Search results for “site/Pat Armstrong”

  • Memo to northeast BC: More fracking earthquakes ahead

    Of the many “unknowns” flagged in a recent science panel report, few are as disturbing as the finding that no one can say how destructive an earthquake may one day be triggered during brute-force oil and gas industry fracking operations. The panel’s report—commissioned by Michelle Mungall, BC’s Minister of Energy,…

  • The Middle East Revolution (VI)

    The U.S. ramps up its counterrevolution in the Middle East While withdrawing 39,000 troops from Iraq, the U.S. recently made clear that it was increasing its forces in the Persian Gulf. A New York Times article — U.S. Planning Troop Buildup in Gulf After Exit from Iraq – reported that…

  • The Swiss origins of the U.S.–Canada aluminum fight

    The aluminum spat between the United States and Canada, as urgent as it seemed a few weeks ago, will have faded from most people’s minds by now. On September 15, mere hours before Ottawa was set to identify retaliatory measures, the U.S. announced it would drop the 10% tariffs on…

  • Temporary foreign workers need more rights, not better enforcement of flawed policy

    On June 20, Minister of Employment and Social Development Jason Kenney announced a raft of changes to the federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), including a moratorium (now lifted) on the hiring of temporary foreign workers (TFWs) in the food services sector. The TFWP program has attracted controversy since at…

  • Inside job: How BC Hydro customers wound up bankrolling private power companies

    The chickens have finally come home to roost on the previous BC government’s private power giveaway. The just-released provincial report by Ken Davidson on the costs of BC Hydro’s power purchases is a damning indictment of its electricity policies—policies whose exorbitant and wholly unnecessary costs will saddle BC ratepayers with…

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    False advertising by the Alberta government and oil lobby

    As an Alberta-born and -raised earth scientist who has made a career studying fossil fuels and energy issues, I am dismayed at the bombardment of ‘fake news’ in print, online and TV ads from the Alberta government on the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion (TMX). These ads are repeated hourly on…

  • Credit where credit is due: Financial literacy and the new Ontario math curriculum

    A new mathematics curriculum guide is set to drop this September in Ontario, the first update since 2005. Not only will students be heading back to the basics, they’ll also be introduced to a new “strand” of learning: financial literacy. The reason I’m so excited about this development is that…

  • Quality of Life Assessment is too important to be left to economists

    Download 229.48 KB 4 pages In 2008, French President Nicolas Sarkozy estab­lished the Commission on the Measurement of Eco­nomic Performance and Social Progress. It was headed by two Nobel laureates, Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, and coordinated by the French economist, Jean-Paul Fitoussi. The 22 members of the Commission included…

  • Fast Facts: What the Frack is Happening in Manitoba

    Manitoba is poised to be a major Canadian player in providing large quantities of silica sand used in hydraulic fracking by the oil and gas industry.  This presents major risks that should be fully explored before allowing shovels into the ground. Canadian Premium Sand, a Canadian publicly traded company, is…

  • How fast can we get to 100% renewables?

    This piece draws on research and a presentation in Vancouver by Mark Jacobson from Stanford University, who delivered the 2018 Gideon Rosenbluth Memorial Lecture. You can listen to the audio or watch a recording of the live video stream below, and you can download Mark’s slides here (PDF). It is…

  • Image: The massive Sunrise Plant, the largest gas plant built in Western Canada in 30 years, sits on farmland near Dawson Creek. It was one of three gas plants in a row exempted from provincial environmental assessments. © Garth Lenz

    Shielding fossil fuel corporations from public scrutiny: The new “neutral”?

    British Columbia’s Environmental Assessment Office bills itself as a “neutral” provincial agency. But there is evidence that this is not the case, and that BC Environment Minister George Heyman — who is tasked with “revitalizing” the province’s environmental assessment law — needs to make serious reforms. When a public regulator…

  • Trade and Investment Research Project

    Trade committee hears big risks outweigh small rewards in TPP

    I appeared yesterday at the parliamentary committee on international trade alongside Hassan Yussuff and Angella MacEwan (Canadian Labour Congress), Gus Van Harten (who just released a report for the CCPA on investor-state dispute settlement), and Victoria Owen and Susan Haigh of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries. For once, at least, the critical…