The B.C. government has commissioned two expert reports to determine if BC Hydro’s proposed solution to the Site C dam’s geotechnical problems is safe, Premier John Horgan disclosed at a press conference on Thursday.

Horgan said the government will not make a decision about whether or not to cancel the publicly funded hydro project on B.C.’s Peace River until it has the two reports in hand. 

“They’ll be made public when we have them, and when cabinet’s had an opportunity to digest them.” 

The Premier said there are several “decision points ahead” for cabinet, but did not elaborate on what they are or when the safety reports may be delivered. 

“Before we release information to the public, we want to make sure we have all of the details,” he said in response to questions from Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer. “We do not want to have half-measures at a critical point in a large industrial project that is well advanced.”

BC Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau said she was very surprised by Horgan’s “almost off the cuff” news that BC Hydro had proposed a new solution to the dam’s geotechnical problems and that the government had commissioned two safety reports to review it.

Horgan did not provide any information about the proposed solution, and BC Hydro has failed to file two quarterly reports with the B.C. Utilities Commission that would typically include such information. 

“This just compounds the whole astonishing level of secrecy, lack of transparency, lack of clarity on how this government is handling this project and meanwhile, day after day, millions and millions of dollars pour out,” Furstenau told The Narwhal. 

The Site C dam is under construction in an unstable valley notorious for large landslides. Five provincial highway bridges will have to be moved out of the future flood zone at ratepayers’ expense, including at the Halfway River, where geotechnical challenges are immense. Photo: Jayce Hawkins

Palmer pointed to giant sections of turbines moving slowly along northern B.C. highways this week from the Prince Rupert port to the dam site just outside of Fort St. John, saying it did not seem likely that the government would be putting Site C construction on hold after receiving a report from Peter Milburn, the former deputy finance minister tasked with assessing the troubled project. 

Milburn’s appointment was announced last July, following the public disclosure that the unstable foundation for the earthen dam, powerhouse and spillways requires shoring up. BC Hydro said it did not know how to fix the mounting problems, how long it would take or what the cost would be. 

“There’s a lot of work to do yet,” the Premier said. “Mr. Milburn did not have the capacity to address the safety challenges that could emerge as a result of the geotechnical issues that have arisen.” 

Read more: BC Hydro granted $171 million in no-bid Site C dam contracts as project troubles were kept secret from public

Horgan said Milburn worked with the information that was available to him. “The fix that’s been proposed by [BC] Hydro, we’re now asking for two other opinions on the efficacy of that fix.”

“That’s not to say that Milburn’s report isn’t comprehensive, but it is appropriate that we make sure that the fix that is being proposed to the geotechnical challenge is going to be safe. Out of an abundance of caution we’re asking for a second and third opinion on that.” 

Horgan said the turbine parts are moving to the project site because “to stop preparing to complete is not the direction that has been given. And so, it’s appropriate I think that those that are working on the facility do that, until such time as we don’t.” 

The Premier pointed out that the Kemano generating station near Kitimat also had turbines that were en route when the hydroelectric project was cancelled in 1995 by the NDP government led by Mike Harcourt.

“So it’s not unprecedented … We are still reviewing information and, most importantly, what’s outstanding is two safety reports at this point — and when we have those and they’ve been assessed and digested that will all be made public.”

B.C. public has yet to hear details of solutions to Site C’s geotechnical woes

Furstenau said Green Party MLAs asked B.C. Energy Minister Bruce Ralston about Milburn’s expertise during question period in December. 

“And we were completely dismissed by Minister Ralston, who said he had complete confidence in Mr. Milburn to do this report. The lack of consistency, on top of the secrecy and lack of transparency, is becoming just shocking.” 

“I think the public should be demanding of this government that they start to be transparent on this. This is public money that is being spent.”

In a Green Party press release, Furstenau said the admission that Milburn doesn’t have the expertise to advise on dam safety “makes it clear that the Milburn report has been used as a smoke-screen to continue construction and avoid answering questions.”

“The government and BC Hydro have known about serious geotechnical challenges since 2019. Now the Premier has admitted that they still need more information and that their own appointed expert did not have the capacity to advise on dam safety. Yet there is still no timeline and no information about the new experts and their terms of reference.”

An aerial view of the Site C dam’s south bank, where profound geotechnical problems were disclosed last July. The government commissioned former deputy finance minister Peter Milburn to report back on the project but his report — which the government has not made public — does not encompass potential safety issues. Photo: Site C Clean Energy Project

The Site C dam is already significantly over budget. According to a range of independent energy experts, the dam is uneconomical at its current price tag of $10.7 billion, a figure that doesn’t account for any further budget increases to address geotechnical problems. 

Safety concerns about the Site C dam, which is being constructed on unstable shale in a valley prone to large landslides, have been raised for years. 

An October investigation by The Narwhal revealed senior officials in the B.C. government knew in May 2019 that the project’s technical advisory board had flagged the stability of the dam as a significant risk, saying “the hazards associated with the weak foundation have been adequately recognized.” 

The Site C project is located in a geographical area filled with faults that can become critically stressed during fracking operations, which are poised to expand significantly in the region to supply gas for the LNG Canada export project. More than 10,000 earthquakes occurred in the wider area in 2017 and 2018, including one that shook the Site C dam construction site, forcing workers to evacuate. 

The advisory board also said the Site C dam’s design — changed to an unconventional L-shape, much to the concern of retired BC Hydro engineer Vern Ruskin — needed to be checked. 

The board outlined seven steps for BC Hydro to follow, including calculating “the factor of safety” at the end of construction and again at the end of reservoir filling. 

Furstenau said it all adds up to cause for public concern. 

“I’m deeply concerned about the safety of this dam, and the level of risk that is being accepted by this government is beyond belief in a lot of ways.” 

Horgan said he did not know who has been contracted to assess the safety of the geotechnical solutions proposed by BC Hydro, noting only that they are international experts.

The Narwhal asked the B.C. energy ministry for the names of the experts, who selected them, if they travelled to the dam site, when the reports might be delivered, and if the experts have any ties to the Site C technical advisory board or project assurance board, but the ministry was unable to respond by press time. 

The Site C project assurance board was established by Horgan’s government in 2018 to ensure the project was delivered on schedule and on budget. Its findings, as well as a list of its members, were kept secret from the public. 

Part of the Peace River that would be flooded for the Site C dam. The dam will inundate 128 kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries, about the equivalent distance of driving from Vancouver to Whistler. Photo: Garth Lenz / The Narwhal

The Site C dam would flood 128 kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries in Treaty 8 territory, destroying some of Canada’s best farmland and habitat for more than 100 species at risk of extinction. 

Two expert reports released last fall concluded British Columbians would save money if the Site C dam were immediately cancelled by the new B.C. government following the Oct. 24 provincial election. 

A report by U.S. energy economist Robert McCullough, commissioned by the Peace Valley Landowner Association, said the dam will conservatively cost an additional $2.1 billion and ratepayers will save an initial $116 million a year if the project is scrapped and the same amount of energy is procured from other sources. 

A memo from the C.D. Howe Institute, addressed to B.C.’s new government, said the case for the Site C dam is “getting weaker” and any meaningful cost increase above $10.7 billion makes cancellation the best choice.

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The results are (partially) in and British Columbians have spoken: we’re headed for the first NDP majority government in nearly two decades.

While the record-high number of roughly 480,000 mail-in ballots means we likely won’t have the final tally for a few weeks, John Horgan’s NDP is on track to pick up 55 seats, with Andrew Wilkinson’s BC Liberals on pace for 29 seats and Sonia Furstenau’s Greens expected to win three seats.

The resounding victory will mean Horgan no longer has to count on the support of the Greens to govern. The 2017 vote, you might recall, saw the BC Liberals edge out the NDP 44 seats to 43 seats, leaving the balance of power in the hands of Andrew Weaver’s Greens. His party, which won three seats, negotiated a confidence and supply agreement with the NDP, which included several major commitments on environmental policy. 

The decision by Horgan to call an election a year ahead of schedule — and amid the COVID-19 pandemic — was criticized by his opponents as opportunistic. But the NDP Leader defended the move, saying a clear mandate from voters was needed to tackle the health crisis. 

Regardless of the motivations, the calculation clearly paid off in spades. The last time the BC NDP pulled off a majority? You’d have to go back to the 1996 election, when the NDP — under the leadership of Glen Clark — staved off future premier Gordon Campbell’s BC Liberals despite losing the popular vote. That was followed by a 16-year BC Liberal reign from 2001 to 2017.

So what do these 2020 B.C. election results mean for environment and climate issues in the province? Read on.

The B.C. Greens will have a lot less influence

Green Leader Sonia Furstenau. Photo: BC Green Party / Handout

Despite drawing about 16 per cent of the preliminary vote, the Green Party is set to win no more than three seats in this B.C. election. While that’s the same number of seats the party won in the 2017 election, the NDP no longer needs the support of the Greens to govern — resulting in a dramatic loss of influence for Furstenau’s party.

Still, the steady Green support sends a signal about the desire for action on environmental issues among British Columbians.

