jacee

Thanks for your uninformed 'expertise' (that can't even comprehend that new information has just doomed the 'interim gas boom') but ... I'll trust the free market and entrepreneurial spirits to provide the best solutions, and the best investments. The switch of government subsidies to free the energy market is all that is required. Hardline 'conservatives' ... so attached to their corporate welfare nanny-oil-state's false profits that exist only when propped up by taxpayers... now that's certainly a self-serving contradiction! Lol What ever happened to conservatives' spirit of free enterprise, fair competition, free markets ... ???!! Transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy is a simple matter of lifting the constraints on the free market. Are you saying that conservatives don't believe in a free market in energy? I actually don't really care what conservatives think these days. They are a minority and have made themselves irrelevant. It is just ludicrous to see conservatives so attached to the public teat. Two-faced much? 'Welfare for fossil fuels, but not for people'? Lol

It's +10 here, and I'm planning for the electric future.

Betting on clean energy while pushing dirty energy? Splitting your energy investments is wise short term perhaps, but we all know that clean energy is the real long term winner.

Shut down? Slow down maybe. Gas is ramping up, under false advertising. That won't fly much longer with savvy investors, nor with China that is putting its efforts into transitioning from coal directly to renewables. Why would investors put their money into 'IFFY' gas, only a proposed 'interim solution' anyway and already stained by false advertising, when we all know that the next and lasting boom will be renewable energy, a sure thing that can rollout massively and swiftly? All we have to do is create a free market in energy by switching some fossil fuel subsidies to renewable energy to provide a balanced and level playing field. Why are fossil fuel supporters so attached to a corporate welfare nanny oil-state? It makes no sense, as it's a huge burden and constraint on a free energy market and free enterprise at a time when we most need an inventive and entrepreneurial approach.

Fiddling with methane leaks while the world burns ... ya, no. There isn't time. There are better choices. You contradict yourself, because supporting one faction against another is a colonialist divide and conquer strategy, and you definitely do "presume to tell indigenous people what is best for them." Indigenous communities will decide for themselves, in their own way. CGL's bribes are hard to turn down in intentionally impoverished communities, but the ancient pull of solidarity and cultural continuity among their people is very strong too. It remains to be seen. 'Elected' Band Council members all belong to a Clan too, so all have input through the traditional governance model too. I think it is very likely that a united nation will emerge behind the hereditary Chiefs in the current (overdue) Federal government task of clarifying Wet'suet'en rights and title. Then we'll see what they collectively decide about the pipeline. An alternate route avoiding ecologically and culturally sensitive areas may still provide the necessary way forward.

That's now known to be nonsense. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/03/booming-lng-industry-could-be-as-bad-for-climate-as-coal-experts-warn Gas has lower CO2 emissions than black coal when burned for electricity, but LNG developments also leak methane, which is a relatively short-lived gas that lasts in the atmosphere about 12 years but still has a warming power about 28 times greater than the same amount of CO2 when calculated over a century. Global Energy Monitor researchers found fugitive methane emissions from new LNG extraction and processing would be expected to have as large or larger global heating impact than proposed coal power expansion.

You are wrong about gas. This is recent information. Google it. It's leaking, not burning that is the problem. The tide is turning against gas. I don't presume to tell Indigenous people what is best for them. That's a very patronizing and authoritarian manner. A lot of evil has been done that way. I support Indigenous concerns and actions because our governments are the problem.

Gas is not cleaner than coal. (See above, google 'methane leaks', etc) Stop your pretense of speaking for Indigenous people. You speak nonsense. It's extremely offensive.

Notice: Nothing about gas in there, just coal and renewables. To cut pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, China has promised an “energy revolution” aimed at dramatically reducing its reliance on coal. It cut coal’s share of the country’s total energy from 68% in 2012 to 59% last year, and researchers predict it will fall to 55.3% by 2020. Absolute coal consumption, however, has continued to increase in line with a rise in overall Chinese energy demand. Gas was being pushed as the "cleaner burning" steppingstone from coal to renewables. However recent information is changing those plans, because it is now known that methane leaks throughout the production-use process mean that gas is as bad or worse than burning coal.

Indigenous people don't seem to be having any problem gaining the support of a majority of Canadians because we all know that it is our governments' failure to do their job that has brought things to this point. (Conservatives are a minority, and even some of them understand that government incompetence is the problem.)

Wow. You don't know?! Gas is now known to be as bad or worse than coal, because of methane leaks in production and consumption. https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/19/world/methane-emissions-humans-fossil-fuels-underestimated-climate-change/index.html So China is now going from coal to renewables, strongly enforcing their law that renewables must be purchased first. It seems that oil and gas Luddites are not keeping up on the fast evolving climate change news.

