As we pull up to the mouth of the Hazeltine Creek, where billions of litres of mining waste from the Imperial Metals Mount Polley mine spilled into Quesnel Lake on August 4th, I’m thinking to myself what numerous locals have recently said to me: this shouldn’t have happened.

All of the warning signs were present that the waste pit for the mine was overburdened: employees raised the alarm, government citations were issued, engineering reports contained warnings.

It shouldn’t have happened, and yet it did.

And now local residents and First Nations will shoulder the full, long-term burden of the accident on the environment, the significance of which won’t be truly know for decades to come.

If you visit the town of Likely, B.C. (which you should because the entire region, much of it unaffected by the spill, is stunning and the locals beyond hospitable) you’ll hear a lot of support for the mining industry, but a growing frustration over irresponsible management and lack of oversight.

British Columbians should know, however, that less oversight and regulation is exactly what is being promised to the extractive industry at both the provincial and federal level.

In June Christy Clark recently congratulated Bill Bennett, B.C.’s minister of energy and mines, for ridding industry of ”red tape” surrounding new mining projects. According to a mandate letter, over the next year Bennett is expected to “encourage mine development across the province” and work with the Ministry of Finance to extend new mining allowances.

Bennett is also expected to “support the development of new mines and major mine expansions by working with industry…to ensure that BC’s mines permitting process is the best in Canada.”

Nowhere are more strident environmental standards, best practices, addressing community concerns or responsible development mentioned in the minister’s mandate.

On the federal level changes made to Canada’s environmental legislation in the infamous Omnibus Budget Bill C-38 also pave the way for less regulatory oversight as well as fewer and less-robust environmental assessments before projects are built or expanded.

Omnibus Budget Bill C-45, released soon after C-38, made massive changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act, effectively removing 99.7 per cent of Canada’s lakes and 99.9 per cent of Canada’s rivers from federal environmental oversight.

The new legislation also makes it very difficult for citizens to participate in hearings (if hearings are even open to the public, which isn’t the case for the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion) where their testimonies can play a role in discussing the feasibility and desirability of a project in a specific area.

Under the new laws permits, like the ones Imperial Metals was obliged to obtain in order to expand mining operations at Mount Polley, can be approved without an environmental assessment. New mining projects and expansions are now positioned to occur without due scientific and environmental review or public input.

That means local residents will have less information and less say in the decision-making process about projects that stand to affect them the most.

The city of Kamloops is currently fighting the proposed Ajax mine, a mega gold and copper mine that would not only operate a massive tailings facility mere kilometres from the Coquihalla Highway but would be built directly on top of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline.

An accident of the scale at Mount Polley would be catastrophic so close to the city limits of Kamloops, the tournament capital of B.C.

In B.C.’s 2012 Mining Strategy, Christy Clark said the province is on track to meet its Jobs Plan target of opening eight new mines and expanding nine others by 2015.

The promise of expanded mining in this province is being made before appropriate public consultation and environmental safety reviews, not to mention adequate First Nations consent.

The push for industrial development appears top priority, no matter what the social and environmental costs.

Similarly the province is pushing for new oil pipelines and LNG projects that communities have explicitly fought to prevent or, in some cases, voted against.

The residents of Likely, just like many other British Columbians, have high expectations for both government and industry. But with the collapse of the tailings pond wall has come a collapse of trust, something I hope our provincial government and Imperial Metals will work overtime to rebuild.

If the breach of the Mount Polley tailings pond can bring anything into sharper relief for British Columbians, it is that our relationship with industry in this province is heading in the wrong direction.

If we want to avoid the caution tape, we’re going to have to rethink our perspective on red tape.

Industry needs productive, safe and enabling parameters to work within and British Columbians deserve to rest assured that our business leaders and elected representatives are engineering those limits right – with a foundation much stronger than that of the Mount Polley tailings pond.

Image Credit: Imperial Metals' Mount Polley Mine. Photo by Carol Linnitt.

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There has been a lot of discussion around Canada’s “War on Science” over the last two years, prompted by a major gathering of scientists in Ottawa during the summer of 2012 who announced the “Death of Evidence” in the country. The scientists marched in response to the infamous Budget Bill C-38 that killed funding for numerous federal science positions and research labs coast to coast. The rally’s lead organizer, scientist Katie Gibbs, says the Death of Evidence protest made way for a whole new breed of young Canadian scientists who are eager to stand up and defend their laboratories. It’s about more than just science, says Gibbs, it’s really all about democracy.