The fate of the Site C dam remains uncertain

When Horgan formed government in 2017, he sent Site C for an expedited review by the B.C. Utilities Commission, but ultimately decided to push ahead with the controversial BC Hydro project, saying Christy Clark’s BC Liberals had pushed the dam past the point of no return.

The NDP government proceeded to create a Site C assurance board while adding $2 billion to the project’s budget, for an estimated total cost of $10.7 billion.

But the assurance board’s work was largely kept under wraps until an investigation published by The Narwhal on Oct. 21 revealed the board was told in May 2019 that Site C faced “significant risk due to the weak foundation” of the dam.

Site C construction is seen along the Peace River in B.C. Photo: Garth Lenz / The Narwhal

Two top civil servants are among those who sit on the assurance board, raising questions about why the public wasn’t informed of Site C’s serious geotechnical problems until July of this year.

The government has tapped former deputy finance minister Peter Milburn as a special advisor to provide an independent report on the project’s geotechnical issues and cost overruns. Milburn’s findings are expected to come in November or December, but it’s not clear if the report will be made public.

During the election campaign, Horgan defended his 2017 decision to proceed with Site C, but left open room to change course depending on what Milburn’s report reveals.

“If the science tells us and the economics tells us that it’s the wrong way to proceed, we will take appropriate action,” Horgan said during an Oct. 16 leaders’ radio debate.

Some experts are estimating that the Site C budget could exceed $12 billion, and a new report from a U.S. energy economist found that B.C. taxpayers could save $116 million a year if the project is cancelled.

Full steam ahead on the CleanBC climate plan

If re-elected, the NDP has committed to enacting legislation requiring B.C. to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, meaning that any greenhouse gas emissions would have to be offset by carbon sinks, carbon capture and storage or other technology.

It’s a lofty goal given that, so far, B.C. has only released a plan to get the province to 79 per cent of its emissions targets for 2030. 

To help B.C. reach its climate goal, the NDP say they would invest in B.C. entrepreneurs working on carbon capture technology, use incentives to spur energy efficiency building retrofits, make additional investments in the CleanBC industrial emissions strategy to help mines, pulp mills, oil and gas processing plants and other industrial operations reduce their emissions, and work to reduce methane emissions. 

The NDP has also re-committed to reviewing oil and gas subsidies — handouts the Greens want to see scrapped.

George Heyman, who served as the NDP’s minister of environment and climate change strategy since 2017, said in an Oct. 15 debate that his party has “committed to put an environmental lens on all the oil and gas royalty credits and take a good, hard, comprehensive look at them.”

LNG Canada and B.C.’s liquefied natural gas ambitions

B.C. Premier John Horgan tours the site of the LNG Canada project in Kitimat, B.C., in January 2020. Photo: Province of B.C. / Flickr

B.C. has continually promoted having the “cleanest LNG in the world.” But experts have questioned whether the industry is compatible with the province’s climate plans, including a recent report which found B.C. could exceed its 2050 target by 227 per cent if it proceeds with all proposed LNG projects.

There are seven proposed LNG facilities in B.C., but so far — amid a global surplus in natural gas — LNG Canada is the only one that has seen construction move forward. 

Horgan has promised to monitor LNG Canada to ensure it falls within B.C.’s climate targets, but when it comes online in 2024, the project will be one of the country’s single largest sources of carbon pollution.

B.C. forests, logging and endangered species

The province still has no standalone endangered species legislation despite an NDP vow in the 2017 election campaign to enact a law to protect more than 2,000 species at risk of extinction.

The 2020 NDP platform only included a vague promise to develop “new strategies” that would better protect wildlife.

Meanwhile, questions linger over how far the new government will go to add further protections for old growth forests. In September, the NDP responded to a report on the dire state of B.C.’s old-growth forests by announcing it was deferring logging in nine areas. In reality, though, those areas contained very little old growth and will only be saved from logging for two years. 

The government also plans to auction off logging permits in the Kootenays, a move that threatens to destroy habitat for an endangered caribou herd said to have the best chance of survival in the region. 

And in B.C.’s Spuzzum Valley, a pair of breeding spotted owls — a species that had been presumed extinct in Canada — were recently discovered in an area slated for imminent logging.

B.C. salmon and coastal habitat

The NDP have promised to increase processing of wild fish caught in B.C., to work to double funding for the BC Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund (a joint effort with the federal government) and to develop new plans to protect wild salmon.

During the election, Horgan said that if the salmon farming industry doesn’t have support from local communities by 2022, he would look to phase out farms in the Broughton Archipelago, an important migratory route for wild salmon. 

The NDP has also promised to develop a new strategy to protect coastal habitat, specifically committing to look at freighter traffic management around southern Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. 

Reforming mining regulations in B.C.

Water contaminated with acid mine drainage flows into a containment pond near the Tulsequah River. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

The NDP has said it would create a mining innovation hub to work toward stronger regulations and low-carbon approaches to mining, and has also promised to hold mining companies financially responsible for environmental clean-up if a project is abandoned.

The First Nations Energy and Mining Council said recent reforms to B.C.’s mining laws fall short in several areas, including updates to safety requirements around tailings facilities.    

Mining companies are theoretically required to pay the province money up front to cover the costs of reclamation and closure in case they go bankrupt. But according to a 2018 report from B.C.’s chief inspector of mines, the province is running a deficit of about $1.2 billion to cover reclamation costs. More than 30 mining advocacy and law organizations have lobbied the government for years to change its laws and hold mining companies financially accountable. 

Electric vehicles and entrepreneurship

The NDP has promised new incentives for both new and used zero-emission vehicles to make them more accessible to people with lower incomes and increase the number of vehicle charging stations with incentives and legislation. They’re also pledging to cut the provincial sales tax on e-bikes.

Horgan’s party also wants to make B.C. a global producer of low-carbon products and services. To get there, they’ve committed to investing in high-speed internet across the province, supporting innovative clusters that bring companies, researchers and entrepreneurs together and working with the federal government and BC Hydro to expand electrification infrastructure.

— With files from Ainslie Cruickshank, Matt Simmons and Emma Gilchrist

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.

West Moberly First Nations will proceed with a Site C dam “megatrial” following six months of confidential talks with the B.C. government and BC Hydro aimed at avoiding litigation, chief Roland Willson announced on Tuesday. 

“They’re not going anywhere,” Willson told The Narwhal. “It’s essentially kicking a dead horse. … They wanted to have discussions and now we’re not talking anymore. We’re going to court.” 

In January 2018, West Moberly First Nations and Prophet River First Nation filed civil claims alleging that the Site C project and two previous dams on the Peace River unjustifiably infringe on their treaty rights.  

West Moberly First Nations subsequently lost an application for an injunction to protect 13 areas of cultural importance for the Dunne-Za nations — including prime moose habitat, a rare old-growth white spruce and trembling aspen forest and two wetlands called Sucker Lake and Trappers Lake — from clear-cut logging for the dam.

But the judge ruled their treaty rights case must be heard by 2023, prior to scheduled flooding of the Peace River Valley the following year. 

Tim Thielmann, West Moberly First Nations legal counsel, said the ruling leaves the door open for the court “to impose an eleventh-hour cancellation or injunction onto the project and to prevent the flooding of the Peace River if the First Nations are successful in their treaty infringement claim.” 

Chief Roland Willson of West Moberly First Nations. Photo: David Moskowitz

NDP government’s position a ‘profound conflict’ 

The Site C dam would flood 128 kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries, about the equivalent distance of driving from Vancouver to Whistler. 

It would destroy First Nations burial grounds and culturally significant areas, some of Canada’s best farmland, habitat for more than 100 species at risk of extinction and the last intact section of the Peace River Valley still available for Treaty 8 members to engage in traditional practices.

At trial, B.C. Premier John Horgan is expected to defend the 2014 decision made by former Liberal Premier Christy Clark to proceed with the Site C project, a decision West Moberly First Nations says infringed Treaty 8, according to a news release the nation issued on Tuesday.  

“You have this surprising situation where the provincial government is finding itself on a path to a large trial in which they will be defending the position that they have been fighting,” Thielmann told The Narwhal. 

Thielmann pointed to a statement Horgan made shortly before Clark’s decision to proceed with construction of the Site C dam. In 2014, Horgan said in a filmed interview that First Nations in the Peace region had entrenched constitutional rights that were “going to be violated by this dam.” 

“In his announcement to proceed with the dam in 2017 he still said that Site C should never have been started,” Thielmann added, pointing to other senior NDP cabinet ministers who made similar statements. 

In a public Facebook post, for instance, B.C. Attorney General David Eby described the Site C dam as a “terrible situation of a massive public infrastructure investment without any apparent customer for the electricity it will produce.”

“That’s a profound conflict in their current position,” Thielmann said. “Now they have to go to court and decide what their position will be on the Christy Clark decision to approve the dam in 2014.”  

It’s a no-win situation for the NDP government because if they “own up to the statement they have made on record,” that approval of the dam was a mistake and an infringement of Treaty 8, then “presumably they wouldn’t be fighting this case in trial,” Thielmann said. 

But if they agree with West Moberly First Nations it will open them up to whatever orders the court chooses to impose, he pointed out.

