parts of the Conservative platform seem to indicate the party plans to stick its head in the sand where the energy transition is concerned. A section of the platform titled “support for western Canadian jobs” outlines how the Conservatives would undo the changes ushered in by Bill C-69, which modernized how Canada reviews major resource projects. The legislation was massively watered down after intense lobbying by the fossil fuel industry. The Conservatives also promise to repeal Bill C-48, which banned oil tankers on B.C.’s North Coast, which could re-open the door to the Enbridge Northern Gateway oilsands pipeline. 

The Conservatives also say they’d make oil export pipelines a priority and implement a federal LNG export strategy. Liquefied natural gas exports rely on the controversial process of fracking in B.C. and Alberta and are extremely emissions intensive. And the cherry on top? The Conservatives vow to pass a Critical Infrastructure Protection Act to increase punishment for protestors blocking key infrastructure

NDP: The NDP election platform commits to creating a million new, good jobs in all regions. This will include jobs building green infrastructure, which will require the use of Canadian-made steel, aluminum, cement and wood projects “because products produced by Canadian workers have some of the lowest carbon emissions in the world.”

The NDP also promises to provide expanded employment insurance benefits, re-training and job placement services, ensuring companies retain and redeploy their workers when in transition. The party commits to supporting investments in community-owned and operated clean energy projects and to work in partnership with Indigenous and northern communities to move off diesel. 

Under an NDP government, an Office of Environmental Justice would be created to address the disproportionate impacts of pollution and loss of biodiversity on low-income, racialized and other marginalized communities.

Greens: The Greens would phase out oil and gas operations, with bitumen production phased out between 2030 and 2035, cancel all pipeline projects and ban fracking. To help deal with the impacts of such a phase-out the Greens would implement a Just Transition Act, and use wage insurance, retraining programs and early retirement plans to replace “every high-paying fossil fuel sector job with a high-paying green sector job.”  

The Greens would also enact legislation on green jobs training programs, such as a youth climate corps, and would create an Office of Environmental Justice. They’d also increase investment in research and development to 2.5 per cent of GDP, in line with other OECD countries.

Looking for more resources to assess the candidates? Check out CBC’s platform tracker and recommendations from GreenPAC, a non-partisan organization that endorses political candidates across the political spectrum who have demonstrated environmental leadership.

Updated Sept. 22, 2021, at 4:40 p.m. PT: The article was updated to reflect the fact the European Union’s emissions reductions target for 2030 is based on 1990 levels, not 2005 levels.  

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.