Katie Gibbs was known around the lab as the graduate student who cared deeply about the implications of her science. “While I was doing my PhD, I was kind of the rabble-rouser on the floor. You know, I always had volunteers coming to the lab to pick up posters, or storing protest signs under my desk, that sort of thing,” she told DeSmog Canada.

Most of the professors she worked with didn’t participate in any kind of advocacy, she said. “My supervisor, in particular, he wouldn’t even write a letter to the editor.”

In the summer of 2012, however, it wasn’t Gibbs pushing for the Death of Evidence rally, the event that forced Canada’s science crisis into the public eye. Instead a group of professors at the University of Ottawa began organizing a public event and turned to Gibbs when they realized they needed someone brave to be the face of the march.

“What was interesting was that it was a group of professors that started thinking around the rally. My supervisor poked his head into my office one day and said a bunch of professors were meeting to talk about doing something in response to the Omnibus Budget Bill. He said, ‘does anybody want to come,’ and I was like ‘hells yeah!’” Gibbs said, adding she became lead organizer after that meeting.

Gibbs says her professors’ involvement was an indication of how concerned the traditional scientific community was with the changes that were being made through new legislation under the Harper government.[view:in_this_series=block_1]

Generally scientists shy away from any form of advocacy, or even perceived advocacy, Gibbs explained. But given the current crisis of science in Canada that is changing with younger students, she said.

“The younger generation of scientists doesn’t seem to have the same hang ups around science advocacy that the older generation of scientists does.”

In order to channel the momentum of the scientific community after the 2012 rally, Gibbs launched Evidence for Democracy (E4D), an advocacy group dedicated to keeping science linked to decision-making in the country.

Part of the work of Evidence for Democracy consists in creating a distinction between advocating for policy and advocating for science itself, Gibbs explained.

“Normally in science when we talk about science advocacy we’re talking about: you do some research that shows A would be a good policy versus B, so you become an advocate for A and try to actually get that policy put in place.

Whereas what we’re advocating for is one step before that, in that we’re just advocating for science and for decisions to be made based on science. So it’s kind of less political or less polarizing than even traditional advocacy.”

For Gibbs, there is still some resistance to the very idea of science advocacy within the scientific community, but supporters are increasingly convinced of its necessity.

“I still feel scientists are hesitant but my argument is ‘if you’re not willing to advocate for the crucial role of science in public policy decisions then who is going to do that?’ That really has to come down to scientists,” she said.

The job of convincing the younger generation of scientists to get involved, however, has been much easier, Gibbs said. 

Katie Gibbs speaking at the Stand Up for Science rally in Ottawa. Photo by Kevin O'Donnell. 

“All the graduate scientists I worked with, they absolutely see the need for scientists to engage in that way and they have such a strong desire for their science to be relevant and for it to get out in the public space,” she said.

“Even for us [E4D] we have a ton of volunteers, most of them graduate students and it’s because we offer most of them the chance to work on policy outreach. They wouldn’t really get the opportunity to work on those kinds of issues in their traditional academic experience.”

Gibbs said younger scientists are choosing to study in the sciences because they are passionate about the outcomes of the science, rather than merely curious or passionate about the process. While more traditional scientists consider themselves separate from the policy outcomes of their research, younger scientists see themselves as a part of the larger complex of society, politics and policy.

“I know that was my case as well,” Gibbs said. “I was only interested in doing policy-relevant science. I enjoyed doing the science but my main passion was that it be used, rather than doing it just for the sake of doing it.”

As she sees it, this way of viewing science is politically “empowering.”

“I see evidence as really being the only way to hold governments accountable for their decisions,” Gibbs said. “Unless we actually know what information they are using to make decisions, we have no way of judging the quality of the decision.”

When it comes to the relationship between science and democracy, Gibbs said, it all comes down to evidence-based decision-making and accountability.

“I often say…that facts are a check on political power.”

Image Credit: Katie Gibbs by DeSmog Canada.

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The National Energy Board (NEB) raised some eyebrows two weeks ago when it rejected 468 citizens — including 27 climate experts and the MP for Burnaby — from weighing in on the Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain oil pipeline proposal, which would triple the amount of oilsands bitumen shipped from Alberta to the B.C. coast.

The ruling — plus the revelation that the oral hearings have been nixed altogether — has raised questions about the legitimacy of the environmental assessment and the rationale for the NEB’s decision. The removal of oral hearings prompted several environmental organizations to formally request an extension of the process while others have hired legal counsel to represent rejected participants.

DeSmog Canada decided to take a closer look at the legal changes that allow the NEB to deny many British Columbians a say over a project that puts hundreds of watersheds and B.C.’s coastline at risk of an oil spill.   