“If they begin defending the Christy Clark position to approve the dam it will have untold political costs internally to the party and amongst many of the NDP voters and others in British Columbia that believe, like Premier Horgan apparently did, that this was a profound mistake.” 

Site C dam still shrouded in secrecy

Willson said Horgan should have stopped construction of the “boondoggle” dam after the NDP came to power in July 2017. 

Instead, Horgan green-lighted the dam six months later — following intense lobby efforts by construction trade unions that donated generously to the NDP —  on the grounds the project was past the point of no return, a claim debunked by independent energy experts. 

“Right from the beginning we thought this whole project was a sham,” Willson said. “We’ve been railroaded. … There’s billions and billions being spent on a project that is totally not needed. And the environmental footprint and the devastation that this thing is going to create is sad.” 

Willson said he does not believe BC Hydro will make the scheduled date next year for diverting the Peace River so construction of the dam structure can begin. The missed deadline would add substantially to the escalating cost of the dam, the largest publicly funded project in B.C.’s history. 

“Everything’s in the shadows,” Willson said. “This was supposed to be a public process and they’re keeping information from people.” 

The Boon family farm at Bear Flat/Cache Creek in the Peace River valley, which will be flooded for the Site C dam. Bear Flat/Cache Creek is a culturally significant area for First Nations, who have gathered here for millennia. Photo: Garth Lenz / The Narwhal

Last year, international hydro dam expert Harvey Elwin described the high level of  confidentiality surrounding the Site C hydro project as “extraordinary,” saying he had never encountered such secrecy during his five decades designing, developing and managing large hydroelectric projects, including China’s Three Gorges dam.

In an affidavit for the West Moberly First Nations injunction application, Elwin outlined the five main categories of risk that, in his view, made it extremely unlikely that the dam would be on schedule to produce power in 2024 and within its revised budget of $10.7 billion.

“We haven’t seen any public announcements that BC Hydro has made up the kind of ground that they would need to make up in order to have any chance of achieving river diversion in a year’s time,” Thielmann said. 

“And there may very well be other challenges that haven’t been disclosed at the present time but will become more clear in the months ahead.” 

The B.C. energy ministry said in an April 24 email to The Narwhal that the Site C dam remains on schedule to produce power in 2024 and within its budget of $10.7 billion, an increase of $2 billion over the project’s 2016 budget.

But BC Hydro’s latest Site C project report to the B.C. Utilities Commission hints of potential problems, assigning a yellow status to the project’s schedule, budget and overall project health to indicate “moderate” concerns. 

The project remains cloaked in secrecy, with the NDP government refusing to make public the findings of a “Site C Project Assurance Board” that began meeting early last year. 

 Commitment to reconciliation called into question

The news that West Moberly First Nations will proceed to trial follows an announcement in May that Blueberry River First Nations is returning to court after almost a year of negotiations with the province. 

The Blueberry First Nations allege that the cumulative impacts of resource development in their traditional territory, including intensive fracking operations and the Site C dam, violates treaty rights. 

“This government’s failure to achieve significant reconciliation victories in cases like this calls into question what reconciliation, in this government’s view, is intended to look like,” Thielmann said. 

The NDP government is “being called to task for radical changes on the landscape in the northeast and the threats that Indigenous peoples in the northeast and in the Peace River region are experiencing to their way of life,” he said. 

Willson echoed Thielmann’s comments, saying, “They want to talk reconciliation but they don’t want to reconcile anything.” 

In a rare rebuke, the United Nations has requested that Canada suspend Site C dam construction until the project obtains the “free, prior and informed consent” of Indigenous peoples. 

Thielmann, who also represents Prophet River First Nation, which was in the talks with the B.C. government and BC Hydro, said he can’t yet comment about Prophet River First Nation.

“At this point in time, they continue to have a civil action that is parallel to West Moberly’s,” he said. “Their action has not been suspended or discontinued. They continue to have a civil action that alleges essentially the same thing as West Moberly’s — that the combined effect of the three dams is an infringement of their treaty rights.” 

The B.C. government does not normally comment on cases before the courts. The Narwhal will update our reporting if the government responds to the case.

The 120-day trial to hear the West Moberly civil action is scheduled to begin in March 2022 and will last about six months, according to Thielmann.  

He said the trial will likely include dozens of witnesses and many thousands of pages of evidence about everything from the “cumulative effects of the three Peace River dams within the Peace region to the nature of the West Moberly First Nations’ seasonal round and the traditional mode of life and how it has been radically disrupted and would be radically disrupted by the completion of Site C.” 

Willson said he remains hopeful about the trial’s outcome. 

“The mere fact that we’re going to trial should speak volumes.”

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In the Schmidt Creek watershed on northeastern Vancouver Island, just a few kilometres from globally renowned orca rubbing beaches, huge swathes of old-growth rainforest are slated for imminent clear-cutting.

Further south, in the Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni, the ninth-largest Douglas-fir tree in the country has just been cut down. And a few hundred kilometres to the east, a forest virtually surrounded by Manning and Skagit provincial parks is being clear-cut despite being within B.C.’s highest priority grizzly bear recovery zone.

Which profit-driven logging corporation is behind all of this?

None of them. This is the work of the government of British Columbia.

Slash piled at a clearcut in Manning Park, B.C. 2004. Photo: Wilderness Committee

More specifically, it’s the work of BC Timber Sales, a government agency within the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. BC Timber Sales controls around 20 per cent of the cut on crown lands, planning cut blocks and then auctioning them off to logging contractors.

In theory, public control over a sector as important as forestry is a great thing. It means public priorities, like the protection of rare old-growth forests, can be prioritized because these areas are being managed by elected officials representing the public instead of by corporations representing their shareholders.

Unfortunately, this isn’t playing out on the ground, and the minister in charge of forests, Doug Donaldson, is plundering important forests with as much disregard as any corporate CEO.  

Earlier this summer, we visited Schmidt Creek, a watershed in Kwakwaka’wakw territories on northeastern Vancouver Island. The valley drains into Johnstone Strait, near the unique orca rubbing beaches in the Robson Bight Ecological Reserve. Whale experts are worried about the impacts of clear-cutting the steep, erosion-prone slopes in this sensitive ecosystem. Minister Donaldson has stated publicly that the benefits of this planned logging balance out the risks.

BC Timber Sales’ operations are further along in the Nahmint Valley in Hupačasath territory near Port Alberni, where clear-cutting of old-growth rainforests, including record-sized trees, began in May.

In the Cascade Mountains in Stó:lō and Nlaka’pamux territories, BC Timber Sales is also quickly destroying forests surrounded by Manning and Skagit provincial parks, in an area known as the “Donut Hole.” Long coveted as a potential addition to B.C.’s protected area system, this precious wildland is being picked apart with clear-cuts within slow-growing high elevation forests where logging scars will persist for centuries. This is being done despite its importance for key species that depend on it for habitat and migration.

Wilderness Committee campaigner Torrance Coste amid logging activity in Schmidt Creek. Photo: Wilderness Committee

To add insult to injury, the Caycuse Flats bridge in Manning Park has recently been rebuilt to help get logs out of the Donut Hole. Elsewhere in Manning Park and in other parks across B.C., infrastructure and facilities are in desperate need of maintenance because the government doesn’t “have the funds” for repairs and upgrades. That money can immediately be found to fix a bridge in a park to help log forest just outside of it speaks volumes about this government’s priorities.

In the past year, the Wilderness Committee, along with our allies at the Ancient Forest Alliance and Sierra Club BC, have met twice with Minister Donaldson. We’ve advocated for the protection of old-growth rainforests and a just transition to sustainable second-growth forestry that prioritizes Indigenous rights and local jobs.

Our organizations have given the minister and his staff recommendations to accomplish this in an organized, science-based way. The simplest of these is to direct BC Timber Sales to cease issuing cut blocks in old-growth forests.

No one is saying the rapid shift to second-growth logging across the province is going to be easy or without complications. But BC Timber Sales is part of Donaldson’s ministry: this is the logical place for him to start.

In its election platform, the NDP promised an “evidence-based scientific approach” to old-growth management, with the ecosystem-based management of the Great Bear Rainforest used as a model. Now that they’re in power, Premier John Horgan and Minister Donaldson are not only allowing corporations to continue liquidating rare and important forests — they’re one of the worst offenders. Their agency is leading the way to the bottom of the barrel, logging endangered species habitat, old-growth and some of our province’s top protected area candidates — all on the public’s dime.

After decades of the B.C. government ignoring the crisis in these forests, the public is eager for leaders who will show courage and tackle this problem.

It’s time for Minister Donaldson and Horgan to decide if they want to be remembered as those courageous leaders or as status-quo politicians who signed-off on the liquidation of these precious ecosystems.

Torrance Coste is Vancouver Island Campaigner for the Wilderness Committee. Follow him on Twitter @torrancecoste.

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.

B.C. energy ministry staff were instructed to prepare a press package saying the Site C dam would proceed almost a week before Premier John Horgan held final deliberations with his Cabinet, according to documents released under Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation.