It seems there's a serious lack of knowledge among oil and gas supporters.

Wow. YOU DON'T KNOW?! All it takes is for investors to abandon oil and gas for renewable energy investments, when profitability tips to renewables. All it takes for profitability to tip is to switch some federal subsidies to renewables. In a free market, renewables would already be more profitable, but Canada doesn't have a free market in energy, because we are propping up oil & gas with corporate welfare. When investment tips, the ramp up and rollout of renewables will happen massively and swiftly. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/01/fossil-fuel-subsidy-cash-pay-green-energy-transition Switching just some of the huge subsidies supporting fossil fuels to renewables would unleash a runaway clean energy revolution

Wow. YOU DON'T KNOW?! Part of the heavily-subsidized LNG Canada project, CGL is a $6.6-billion pipeline that would ship gas from fracking fields in northeastern B.C. to an export terminal in Kitimat, B.C., locking in an additional 8.6 million tonnes of carbon pollution per year by 2030 and undermining B.C’s and Canada’s insufficient emissions reduction efforts. B.C.’s gas sector is already under fire for causing earthquakes, contaminating water, and leaking methane, a potent greenhouse gas. https://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-aimcos-stake-in-gaslink-project-isnt-responsible-investing

So stay home. Nobody cares.

You are such a blatant and clumsy propagandist. And you're still pushing the old line. You need an update. World knowledge has changed since this pipeline was conceived in 2012. Gas emissions + methane leaks are as bad as coal. China is going from coal to renewable energy. The price of gas is in the toilet and ... flush! Fracking is poisoning communities. The pipeline is already a stranded asset. Flush.

I see you drank the colonialist divide-and-conquer koolaid delivered by TCEnergy/Coastal GasLink. It's certainly "all about the money" to the oil and gas industry and they have the money to spend, buying ads on Facebook to tout the support they've bought from elected Band Councils: Groups linked to oil companies funded Facebook ads denouncing the rail blockades https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5484039?fbclid=IwAR1nghzJIEFmG2CvpNTvC-kCmy9oKZeezHU5245LKqA-7_5lwCI_RHRJgSc&__twitter_impression=true The most prolific online advertiser on the pipeline project, by far, is Coastal GasLink itself, which is building the 670-kilometre pipeline that will connect wells in British Columbia to the coast. It has run 80 ads since the start of the year — almost a quarter of all the ads in the data obtained by CBC. It spent roughly $50,000 on ads citing Indigenous support for the pipeline — almost half of all the money spent on Facebook ads about the project and the blockades. Other big spending astroturf organizations - pretending to be 'grassroots', but really financed by wealthy business and industry - include Canada Action and the 'Proud' groups, both associated with oil and gas and land developers. Also a number of Conservative leadership candidates have bought ads supporting oil and gas and opposing Indigenous protests, Peter McKay the biggest buyer, who calls women "dog" (probably loved the 'rape Greta' decals), fan of helicopter fishing paid for by us, and a supporter of vigilante attacks on Indigenous protests. I have a question about those Conservatives using tax deductible (partially publicly funded) campaign funds to buy ads in support of the oil and gas industry: WTF??!! (Aside: It's always been laughable to me how 'war hawk' Conservatives like Scheer, McKay and formerly Harper (or Trump, for that matter) are really not the macho type you'd expect to see in a battle: They're the devious smirking weenies hiding on the sidelines, inciting slow-witted, gullible people to violence: "Let's you and him fight!" Lol But I digress ...) On the other hand, support by climate activists and other Canadians for Indigenous people fighting the gas pipeline is twofold: * concern about fossil fuels' impact on climate change, and other environmental issues (fracking = groundwater contamination, etc) * concern about governments' inaction in recognizing and addressing Indigenous rights already established in Canadian law. They're not wealthy people, industries and politicians trying to cause violence or destroy the world. They're ordinary people, mostly living on a shoestring, opposing government and industry's damage to the earth and its peoples.

What does Aboriginal title mean? https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2020/03/03/by-offering-to-recognize-wetsuweten-land-rights-ottawa-is-changing-the-way-canada-is-governed-heres-how.html

A great accomplishment balanced by a great disaster: Some win, some lose. http://activehistory.ca/2013/12/an-unsettling-prairie-history-a-review-of-james-daschuks-clearing-the-plains/

1 What is it you wanted them to do? Is the feeling mutual? 2 Horgan is 'the Crown' who has a duty to consult when the government contemplates actions that may infringe on Aboriginal rights - ie, BEFORE he grants the permits. He didn't. 3 Evidence/links please.