It wasn’t always this way

To put the Trans Mountain review in perspective, first you need to look back — way back to Justice Thomas Berger’s 1973 Mackenzie Valley Pipeline inquiry. That inquiry took more than three years to hear submissions from dozens of communities and analyze the environmental and social effects of the pipeline. The consultation process encouraged participation and diligently included local knowledge and expertise.

The Berger Inquiry served as a guiding light for subsequent environmental assessments of national resource development projects, which were designed to emulate this practice — that is, until 2012. That was the year the federal government’s Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act or omnibus budget bill C-38 changed many laws that determine the scope of environmental assessments — including who can participate and who cannot.

Drastic changes to environmental law shut door on participation

The new Canadian Environmental Assessment Act 2012 states that citizens can participate in an environmental assessment if a person is an “interested party.”  “Interested party” is then defined as those who are “directly affected” by the project or those who have “relevant information or expertise.” Further, the NEB need only be “of the opinion” that the individual or organization in question is either directly affected or has relevant expertise.

It’s this vague terminology — and the NEB’s discretionary application of these terms — that has been used to exclude citizens from the Trans Mountain pipeline review.

Given that a pipeline spill could affect hundreds of B.C. streams and rivers and a tanker spill could affect much of the coastline of B.C., it appears the NEB used an extremely narrow view of “directly affected.” That brings us to another piece of legislation that is notable only for its arcane language: the National Energy Board Act.

The NEB Act reduces the definition of “directly affected” to a person with a “detailed interest” in the project. The NEB takes into account the “likelihood and severity of harm a person is exposed to” and “the frequency and duration of a person’s use of the area near the project” to determine if a person is “directly affected.” 

Who’s in and who’s out? Reading the tea leaves

Perhaps not all that unsurprisingly, the NEB has not made public how it measures the “severity of harm” or “frequency and duration of person’s use of area,” nor does it explain what it considers to be “near” the project. So, would a statement like “I use the local river to fish and fear that a spill would prevent me from fishing” meet the thresholds for “severe harm” and “frequent use?” It is unclear and the NEB provides no rationale as to why each applicant was denied status.

The one useful piece of information the NEB offered to help us read the tea leaves was that a person’s address was a consideration — presumably the board required a participant to live very “near” a pipeline or tanker route and may have used postal codes to cull participants.

In a letter to applicants, “Ruling on Participation,” the NEB says citizens needed to “have a specific and detailed interest that was sufficiently affected.” The NEB leaves rejected applicants in the dark as to why their concerns were not “specific,” “detailed” or “sufficient” enough. The NEB could have interpreted these terms narrowly in order to cull participants from the process.

Further, the pipeline terminates and reaches tidewater in the federal riding of Burnaby Douglas. For people who live in that community, the possible environmental and economic impacts of this national infrastructure project are huge — yet the NEB has ruled local MP Kennedy Stewart ineligible to participate. 

Downgrading

In addition to outright rejecting 468 people from participating, the NEB also downgraded 452 applicants from “intervenors” to “commenters.” Commenters, who had to fill out an arduous 10-page application to participate, cannot ask questions or file evidence — they’re only allowed to submit a single written comment to the review panel.  

Relevant expertise?

Notably, the environmental impacts of the development of the oilsands and climate change are not part of this environmental assessment’s scope — 27 B.C. climate experts were rejected from the hearings.

Economists from the Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives and the president of the Business Council of British Columbia were also rejected. For an assessment whose scope does include the “socio-economic effects of the proposed project” and the “economic feasibility of the project,” it is difficult to justify the refusal of expertise that can speak to the negative and positive economic impacts of the proposed project.

The NEB’s decisions determining who can participate in the Trans Mountain Expansion assessment are unclear, lack transparency and limit democratic participation. Denying standing to those who are affected or have relevant information “streamlines” the process but makes the process far less effective and accountable. The NEB calls its is own ruling on participation “generous,” although it could also be called a smokescreen, meant to legitimate the Review Panel’s final decision.

Feds following in Alberta’s footsteps on environmental laws

CEAA 2012 has been used to exclude participants from other assessments. The joint review panel looking into Shell’s Jackpine mine expansion in the oilsands determined that people living downstream from the proposed project are not “interested parties.” Indeed, the “directly affected” language used in CEAA 2012 is similar to that of Alberta’s old Energy Resources Conservation Act that states regulators must consider how a development might “directly and adversely affect the rights of a person.”