Energy ministry bureaucrats and BC Hydro also compiled information for the NDP government to demonstrate that terminating the $10.7 billion Site C project would nail BC Hydro customers with higher hydro bills, according to the documents.

The rising hydro bill scenario was later overstated by the government to cast the worst possible light on the consequences of halting the project.

The FOI documents indicate that at least five days before the provincial cabinet met last December 6 and reportedly made the final decision to proceed with the Site C dam, and at least 10 days before Premier John Horgan announced “with a heavy heart” that the project would continue, senior officials in the lead ministry in charge of the file considered the decision a done deal.

In announcing the decision, the government told reporters that cancelling the project would lead to an almost immediate and unacceptable 12 per cent hydro rate hike, adding $200 to the annual hydro bill of a Vancouver Island household.

According to the heavily redacted FOI documents, on or before December 1 the B.C. energy ministry asked BC Hydro to compile different scenarios to explain the impact of a 12 per cent hydro rate increase.

On December 2, BC Hydro president Chris O’Riley sent an email — with the subject heading “termination rate increase put in terms of customer bills” — to energy ministry deputy minister Dave Nikolejsin and assistant deputy minister Les MacLaren.

BC Hydro detailed examples of the impact of a 12 per cent rate hike in four different regions of the province, for three types of dwellings: single family dwellings, townhouses and apartments.

Out of 12 different scenarios BC Hydro sent to the B.C. energy ministry, the only one the government chose to highlight to reporters on the day of Horgan’s announcement was the most expensive scenario — the impact on a single family dwelling on Vancouver Island.

And even that scenario was taken out of context, because it was for a household with electric heat, rather than an oil or gas furnace — a detail omitted in final press documents prepared by the energy ministry.

According to Statistics Canada, only 28 per cent of B.C. households use electric heat.

According to the FOI documents, the impact of a 12 per cent rate hike on residents of B.C. ranged from $3 a month, or $37 a year, for Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island apartments using non-electric heat to $17 a month for a single family dwelling on Vancouver Island using electric heat. A house using non-electric heat would have paid about one-half that in a worst case scenario.

Project financing experts told The Narwhal that the 12 per cent rate hike scenario presented by the government was out of step with standard practice for North American utilities that decide to discontinue an energy project.

For reasons that have never been adequately explained, the government insisted that the rate hike would be high because BC Hydro would have to recover $2.1 billion in Site C dam sunk costs — along with what BC Hydro claimed would be $1.8 billion in remediation costs — over 10 years instead of writing them off over decades like other North American utilities.

The FOI documents raise the question of why government staff appear to have been instructed only to prepare communications materials for an announcement to proceed with the Site C project, days in advance of the final Cabinet deliberations.

According to the documents, energy ministry communications staff had a news release and four backgrounders for a decision to proceed with Site C in hand by December 1.

The documents also show that by December 4, two days before the final Cabinet meeting about the decision, the energy ministry had called on BC Hydro to vet and edit the press release and three of the backgrounders that would later be used by NDP cabinet ministers and MLAs to justify their choice to proceed with Site C dam construction. BC Hydro approved the final backgrounder the following day.

And on December 1 BC Hydro president Chris O’Riley was asked to review an energy ministry sanctioned document called “Site C Responses,” which, according to an email sent to him from BC Hydro policy and research manager Leela Magre, had already been “approved by the relevant business groups.”

That document contained answers to anticipated questions, including details about the hydro rates increases stemming from a 12 per cent rate hike and answers downplaying the project’s impact on agricultural land.

David Haslam, communications director for the energy ministry, noted in a December 1 email to ministry colleagues that the policies in attached Site C dam announcement backgrounders “reflect proceeding only.”

“The next step for me is to produce a suite of materials for the cancellation scenario,” Haslam wrote. “I will action that upon receiving the cancellation narrative document.”

But it does not appear that Haslam received any cancellation narrative document.

The response to the FOI — asking for written messages, visual messages and media plans related to the December 11 announcement — does not include any press release or backgrounders with a cancellation scenario.

It does, however, include numerous drafts of a press release and backgrounders based on a decision to continue the project despite the $2 billion jump in its price tag revealed during the December 11 announcement.

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With the announcement on Wednesday that the B.C. government will file its reference case on the ability of the province to regulate the transport of diluted bitumen in the Court of Appeal by April 30th, it’s finally official: the much-debated constitutional question will be put to the test.

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley has repeatedly said that B.C.’s intention to regulate the transport of diluted bitumen will “break the rules of Confederation,” but provinces have strong jurisdiction over the environment according to Jocelyn Stacey, an assistant professor specializing in environmental law at UBC’s Peter A. Allard School of Law.

“[B.C.] can enact constitutionally valid legislation when it comes to protecting the environment, as long as it’s not specifically targeted at a federal project like the Kinder Morgan pipeline,” Stacey told DeSmog Canada.

“A court’s going to have to take a look at that to make sure that that legislation is actually with respect to the environment, not in relation to a federal undertaking,” Stacey said.

“The question that arises after that is: well what happens if that provincial legislation, even if valid, conflicts or would impair the pipeline?”

This is the question the courts will try to answer with B.C.’s reference case.

“The court needs to have the actual content of those regulations so that it can discern whether those regulations are valid and then, assuming they’re in relation to the environment, being able to assess whether or not they would impair the pipeline project,” Stacey said.

The specifics of the regulations are not yet available, but in January B.C. announced a proposal to restrict the transport of diluted bitumen until a scientific inquiry into the impacts of a spill could be completed alongside a proposed new proposed regulations under B.C.’s Environmental Management Act to improve oil spill response and recovery.

‘The constitution at work’

Stacey echoed comments made to DeSmog Canada last week by Jack Woodward, who drafted Section 35 of the constitution on aboriginal rights.

“They’re not getting how the constitution works,” Woodward said in response to statements by Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau implying B.C.’s actions are illegal or unconstitutional.

“It’s true that Canada could authorize a pipeline, but it’s also true that B.C. could probably  govern safety aspects of that pipeline within B.C. including regulation of hazardous products, such as diluted bitumen,” Woodward said.

Stacey called the debates over the pipeline “the constitution at work.”

“Every major development project is subject to both federal and provincial legislation, as well as local bylaws and in some cases Indigenous law as well,” she said.  

Most things regulated by multiple levels of government

Most things in Canadians’ daily lives are regulated by multiple levels of government and pipelines like Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain are no different.

Stacey points to pesticide use as an example of something that is regulated by all three levels of government in a compatible way.

“The most restrictive level of regulation in many cases is at the local level, where many municipalities have bylaws that prohibit the use of cosmetic pesticides,” Stacey said. “And because that doesn’t conflict with any higher level of government, all three levels of regulation are still allowed to exist and operate harmoniously.”

But what happens when different levels of governments are feeling less harmonious?

The billion-dollar question now is: what kind of regulations can B.C. come up with that don’t cross the line into “impairment” of the pipeline?

One example would be implementing additional permitting requirements.

“So in order to increase the transport of bitumen, any prospective transporter would have to submit certain documentation and fulfill certain reporting requirements about emergency response for example before the province would grant an approval,” Stacey said.

That type of legislation would build on the B.C. Supreme Court’s decision in the Coastal First Nations case against the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, where the court recognized that the pipeline disproportionately affected B.C.’s interests.

In that case, the province of British Columbia and Enbridge Northern Gateway were ordered to pay $230,000 in court costs to both the Gitga’at First Nation and Coastal First Nations. The B.C. Supreme Court found the province erred when it signed an agreement that granted environmental decision-making authority for the pipeline to the federal government.

The concern over bitumen spills was also addressed in the National Energy Board’s conditions for the approval of Trans Mountain.

“One of the conditions … that Kinder Morgan has to comply with under the NEB approval is it has to satisfy the NEB that it can and is prepared to clean up a bitumen spill in any environment under any conditions before the pipeline is allowed to start operation,” Stacey noted.

“This isn’t something that B.C. is coming up with out of thin air. This is actually a problem that’s been recognized by the NEB and has been agreed to by Trans Mountain in moving forward with this project.”

Which leads us to the next billion-dollar question: can Kinder Morgan prove it can clean up a bitumen spill, given the lack of basic research on the issue?

“Even if B.C. can’t impair the operation of the pipeline, it might be that by moving forward with some conditions, it can access information that it doesn’t otherwise have access to that would allow B.C. to better prepare for a spill response.”

During the National Energy Board review, Kinder Morgan refused to provide its oil spill response plan to the B.C. government, citing security concerns.

“It goes back to a dissatisfaction with the NEB’s process in evaluating the pipeline and I think a concern that the NEB is not going to be a regulator that sufficiently protects B.C.’s environmental interests,” Stacey said.

“B.C. likely wants to have a little bit more control and insight over pipeline operation.”

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Kinder Morgan’s decision to suspend work on its controversial $7.4-billion Trans Mountain pipeline looks like a another corporate attempt to blackmail Canadian governments.

On Sunday the Texas-based company, which emerged from the ashes of scandal-ridden Enron, abruptly announced it was suspending all “non-essential” work on the export pipeline.