It isn't that difficult to sort out, if you read with an open mind https://aptnnews.ca/2020/03/01/wetsuweten-chiefs-ministers-reach-draft-arrangement-in-land-dispute/ The Federal responsibility in these talks is rights and title arising from Delgamuukw 1997 (hereditary Chiefs) and that's the subject of the draft proposal: Details of the draft deal, which centres on Indigenous rights and land titles, were not disclosed, however, and work on the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline at the heart of the dispute was set to resume on Monday. Federal Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett said the talks are the start of a better relationship with the Nation. “We, I believe, have come to a proposed arrangement that will also honour the protocols of the Wet’suwet’en people and clans,” Bennett said in a news conference in Smithers, B.C. “What we’ve worked on this weekend needs to go back to those clans and then we have agreed as ministers that we will come back to sign if it is agreed upon by the Nation.” She said the proposal is about making sure “that this never happens again, that rights holders will always be at the table.” BC ignored the duty of the Crown to consult with traditional leaders (title holders), and that failure, rights and title holders not being at the table, led to the current situation. It was, and is, the Federal government's responsibility to "reconcile Aboriginal rights and titles with Crown title". The draft agreement will bring all Wet'suet'en people together for discussion and there's likely to be broad agreement on going forward with that Federal process. These Federal talks, and agreement, will be a framework for agreements with other Indigenous Nations with title claims as well, a precedent that is clearly the jurisdiction of traditional Indigenous Councils that governed 'at contact'. It won't solve the current pipeline issue though, which is still squarely a provincial issue and involves both traditional and elected Band Council leadership. British Columbia Indigenous Relations Minister Scott Fraser acknowledged there was a disagreement over the natural gas pipeline going through traditional territory. ... Chief Woos ... stressed that the hereditary chiefs remain opposed to the pipeline in their traditional territory. “We are going to be continuing to look at some more conversations with B.C. and of course with the proponent and further conversation with the RCMP,” Woos said. “It’s not over yet.” ... Shortly after the proposal was announced, Coastal GasLink issued a statement saying it would resume construction activities in the Morice River area, which is near the Unist’ot’en Healing Centre, on Monday. It also said the company is committed to talking with all Indigenous groups along its route. The issue of the current pipeline route running right through ecologically sensitive areas and culturally important ancient village and burial sites is not resolved and could flare again. CGL/TC Energy had time to reroute, but refused to 'bother people in the towns' with construction near them, and is currently still being very aggressive about moving ahead. They've ignorantly ploughed through archeologically important sites full of artifacts without doing archeological assessments first. This issue will still flare up again, I think. It's just the WRONG route. And the whole country has paid the price for CGL/TC Energy's stubborn, ignorant and aggressive insistence on taking the wrong route, IMO.

2 Your disrespect makes you part of the problem, not the solutions. 3 Nonsense. The Wet'suet'en Nation Council was still trying to get BC Premier Horgan to the table January 20, 2020, prior to the Feb 6 RCMP raid. He refused again. 4 It worked to get governments to the table, where both should have been long ago.

Unfortunately, I can't agree with your last statement. BC NDP Premier John Horgan caused this whole uprising across Canada by adamantly and rudely refusing to fulfill the "duty of the Crown" to consult with Wet'suet'en Nation Council and to accommodate their Aboriginal rights BEFORE construction began. In fact, consultation should have occurred BEFORE the province approved the project - legally speaking 'when the Crown contemplates actions that may infringe on Aboriginal rights'. The Green Party indicated better understanding of that issue, but their petition on the issues was still way off base, lacking awareness of other legalities. The Conservatives are absolutely deplorable on Indigenous issues, and uselessly still hoping for another oil boom. The Liberals had to be forced to the table by nation-wide blockades. All parties have displayed incompetence.

1 Oh.well. 2 Indigenous people is the respectful term. (Indians are from India) 3 They have tried repeatedly. Governments ignored them. It took the nation wide shutdowns to get BC and federal governments to the table. 4 It worked. Nothing else worked. Maybe governments will get down to work on long outstanding Indigenous issues a little faster from now on.

It's a simple truth that nonunion shops will imitate the union contracts to keep their workers. If there's no union shop to compete with for workers, it's a race to the bottom, low wages for all. "Right to work" is a bosses' movement, not a workers' movement. Workers don't want lower wages. Lol ETA Re: "There is NO REASON that organized labour can not co-exist within a right-to-work environment. They just have to be competitive in both cost AND responsibility." The race to the bottom of the wage pond. There is good reason for all workers in a union shop to have to belong and pay dues: They all benefit from the contracts negotiated, so they all share the cost, and the duty to participate when strikes are necessary to achieve those contracts. Again, "right to work" is a boss's dream, not a worker's.