The new Responsible Energy Development Act (2012) in Alberta includes the same language. Alberta regulators have ruled that residents living near proposed sour gas wells and people living three kilometres downwind from flaring are not “directly or adversely affected.” It appears the federal government is writing and interpreting legislation in the same way Alberta has done — making way for the construction of oil and gas infrastructure at the expense of environmental protection.

Shortened timeline means a less rigorous process

The entire Trans Mountain environmental assessment will take 18 months — not enough time to conduct proper scientific research into impacts, according to federal scientists.  

Although environmental assessments should allow for debate and determine if a project is in the public interest, federal assessments have merely become rubber stamps for pipeline and oilsands projects.

Image Credit: screenshot from TransMountain.com

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Joe Oliver, Canada’s new federal Minister of Finance, made quite a name for himself during his tenure as Minister of Natural Resources. In his former position Oliver proved himself a fierce and outspoken defender of the oilsands as the economic engine of Canada (even if he did tend to fudge the facts). But is it just the oilsands he wants to protect from the criticisms of the public? Or is there more to his fondness for corporations in general, even at the expense of public health and the national interest?

With Oliver moving to the helm of the country’s finances, perhaps it’s time to take a look back over his notable career.

Oliver, it should be pointed out, is no slouch. He obtained both his Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Civil Law from McGill, one of Canada’s most prestigious universities. After making the Quebec Bar, he graduated with an MBA from Harvard’s Graduate School of Business. Before he was elected to Parliament, he enjoyed a high-flying career in the corporate sector of which he seems so fond. First a career in the investment banking industry, starting with Merrill Lynch. Then on to the executive directorship of the Ontario Securities Commission before becoming president and CEO of the Investment Dealers Association of Canada.

According to his bio on Prime Minister Harper’s very own website, he also played prominent roles as chair of the advisory committee of the International Council of Securities Associations and as chair of the Consultative Committee of the International Association of Securities Commissions. A graduate of the Directors Education Program at the Rotman School of Management, he was also a member of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Business Valuators, and he sat on the board of the Canadian Securities Institute Research Foundation.

Somewhere along the way (Harvard? Rotman? Harper?) he learned the virtues of spin, because he has proven more than willing to muddy the truth in his mission to convince Canadians, Americans and Europeans that the oilsands are a clean, responsible and sustainable source of energy. His use of little black lies and greenwash is encyclopedic. Here are a few of his best:

• In an open letter in the Globe and Mail and the Wall Street Journal, Oliver attacked Canadians who oppose oilsands expansion and advocate for investment in cleaner sources of energy, calling them “radicals…with radical ideological agenda[s]” who “use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada's national economic interest.”
• In a Chicago press conference that was part of a formal junket to promote the beleaguered Keystone XL pipeline, Oliver claimed the oilsands are a “greener” source of energy without mentioning, of course, what the dirtier ones were.
• Oliver told a major newspaper (Montreal’s La Presse) that, “Scientists have recently told us that our fears (on climate change) are exaggerated,” even as the International Energy Agency had just released a report that stated two-thirds of the existing known fossil fuel reserves must remain in the ground to achieve the global commitment (Canada included) to prevent average global warming of more than 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels (of which Oliver apparently had no idea). (It turned out that the “scientists” to which Oliver referred was a single climate change denying columnist named Lawrence Solomon). In response twelve of Canada's climate scientists and energy experts wrote an open letter to Oliver, expressing their concern that the minister was not taking climate change seriously.
• Recently Oliver told a New York audience Canada was emerging as a "21st century energy superpower," despite having no climate legislation and no renewable energy strategy. 

As I pointed out in a previous post, it’s abundantly clear that where the oilsands are concerned, Oliver and other Canadian politicians continue to ignore the ethical and practical guidelines (the Competition Bureau’s Environmental Claims: A Guide for Industry and Advertisers) the federal government has set out for businesses, advertisers and "any person who promotes a product/service or business interest who is likely to benefit from the product's environmental claims," so as to avoid using “misleading or deceptive claims relating to an implied or expressed environmental benefit.”

Is Oliver’s selective use (and misuse) of the facts restricted to the oilsands? Turns out, he has had a history of soliciting for numerous corporate interests along the way.

Asbestos, Canada's cancer export

While the rest of the world worked to ban the use of chrysotile (or “white”) asbestos because it is a carcinogen that also causes lung disease, Oliver (along with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Environment Minister Peter Kent) continued to claim that (like climate change) it wasn’t as bad as it appeared.

“Mr. Speaker, as I said, all the recent scientific reviews show that chrysotile can be used in a safe and controlled manner,” he argued in Parliament on June 21, 2011.