Steve Kean, CEO of Kinder Morgan Canada, blamed the B.C. government for the suspension — even though the National Energy Board has not approved construction for any portion of the project but the Westridge marine terminal in Burnaby.

Even Kinder Morgan has repeatedly acknowledged the reality of setbacks in presentations to investors, citing “a potential unmitigated project delay to December 2020” as recently as last month.

Still, Kean blamed B.C. “What we have is a government that is openly in opposition and has reaffirmed that opposition very recently,” he said.

But aren’t democracies supposed to challenge projects that impose unprecedented economic and environment risks on their citizens?

Wouldn’t a tanker spill of diluted bitumen in the Salish Sea, where one-third of western Canada’s population lives, be an economic and environmental catastrophe, devastating tourism, property values and marine life?

Wouldn’t the doubling of tolls on the expanded pipeline, as approved by the National Energy Board, raise gas prices for British Columbian motorists by $100 million a year? The pipeline now supplies southern B.C. with most of its petroleum.

Won’t Alberta, by exporting diluted bitumen to Asian refineries, repeat the original Canadian sin of failing to add value to resources at home, giving up thousands of jobs and billions in revenue?

How can exporting one of the world’s most carbon intensive fuels help fight climate change?

And can’t corporations with viable projects accommodate citizens, courts, First Nations and economists who think such costs and liabilities should be properly accounted for?

But Kinder Morgan prefers bluster and blackmail instead of the reality that the project was never a sound venture because it was about privatizing gains and socializing costs.

Economist Robyn Allan has repeatedly argued that Kinder Morgan is no ordinary company and the Trans Mountain expansion project has been uneconomic since day one.

She told The Tyee that “Kinder Morgan is looking for an exit strategy, but it likely includes a need to demonize Ottawa in order to set the stage for a suit under NAFTA.”

The drama begins with the biased workings of the National Energy Board, which refused to look at downstream and upstream climate impacts of the project and even failed to scrutinize its commercial viability during public hearings.

The best evidence from experts shows that Kinder Morgan, the Canadian government and Notley have misrepresented the pipeline’s illusory benefits.

A pipeline to the coast will not raise bitumen prices, because all global markets discount junk crude due to its poor quality.

The ill-conceived project will export refining jobs and great clouds of climate-changing emissions to China. In addition tanker traffic place southern resident orcas at risk.

The Houston-based firm that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley now salute as a defender of Canada’s national interest is the spawn of Enron, found guilty of accounting fraud and corruption. The energy trader’s collapse cost shareholders $74 billion and killed 20,000 jobs.

Kinder Morgan, a dirty and unsexy mover of gas and oil, began as Enron Liquids Pipeline in 1997. Enron alumni continue to populate the senior ranks of Kinder Morgan.

They include Richard Kinder, a Texas billionaire and Kinder Morgan’s chair. He worked at Enron for 16 years. Jordan Mintz, the chief tax officer, served as the vice-president of Enron’s tax division from 1996-2000.

Kean, the man now baiting Canadian governments, worked as Enron’s senior vice-president of government affairs. And so on.

These Enron alumni probably think Canadian politicians are the ultimate pushovers and dimwits.

During the 2014 NEB Trans Mountain hearings the U.S. parent firm vowed to provide 100 per cent of the debt and equity for the pipeline.

But after a Wall Street analyst suggested the third largest energy company in North America wasn’t spending enough to maintain its pipelines or returning value to investors, the company’s share price fell. Kinder Morgan’s stock value plummeted in 2015 and continues to languish. Lower oil prices and rising debt put its largest capital project on shaky ground.

Allan says investors recognized a year ago that the Trans Mountain project didn’t make commercial sense. As investor interest waned, Allan said, Kinder Morgan couldn’t raise debt or equity in the U.S. markets or find a joint-venture partner.

The job of raising money for the project then fell to Kinder Morgan Canada. But $1.6 billion it raised in 2017 went to pay off debts of its parent company.

Richard Kinder explained the move in a conference call with investors: “So we were able to strengthen KMI’S balance sheet using the IPO proceeds to pay down debt… ”

Kinder Morgan Canada has arranged $5.5 billion in construction facility loans from Canadian banks — but only if Kinder Morgan raises $2 billion in equity for the project.

“And now we learn from Premier Notley and Kinder Morgan Canada CEO Steven Kean that conversations with Alberta for financial support have taken place,” says Allan.

Rachel Notley, Canada’s leading petro politician, apparently can’t wait to pour taxpayers’ money into a project that the market views as high risk and that British Columbians regard as a threat to their best interests.

“Alberta is prepared to do whatever it takes to get this pipeline built — including taking a public position in the pipeline,” Notley said Sunday.

So corporate blackmail works like a charm in Canada.

Allan says Kinder Morgan is looking for a way out.

“The project is not commercially viable and, even before it’s built, Kinder Morgan is looking for a bailout,” she said. “If Kinder Morgan’s long-term contracts for moving 700,000 barrels of bitumen and oil on a controversial pipeline were solid, would Kinder Morgan now be blaming the government of B.C. for its problems?”

In a normal world governments concerned about fiscal prudence and the public interest would let Kinder Morgan abandon a non-viable project. (Some analysts have already said cancelling the project would be a “significant blow,” but not “the end of the world for Kinder Morgan.”)

In a moral world Canadian governments would admit that pipelines and tankers export refinery jobs and greenhouse gas emissions on a disastrous scale.

In a just world Alberta would have to admit it has allowed industry to overproduce bitumen due to low royalties and bad governance. The province has no strategic plan for bitumen other than screaming for pipelines.

But Canada, like its southern neighbour, is having trouble behaving normally, morally or justly these days.

But Trudeau and Notley think it’s OK to embrace a debt-ridden U.S. company so it can export, via tankers, unrefined bitumen to Chinese refineries where the upgraded resource can enrich the authoritarian Communist party.

Canadians should be more than ashamed.

They should be alarmed.

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As the national conversation about the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline goes thoroughly bananas, one thing is becoming crystal clear: this conflict is likely to get worse before it gets better.

Thankfully, there are people out there who specialize in resolving conflicts like this — people like Canadian Adam Kahane who has been credited with helping to end Colombia’s civil war.

For Kahane — the author of the book Collaborating with the Enemy: How to Work with People You Don’t Agree With or Like or Trust — the most striking thing about the pipeline debate is that the rules are not clear.

“The question of who gets to decide on what in Canada between the provincial and federal governments on one hand and Indigenous rights holders on the other hand is not settled,” he told DeSmog Canada in an interview.

While many statements by politicians pretend there’s one right answer and agreement about what’s in the “national interest,” that too is up for debate.

“To say ‘this is what’s needed for the good of the nation’ gives an overly simplistic answer to a very difficult question, which is: whose good is being talked about here?” Kahane said.

And then there’s the question of whether the hysterical political statements are part of a negotiation strategy we’re not aware of.

“People say all sorts of things to try to shift the terrain to their advantage,” Kahane said.

We asked Kahane to shed some light on the dynamics at play in the pipeline debate, based on his experience mediating conflicts around the world.

What do you think about the heated rhetoric that’s happening with our political leaders right now?

I was very surprised at the rhetoric, especially when Trudeau and Notley both said … within the last few days ‘this is going to happen.’ That surprised me because it’s not the sort of thing politicians normally say.

I would have expected them to say ‘we’re going to try to find a way forward’ and ‘this is complicated, but no doubt we can work it out.’ But when you say ‘this is going to happen’ for me it means two things: first of all, that there’s only one correct answer to this. It has to be this way. And mostly when there are disputes like this, actually the way to move forward is to make some sort of compromise or new idea. The way things end up is not the way things are at the beginning.

That’s an unusual thing to say about a complicated and contentious situation.

The second thing is when someone in authority says ‘it is going to happen,’ it implies that if necessary they will impose it … Usually you impose things only when finding a mutually agreeable solution has proven to be impossible or where the other actor is illegitimate. So it’s an unusual thing to say about a public policy issue.

Have you seen situations before in different contexts where a government has started to say ‘this will happen’ when there’s a contentious situation? Does it bring up any parallels for you?

Yes, absolutely. Governments and other people with power often say ‘it’s going to be like this.’

What’s interesting to me about all the people who are saying ‘it’s going to be like this’ is: what is their power to impose the solution they want?

Does the federal government have the power — constitutional, regulatory, financial or, in an extreme situation, with security forces? Does the government of Alberta have the power, including through the trade sanctions that have been discussed? But similarly do the opponents of the pipeline have the power — legal or political or through their willingness to protest and be arrested? Does anybody have the power to impose the solution they want regardless of the others? And if not, then who is going to negotiate?

Normally when there’s a situation where different people want different things, there’s a lot of fuss and eventually some kind of agreement is come to. In the end, it’s not a unilateral solution. It’s a negotiation or collaboration or whatever you call it.

What I can’t tell is: to what extent are the statements … really meant as a declaration of unilateralism … or is it part of a negotiation? That’s not clear to me. Are the people making these statements on all sides announcing their intention to force … or are they simply being vocal about their positions as part of a negotiation or collaboration?

