Search results for: “site/Pat Armstrong”

  • A dangerous path: Police use of DNA phenotyping raises ethical red flags

    What happened is a symptom of a much larger problem. In an attempt to keep up with high-tech innovation, police worldwide are increasingly buying, with little oversight, controversial technologies that they are ill-equipped to evaluate.

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    Site C’s biggest beneficiary? Natural gas companies, not us.

    This post originally appeared on DeSmog Canada. On January 20, BC Hydro issued a press release singing the praises of a new hydro transmission line not far from where preliminary work has begun to build the $9-billion Site C dam. The release, headlined “New transmission line to power development in…

  • Model Sites for Rural Midwifery in Nova Scotia: Built to Fail?

    On Monday morning, there is a rally planned to try and save the South Shore Community Midwives, one of Nova Scotia’s rural midwifery programs. The program has been suspended for three weeks and its long term survival is in question. The current crisis presents an opportunity to rethink the program’s…

  • Site C: Too risky to rely on one river system for BC’s hydro needs

    In the face of a prolonged drought, water levels at Lake Mead, the giant hydroelectric reservoir that straddles the Nevada and Arizona borders, are lower than at any point since the iconic Hoover Dam was built in the 1930s. For residents in California, Nevada, Arizona and northern Mexico a crisis…

  • Pollution from Lynx Creek entering the Peace River. Photo by Don Hoffmann.

    Toxic landslides into the Peace River continue, add to fears about impacts of Site C and fracking

    Toxic heavy metals, including arsenic, barium, cadmium, lithium and lead, are flowing unchecked into the Peace River following a series of unusual landslides that may be linked to natural gas industry fracking operations. The landslides began nearly two years ago and show no sign of stopping. So far, they have…

  • Burning issues for Metro Vancouver

    The front page story of today’s Vancouver Sun takes on Metro Vancouver’s waste incineration facility in Burnaby. The Fraser Valley Regional District has been strongly opposed to a new proposed incinerator planned by Metro, and likewise has expressed its concerns about air quality in regards to the Burnaby facility. Its…

  • L’insolvabilité de l’Université Laurentienne reflète une crise structurelle du système universitaire néolibéral en Ontario

    Les gouvernements ontariens ont successivement réduit leurs subventions publiques envers les revenus d’exploitation des universités d’environ 80 % en 1980 à environ 50 % en 2004, et à seulement 38 % en 2017.

    Les gouvernements ontariens ont successivement réduit leurs subventions publiques envers les revenus d’exploitation des universités d’environ 80 % en 1980 à environ 50 % en 2004, et à seulement 38 % en 2017.

  • Encana Sunrise gas plant near Farmington. © Garth Lenz

    How clean is a BC that subsidizes accelerated fossil fuel extraction?

    When the provincial government unveiled its new climate plan late last year, Environment Minister George Heyman, Green Party leader Andrew Weaver and Premier John Horgan presented a happy, united front as ceremonies got underway at Vancouver’s main library. But the biggest smiles of the day may have been on the…

  • Photo: © Garth Lenz.

    Priming the pump

    Scientist warns cumulative effect of thousands of fracked gas wells means powerful earthquakes ahead for northeast BC Massive amounts of water pumped with brute force into the earth at thousands of fracking operations is priming the pump for potentially deadly earthquakes in British Columbia’s Montney basin, warns a former top…

  • Underneath the legal drama: The ethics of for-profit health care in BC

    One of the most important constitutional trials in Canadian history was set to begin on September 8, 2014 before the BC Supreme Court. Dr. Day, owner of the for-profit Cambie Surgical Centre says he is fighting for the freedom of patients who are victims of “medical enslavement”, while making generous…

  • Aerial photo of Smithers mill surrounded by piles of logs

    Promises of cleaner air up in smoke

    Calls for BC environment minister to suspend pellet mill permit Every year, the air in the Bulkley Valley community of Smithers becomes hazardous to human health as thousands of fires known as slash burns are deliberately set at logging sites. The contaminated air can stay trapped in the valley’s airshed…

  • Landmark health care case spotlights problems of a profit-centred system

    In April, the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear a case involving the constitutionality of legal limits on private finance in health care. A 14-year legal saga has ended, but many provinces seem to be ignoring evidence in this case indicating that a profit-centred system does not serve the…