That same year, Canada surprised the world at the meeting of the Rotterdam Convention in Geneva when it single-handedly prevented chrysotile asbestos fibers to be added to the Rotterdam Convention’s list of hazardous substances. This would have mandated that exporters of asbestos use proper labelling, include directions on safe handling, and inform purchasers of any known restrictions or bans. It wouldn’t ban its production, but signatory nations would be able to ban the importation of chemicals listed in the treaty, and exporting countries are obliged make sure that producers within their jurisdiction comply.

Montreal toxicologist Daniel Green, who has been tracking asbestos use in Quebec for years, told Al Jazeera he disagreed wholeheartedly with Oliver’s public statements. Green says the asbestos industry has killed people in Canada and all over the world.

"If there was a place where one could answer the question: can asbestos be used safely, it's here in Quebec…. Asbestos has killed and is still killing Quebeckers. It should not leave the ground and kill people in other countries."

The Australian Upper House passed a motion to pressure the Canadian government to end policies supporting asbestos exports, and growing global pressure eventually forced Canada to stop supporting its last asbestos mine, in 2012. The Harper government did not block the listing of chrysotile asbestos at the 2013 meeting of the Rotterdam Convention. But the message is clear (and sordid): “If you can make money from exporting a hazardous substance, then oppose safety requirements, as they might damage profits,” wrote Kathleen Ruff, co-coordinator of the Rotterdam Convention Alliance, in the Toronto Star recently. Sounds eerily similar to a bitumen-inspired logic, doesn’t it?

Salmon farming

What about salmon farms? Where there’s a profit, there’s a way. Since the federal government passed omnibus budget bill C-38 in the summer of 2012, which gutted several pieces of environmental legislation in Canada, aquaculture projects in Canada are no longer assessed for environmental impacts by the federal government. And in Nova Scotia at least, they won't undergo a provincial environmental assessment either.

“I'm absolutely gobsmacked,” said Marike Finlay. “I really cannot believe this is happening in Canada.”

Finlay, it turns out, is president of Association for the Preservation of the Eastern Shore (APES), a group that actively opposes two new salmon farming operations in Nova Scotia’s Spry Harbour and Shoal Bay, bringing the number of ocean-based salmon feedlot sites that have been proposed or approved in Nova Scotia to six. What's astounding to Finlay is that unlike the industrial salmon feedlots that have gone before them, neither Shoal Bay nor Spry Harbour will undergo an environmental assessment, despite the fact federal environmental impact assessments were prepared for both sites.

“We spent huge amounts of time, energy, and expertise making our reply,” says Finlay. “We had marine biologists, wildlife specialists, specialists in tides and currents, local fishermen's knowledge. And we replied to each environmental assessment for each of those sites.”

But Joe Oliver, the defender of all things corporate, defended the federal policy changes. “We did eliminate the review of some projects which were inconsequential,” Oliver told CBC Radio's “The House.” “And that's been used as sort of an instance of reduced environmental protection. In fact, we've been focussing on the projects that can have an environmental impact, and not whether a rink should be set up in a national park.”

Open net pen fish farms are anything but inconsequential. Citizens and non-governmental scientists on both coasts have been expressing concerns over the environmental impacts of open net pens, calling for moratoriums on further licensing of farms and consumer boycotts of farmed fish. Issues are wide ranging and include destruction of ocean habitat underneath pens, use of chemicals and pesticides that kill other marine life, proliferation of viruses (infectious salmon anaemia) and parasites (sea lice) that can infect wild fish populations, and escapes of farmed fish that compete with, and even contaminate, wild populations.

It’s become patently clear that Joe Oliver is the consummate salesman, a slick huckster who would happily sell anything to anyone, as long as the transaction lined his pockets, enhanced his political power, or paved the way for corporations to ignore their social and environmental responsibilities by externalizing the environmental costs of doing business, however harmful it will ultimately be.

The move to finance

Former finance minister Jim Flaherty faced severe criticism for several changes to Canadian legislation introduced through budget bills, most notoriously the 425-page omnibus budget bill C-38 which saw sweeping changes to environmental assessment procedures, weakening of environmental laws and devastating funding cuts to science and research stations across the country. In total 74 pieces of legislation were abolished in the bill which was quickly followed with another 443-page omnibus budget bill C-45 that significantly reduced the number of waterways protected in the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

Oliver’s new position as finance minister could signal the continued use of parliamentary budget bills for such purposes – to the benefit of industry and detriment of the environment.

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