For me, what makes this very complicated and unusual is the question: who has power over what is not clear because there are many constitutional questions here including, I think, questions about the power and authority — political, constitutional, moral authority — of different First Nations groups. It’s not as though there’s this one rule here, everybody knows what the rule is and the question is who’s following the rule or not following the rule. No, the rules about who gets to decide about what, especially about land use in unceded territory, is not settled in Canada.

It seems like in much of the news coverage and political statements on this, there isn’t much addressing of the real differences that are at play. There’s a lot of posturing, but there’s almost a logic schism. People aren’t discussing the same thing. Is that something that you come across often in your work?

Yes, and I would go further than that. I think there is not an acknowledgement that there are real differences, that there are multiple conflicting objectives. Many statements are pretending that actually there is one right answer, but something that makes it even more difficult is that there is not acknowledgement that when we talk about the good of the whole, that there’s not one whole. There are many wholes here. So when many people say ‘the good of the nation,’ what is that? Canada? Alberta? B.C.? Burnaby? The different First Nations that are affected by the pipeline?

To say ‘this is what’s needed for the good of the nation’ gives an overly simplistic answer to a very difficult question, which is: whose good is being talked about here?

When B.C. people say, ‘this might be good for Alberta, but it’s not good for those of us along the coastline of B.C.,’ not only are there real differences that are not being discussed, there are different wholes that are being ignored. The fact that there is not one superior whole in Canada — the fact that it’s a confederation of multiple wholes where the rules about some of the wholes, especially the Indigenous wholes — makes it difficult to assert that this is the one correct answer.

And yet that is something that we see. Is that common in political rhetoric that you see around the world, this assertion of one correct answer when it’s quite obvious to anyone who’s paying close attention that there isn’t one correct answer?

It’s very common that politicians or chief executives or community leaders, it’s very common that authorities say ‘it’s like this. This is what matters. This is the good of the whole. This is the correct answer.’ They try that and sometimes it works and sometimes they simply don’t have the capacity to impose their answer.

That’s what’s really not clear to me about this situation is when Prime Minister Trudeau says ‘it’s going to be like this’ does he actually have the constitutional and political and moral authority to make it like this? It doesn’t look that simple to me.

People do this all the time, all around the world and in every sphere of life … That’s called forcing and sometimes it works, but the problem with forcing, as everybody knows is I try to make it the way I want it to be, you don’t like it and you push back and we either ping pong back and forth or we get stuck. That’s the problem with forcing.

Have you seen situations like this play out in Canada before, where there’s been these statements that a leader will impose their desired solution upon a certain jurisdiction?

I don’t think it’s an analogy, but it’s another interesting example of this. I was talking to somebody today about: what are different ways that different actors have tried to impose an answer to the question of Quebec separatism?

The FLQ tried to impose an answer through, amongst other things, kidnappings and bombings in the October crisis. Then Prime Minister Trudeau tried to impose an answer first through the use of the military and then through a constitutional settlement, then the PQ government tried to create an answer through the referenda. And actually, in each of these cases, people were trying to say ‘it’s going to be like this, we’re going to make it like this’ and it actually didn’t turn out like this. The story keeps going and keeps unfolding in unexpected and unpredictable ways.

With respect to the current situation, that the people who are saying ‘it has to be like this’ — whether it’s the Alberta government or the B.C. government or the federal government or the protesters — I’m not confident that any of those people have the way to make it the way they want it to be. And furthermore, I’m not confident that if they do succeed that it will last. That’s the problem with forcing is it tends to be temporary. Eventually the people who were on the losing side of it find a way to get back in the game.

I’m interested in such situations in how is it possible to find a way forward collaboratively, through negotiation. This is what I’m not seeing in this current situation. Maybe it’s taking place behind the scenes, but I don’t see it.

The dialogue is very heated and quite polarizing. At the same time, when I think about the situation, sitting down and trying to collaborate, on some issues maybe there isn’t a middle road. What if there isn’t a collaborative solution in the sense that B.C. simply doesn’t want a new oil pipeline and Alberta absolutely does want a new oil pipeline?

I don’t believe that there’s only two answers — that either there is a pipeline as currently proposed or there isn’t. I don’t know what they are, but I’m confident that there’s more than two options. Options about safety, options about governance, options about economics, options about control, options about volume, options about all kinds of things.

Nelson Mandela once said that one of the features of the complex is the way things end up can’t be seen from the beginning. The exact quote is: “One effect of sustained conflict is to narrow our vision of what is possible. Time and again, conflicts are resolved through shifts that were unimaginable at the start.”

One of the features of these conflicts is polarization. There are lots of different ways to do things and I don’t know whether a solution that works for more of the wholes can be arrived at, but stating that it either has to be my way or no way doesn’t move us forward much.

I don’t believe the statement that it’s either like it is now or it’s the opposite. This is not plausible to me.

You raise this interesting tension that there’s likely this negotiation or collaboration happening behind closed doors and there are also these public statements that are potentially playing some role in that larger negotiation game.

Probably. Maybe all of this is just part of the negotiation. That would be a normal thing. People say all sorts of things to try to shift the terrain to their advantage … I suppose in a constitutional democracy if you really litigate everything to the Supreme Court, there’ll be a right answer and a wrong answer, but that’s a long road. Maybe that’s how the answer will be arrived at.

That’s why some things in Canada have to be settled in the court.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

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The B.C. government unveiled a new natural gas development plan Thursday in an attempt to trigger a final investment deal with LNG Canada, the proponents of B.C.’s largest proposed liquefied natural gas export terminal, located in Kitimat.

The NDP’s new framework offers LNG Canada and other companies tax reprieves and exemptions and a cheaper electricity rate than the previous B.C. Liberal government extended to the industry. The government is also offering a carbon tax break to LNG companies if their facilities can meet the “cleanest” operating standards in the world.

In a press briefing Premier John Horgan claimed the new plan carves a way for the province to develop a $40 billion LNG facility and still meet climate targets and obligations to Indigenous peoples. LNG Canada’s own estimates say $25 to $40 billion for a “four-train project” while today’s announcement only considers a two-train first phase of the project (‘trains” refers to natural gas processing units).

However, the province has yet to release a climate plan that demonstrates what steps would be taken to counter significant greenhouse gas emissions from the LNG Canada facility — representing 10 per cent of B.C.’s 2050 emissions target, according to the government.

Exporting liquefied natural gas involves fracking for gas in B.C.’s northeast, shipping that gas via pipelines to the coast and then cooling the gas via massive compressors to -162 degrees Celsius, the point at which gas turns into liquid and becomes easier to transport via tanker. LNG Canada would burn its own natural gas for the energy-intensive compression process, resulting in enormous greenhouse gas pollution. (B.C. doesn’t allow the burning of natural gas to create electricity because of these emissions.)

The government said LNG Canada will emit four megatonnes of carbon emissions each year — the equivalent of adding 856,531 cars to the road.

The Pembina Institute, however, has pointed out that when both phases of the project are built the LNG Canada project would emit 8.6 megatonnes of carbon per year in 2030, rising to 9.6 megatonnes in 2050. The government’s emissions estimate only includes the first phase of the project, although its investment figure of $40 billion is for all project phases.

No clear climate plan

B.C.’s new “framework” to attract an LNG industry was slammed by the B.C. Green Party, which called the plan “race to the bottom economics.”

Green Party leader Andrew Weaver pointed out that the more favourable electricity rate the NDP is offering the LNG industry is a “ratepayer subsidy” of Site C dam power that would go to LNG Canada “at less than half of what it would cost to produce.”

At a press conference, Weaver said “there is profound concern” that LNG plants would be exempt from further increases in B.C.’s carbon tax.

He said the Greens will not support any legislation brought forth to back the changes to B.C.’s terms to LNG producers, but stopped short of saying the three Green MLAs will bring down the NDP government over the issue.

“This is not about toppling the government at this juncture,” Weaver said. “Our confidence in government is predicated on government developing a climate plan to meet our targets. Government has been in power for eight months and we have not seen such a plan put forth.”

If LNG Canada sets up shop in B.C. and “you are going to add eight to 10 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions,” Weaver said all other aspects of the economy must make up the difference if B.C. is to meet legislated climate targets.

“By 2030 all other aspects of our economy — apart from LNG Canada — would have to cut emissions by 50 per cent. And by 2050 it means that all other aspects of our economy would have to cut emissions by 95 per cent.”

Horgan said the $40 billion LNG Canada project has the support of 16 local First Nations, some of which have signed economic benefits agreements with Shell Canada, which owns a 50 per cent stake in the project alongside PetroChina, Korea Gas Company and Mitsubishi.

The LNG Canada plant would require 670 new kilometres of pipeline, linking Dawson Creek to Kitimat, and would spur up to 700 new tanker visits a year, according to Pembina.

Bringing remaining First Nations onside with the project is the responsibility of LNG Canada, Horgan said.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Horgan told reporters at a press briefing. “Industrial activity and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples are difficult issues. Meeting our climate change objectives are primary and fundamental to the new government’s approach.”

“Rather than skirt those issues, like the previous government did — rather than ignore those issues of reconciliation and climate action — we want to marry industrial activity with those two key government objectives.”

NDP take up ‘cleanest LNG in the world’ mantle

The previous BC Liberal government promised to develop an LNG empire that would export “the cleanest LNG in the world.”

Yet claims of “clean LNG” have been thoroughly debunked and a glut in the global natural gas market led to a major slow down in investment in B.C.

Of the 19 export LNG projects proposed under the previous government, only one, the relatively small Woodfibre LNG, has received a final investment decision.

Former Premier Christy Clark also promised 10,000 jobs in the LNG industry, which failed to materialize.

“They got zero [LNG plants], we may get one,” Horgan said at the press conference.

The NDP is now singing from the Liberal songsheet on jobs, claiming that the LNG Canada investment would create 10,000 jobs and provide training opportunities for younger people as long-time members of the construction trade unions retire.

LNG Canada is expected to make a final investment decision in late 2018 and now, under the newly announced framework, B.C. has offered incentives if the company makes its decision by November.

The new plan offers LNG developers temporary relief from the provincial sales tax, new emissions standards, elimination of the LNG income tax and rebates for penalties paid under the carbon tax if the facility meets best-in-world standards.

According to the government, best-in-world standards would be met by electrifying fracking operations in natural gas fields, using new technology to reduce emissions in the LNG cooling process and by electrifying ancillary LNG operations.

“Energy-intensive trade-exposed industries already have an opportunity to reduce their emission profile and therefore potentially reduce their emissions cost,” Horgan said. “That’s not to absolve them of their responsibility. It’s to help them transition as carbon pricing goes up and their industry transforms.”

Exerpt from B.C.’s technical briefing on LNG Canada and the new natural gas framework.

Horgan said should the new project come online it will require “radical electrification” of B.C.’s economy, adding the province has an abundance of hydroelectric power.

“There is no intention to give anyone a free pass,” he said.

Yet, Weaver said government has yet to put a credible climate path forward.

“I’ve spent 25 years in the field of climate science…frankly I don’t know how you are going to be able to get to 40 per cent reductions and add 8 megatonnes.”

Weaver said measures like the carbon tax, which are designed to help B.C. meet its climate targets, are undermined by proposals that exempt industry from planned increases to the tax.

The LNG Canada plant was approved in 2015 by both the B.C. and federal governments, with 74 conditions. None of the conditions relate to carbon emissions or place a limit on emissions.

Weaver waiting on fugitive emissions price

Another major obstacle to B.C.’s ability to carve a credible climate path forward are fugitive emissions, Weaver said.

A recent peer-reviewed study by the David Suzuki Foundation and St. Francis Xavier University found methane emissions from B.C.’s oil and gas industry are two-and-a-half times higher than reported.

A follow up study found wells in the Montney region, which would supply the gas to LNG Canada, release more than 11,800 tonnes of methane into the air annually — the equivalent of burning 4.5 million tonnes of coal or putting two million cars on the road.

B.C. does not currently price these fugitive emissions under the provincial carbon tax.

Weaver said the Green Party’s agreement with the NDP stipulates the province put a price on fugitive emissions.

In a previous interview with DeSmog Canada, Weaver said he would topple the government if the NDP pushed for the development of an LNG industry.

He reiterated Thursday that the Green Party’s confidence in the minority government is “firmly embedded” in a credible climate plan.

With files from Sarah Cox.

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Conspicuously absent from the B.C. government’s 19-page budget speech on Tuesday was any mention of the largest publicly funded project in the province’s history.

Nor did the government devote a single word to the $10.7 billion Site C dam during last week’s Speech from the Throne, which presented the NDP’s “affordability” agenda for the coming year.

Green Party MLA Sonia Furstenau said the avoidance of Site C appears to be deliberate.

“To not talk about it, as it’s moving forward, seems to be more than just an oversight,” Furstenau told DeSmog Canada.

It suggests that “the government does not want to bring this to the forefront, does not want to be talking about it, does not want to bring this to people’s minds,” she said.

Site C’s only mention in a stack of budget documents — including beefy backgrounders and a lengthy news release — was a line item at the bottom of page 47 in the 150-page budget and fiscal plan, which details spending priorities right through to 2021:

“Site C power project

Cost to December 31, 2017: $2.13 billion

Estimated cost to complete: $8.58 billion.”

It was a curious portrayal in light of the budget’s hallmark items.

A “striking” omission from the budget speech

Consider this. Site C will cost British Columbians more than ten times the amount of the “historic” $1 billion child care investment announced Tuesday by Finance Minister Carole James, a pledge that child care advocates described as “monumental.”

It’s almost $4 billion more than the largest investment in housing in B.C.’s history, a budget announcement of $7 billion spread out over 10 years that was widely praised by housing advocates.

And it’s more than 50 times the amount of money — $200 million — the budget devotes to a three-year investment in housing, child care and skills training dedicated to indigenous priorities, as part of its stated commitment to adopting and implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Yet no mention of Site C. Nada.

Ken Boon, president of the Peace Valley Landowner Association, representing 70 property owners who will be affected by Site C, called the omission “striking.”

“One would think that the recent decision to proceed with a $10.7 billion dam would warrant attention, especially after the poor economic rationale of the project was exposed by the B.C. Utilities Commission,” Boon told DeSmog Canada.

“Even just the $2 billion increase given to the [Site C] project budget on December 11th is larger than almost any other budget measure.”

The Site C dam has barely been mentioned in the legislature since it resumed sitting last week, a gap the Green Party promised to redress in the coming weeks when its three MLAs have an opportunity to grill the NDP during ministry budget estimates.

The Greens plan to “focus on that elephant in the room and to really hold the government to account for its decision” to proceed with Site C, in order to determine if there are increasing reasons to question that decision, said Furstenau.

The latest Site C dam development

Furstenau and her colleagues might want to start by zeroing in on the latest perplexing Site C development, a last minute major design change that nobody saw coming.

The change is so significant it requires BC Hydro to seek an amendment to its environmental assessment certificate for the project.

In January, BC Hydro notified the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office it plans to submit an application to change the design for Site C’s generating station and spillways.

“This isn’t a minor kind of amendment,” said former BC Hydro CEO Marc Eliesen, who was also the CEO of Manitoba Hydro and Ontario Hydro.

“I have never seen anything like this taking place. What I find just shocking is that these changes would take place at the last second.”

That notification came only weeks after BC Hydro announced it had selected the preferred proponent for a major contract to build the station and spillways, a consortium that gives a 30 per cent share in the Site C venture to the state-owned China Communications Construction Co. Ltd.

It’s unclear at this point if the design changes are related to ongoing geotechnical issues that have slowed construction, and how they might impact Site C’s accelerating cost and timeline.

In a letter to the environmental assessment office, BC Hydro described the changes as “improvements” to optimize capacity, minimize environmental risks and improve safety.

BC Hydro also noted that the new design is “not expected to change fish injury or mortality.”

Up to 40 per cent of bull trout, a species vulnerable to extinction, are expected to die in Site C’s turbines while attempting to migrate downstream.

That’s after the fish are anesthetized and transported upstream past the dam in trucks to reach their spawning grounds, at a projected cost of $127 million over 100 years. (That same amount of money would build nine new elementary schools in the Lower Mainland.)

BC Hydro also told the environmental assessment officethe design changes will “reduce the likelihood” of reservoir levels topping maximum levels “under extreme flow scenarios.”

The certificate amendment process, which could take months, will require consultations with First Nations, the federal government, local government and may even warrant public consultation, according to the B.C. environmental assessment office.

Eliesen said even if there are reasonable grounds for making the unexpected design changes he is surprised BC Hydro did not submit the changes to last fall’s independent review of the project, when any potential impact on Site C’s finances and timeline would have undergone independent scrutiny.

“For the past five years, there’s been a picture of what the generation station and spillways looked like and now that’s been changed,” he said.

In a recent affidavit filed in B.C. Supreme Court in support of a new legal case against Site C by two Treaty 8 First Nations, Eliesen said that the “necessary experience and due diligence rigour required for managing a major hydro project such as Site C is deficient among the executive at BC Hydro,” noting it has been more than 30 years since BC Hydro constructed a major generating station.

Are we back to BC Liberal-era secrecy on Site C?

Before the former Liberal government changed the law to exempt Site C from independent oversight by the B.C. Utilities Commission (BCUC), the commission would have monitored ongoing planning expenditures related to the project.

For years, the NDP said that Site C should be scrutinized by the utilities commission.

Yet, instead of restoring full BCUC oversight of Site C, the NDP has announced the creation of a new “Site C Assurance Board.”

The government says the board will provide “enhanced oversight to future contract procurement and management, project deliverables, environmental integrity, and quality assurance — all within the mandate of delivering the project on time and budget,” according to the government.

But the NDP has not yet determined to what extent the board’s findings will be made public, according to a statement emailed to DeSmog Canada this week by the B.C. energy ministry.

The composition and terms of reference for the Site C Assurance Board are being finalized by BC Hydro and the government and will be announced in the coming weeks, said the ministry.

Boon said he finds it disturbing that the board’s full discoveries might be withheld from the public, given its stated purpose is to enhance oversight of Site C to deliver the project on time and within its revised budget.

“How will the public know that is indeed happening if their work is done in secrecy?” asked Boon.

“Secrecy is what happened under the BC Liberals with this project, and it took a BCUC review to finally reveal just how bad things were. I personally believe the only way we will get true transparency on this project is if whistleblowers come forward and tell their story to the media while keeping their identity protected.”

(If you have a story to tell, you can get in touch with DeSmog Canada’s team of journalists here.)

How does Site C square with the NDP’s affordability agenda?

Notably, the NDP’s only reference to hydro rates in the budget rollout was to restate the party’s earlier commitment to seek a one-year freeze.

Eliesen and other experts expect hydro rates will climb significantly once the Site C dam becomes operational, supposedly in just six years.

The NDP has said Site C’s surplus power would be sold on the spot market, likely at rates far lower than it costs to produce it.

That leaves B.C.’s hydro customers to make up the difference — at the same time that they begin to pay for Site C’s construction cost, which the BCUC warned could top $12.5 billion.

B.C. only needs to look east to gauge the affordability of large hydro dams compared to more flexible alternatives such as wind power.

The “boondoggle” Muskrat Falls dam in Labrador has added an average $1,800 to the annual hydro bills of every household in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The over-budget Keeyask Dam in northern Manitoba recently compelled Manitoba Hydro to ask for “exceptional” hydro rate increases that, if approved, will add $600 to an annual hydro bill of $1,000.

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No, it wasn’t a weird dream, Alberta actually announced a boycott of B.C. wine on Tuesday.

The announcement by Premier Rachel Notley is just the latest move in an inter-provincial spat over the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline, which would carry oil from Alberta to B.C.

It started with last week’s proposal by the B.C. government to guard against a potential oil spill. The province announced it will set up an independent scientific advisory panel to look at how diluted bitumen can be safely transported and cleaned up, if spilled.

Until the “behaviour of spilled bitumen can be better understood” B.C. will restrict increases in transportation of the substance through the province. Diluted bitumen is a mixture of thick unrefined oil from the oilsands and natural gas condensate, which acts as a thinner (and is also extremely explosive as recently witnessed in the Sanchi tanker explosion.)

Notley retaliated almost immediately, saying she was ending electricity trade negotiations with British Columbia. But yesterday the Globe and Mail revealed electricity talks had actually broken down last year.

What happened next is one of the more bizarre twists in Canadian politics in recent memory. Instead of reaching for a glass of wine, Notley came up with a real threat this time and announced the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission will immediately halt the import of all wines from its western neighbour. Apparently Albertans drank more than 17 million bottles of B.C. wine last year (for those who are counting, that’s nearly four bottles of wine for every man, woman and child in Alberta).

You could be excused for being a bit confused by how we got to this point. How did a discussion about oil spill risk and pipelines so quickly degenerate into one about non-existent electricity negotiations and alcohol? What is this really about? What’s fact and what’s fiction?

Let’s start with the oil spill risk, since that’s where all this fun began.

In 2015 the Royal Society of Canada identified seven major knowledge gaps when it comes to the risk of a diluted bitumen spill in water.

As of right now, it’s not clear whether the substance will sink or be suspended in water if spilled.

In 2010, an Enbridge pipeline ruptured, spilling nearly three million litres of dilbit into a tributary of the Kalamazoo river where it mixed with sediment on the river’s bottom, triggering one of the most expensive onshore oil spill cleanup efforts in U.S. history.

Despite that, a 2012 Enbridge study found dilbit did not sink in a laboratory environment. Then in 2014, a report released by the federal government found dilbit sinks when mixed with sediment.

Didn’t someone already consider all this before approving the pipeline?

Kinda. The National Energy Board (NEB) review of the Trans Mountain project discussed the possibility of a marine oil spill and determined that the risks “are acceptable.”

But it also clearly signalled that it was making no recommendations about anything relating to shipping. Take this statement from page 18 of its recommendation report: “The Board conducted an environmental assessment of the Project (as stated above, the Board does not regulate marine shipping and the increased Project-related marine shipping is not part of the Project).”

This is how the board got around considering impacts on endangered marine species, such as the southern resident orcas.

The National Energy Board also didn’t consider the upstream greenhouse gas emissions related to producing the oil to fill the pipeline. A ministerial panel set up after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took office attempted to address gaps in the original review and issued a report that posed six key questions, including: “Can construction of a new Trans Mountain Pipeline be reconciled with Canada’s climate change commitments?”

There is no clear understanding of how that report factored into cabinet’s decision to approve the pipeline.

All of which is to say: when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his government made a “science based” decision, you’ve got to take it with a grain of salt.

But isn’t B.C. already transporting diluted bitumen?

Yes, it is, but to understand the current controversy, you need to rewind to 1953, when the original Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline started operation.

There was no oilsands development at that time, so the pipeline was transporting conventional oil. Decades later, when the pipeline began transporting diluted bitumen, there was no formal consideration given to the fact a new substance was being shipped through the pipe — hence the current controversy.

The new Trans Mountain pipeline would increase the system’s capacity from 300,000 barrels a day to 890,000 barrels a day.

Notley doesn’t think B.C. should have a say over what goes in the pipeline.

“They have every right to talk about protecting their environment and to work on protecting their environment and come up with best practices for marine safety and otherwise, but they don’t have the right to tell Alberta what does or does not go into that pipeline,” she told CBC.

The pipeline, Notley argues, is key to protecting Alberta’s economy from the stifling effects of a lack of export options. But while Alberta is worried about its economy, B.C. is worried about its own.

“The potential for a diluted bitumen spill already poses significant risk to our inland and coastal environment and the thousands of existing tourism and marine harvesting jobs,” B.C.’s Minister of Environment George Heyman said last week. “British Columbians rightfully expect their government to defend B.C.’s coastline and our inland waterways, and the economic and environmental interests that are so important to the people in our province.”

Here’s What Alberta’s Wine Boycott is Really About https://t.co/TlBrVp4tD6 #oilsands #bcpoli #ableg #wineboycott #climate pic.twitter.com/T1NT83urTI

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 7, 2018

But, here’s the thing: the pipeline has become about much more than the oil that runs through it.

Let’s start with Indigenous rights.

Several B.C. First Nations have been steadfastly opposed to the construction of another oil pipeline through their territory. While Notley was dominating the headlines on Tuesday, the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation — which is also challenging Trans Mountain in court — was launching a call for mass demonstration to protest the pipeline.

The federal and provincial governments has committed to respecting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which includes the principle that First Nations be afforded the right to free, prior and informed consent over projects that impact their traditional territory.

At a town hall event in Nanaimo last week, Trudeau said: “It is in the national interest to move forward with the Kinder Morgan pipeline and we will be moving forward with the Kinder Morgan pipeline.”

Pipeline battles have become a proxy for the larger climate change debate.

Repeat after me: It’s an export pipeline. It’s an export pipeline. It’s an export pipeline.

Any argument that starts with “that B.C. wine was shipped in a truck using Alberta oil” or “how do you think all you West Coast hippies are going to get to work?” is fundamentally flawed.

Things Canada has control over: its own demand for oil. Its supply of oil to the world.

On the demand side, Canada’s consumption of heavy crude oil is pretty steady, according to the National Energy Board’s energy supply and demand projections to 2040.

NEB Supply and Demand Balance to 2040. The green line is exports, the red line is domestic use.

The crux of the climate debate over Trans Mountain is about the supply side: at a time in history when we know we need to leave 80 per cent of known fossil fuels in the ground to stand a chance of limiting catastrophic climate change, should we be expanding extraction and building new infrastructure to export that oil?

How you answer that question likely factors into how you feel about this pipeline brouhaha — especially if you don’t live on the coast, where an oil spill is the primary concern.

But if we don’t provide the world the oil, won’t someone else?

Some people argue this type of “supply side environmentalism” (fighting fossil fuels at their source) is flawed and that if Canada doesn’t provide the world with oil, someone else will.

Other people say this type of strategy is the only thing that created the space for any meaningful conversation to happen around oilsands and climate policy.

“Climate change is inherently difficult to organize around; it’s big, abstract, and incremental. By the same token, broad, economy-wide policies to address it are also big, abstract, and incremental,” David Roberts wrote for Vox in an excellent piece about backlash to Keystone XL climate activism.

Indeed, if you rewind just a few years, the Alberta government had very little interest in reducing the environmental impacts of the oilsands — from the liability of the toxic tailings lakes to the carbon emissions.

But now that Notley’s NDP government has made some progress on the climate file — implementing a carbon tax, putting a cap on oilsands emissions — some people think the opposition to pipelines should stop and environmentalists should move on to other strategies. That overlooks the inherent challenges of campaigning on climate change.

“If …  they can get hundreds of thousands of people in the street for a revenue-neutral carbon tax, they are welcome to try,” Roberts wrote.

Given what we know about fossil fuels and climate change “there have got to be some decisions made somewhere not to dig it up, not to build distribution infrastructure for it — to leave it in the ground,” Roberts writes.

Should that place be Alberta? Well, that depends on whether you’re an Alberta premier up for re-election in a year or if you’re a B.C. premier with a coastal economy at risk.

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