Few environmental messes inherited by the new B.C. government rival the unregulated free-for-all that has unfolded in the province’s northeast where companies that frack for natural gas have built nearly 60 unlicensed dams.
Not only do some of those dams show distressing signs of failing, but the companies that built them - and the government agencies that regulate them - consistently failed to honestly consult with First Nations about their intentions.
Indigenous issues
An environmental mess: BC government needs to bring gas industry and regulator under tighter control
Government-issued identification (ID) is essential to gain access to a wide range of government entitlements, commercial services and financial systems. Lack of ID on the other hand, represents a critical barrier that prevents low-income Manitobans from accessing these services and benefits, and ultimately results in further marginalization and deepening poverty. A new study, Access to Identification for Low-Income Manitobans researches what can be done to address these challenges.
Resource Policy Analyst Ben Parfitt sent this letter to BC’s Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) in response to Progress Energy’s extraordinary request to retroactively exempt the Lily and Town dams from environmental reviews. Such reviews should have been conducted before the dams were built. Not only did those reviews not happen, but the company also failed to obtain other authorizations that it should have well before the dams were built. The Town dam was built in 2012. The Lily dam in 2014.
In this issue:
Illustration by Remie Geoffroi
Can we finally admit it? The world really does love Justin Trudeau.
Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) are a relatively new way of financing social services in Canada. They differ from the normal way of financing social services in that they are funded initially by private sector businesses or foundations, which are reimbursed by governments after 3 to 7 years only if certain agreed upon performance measures are met.
This expanded version of the Monitor summer reading guide takes a break from frenetic social media feeds to assess the fluctuating political and economic reality from a place of relative stability: books. Rather than just telling us what they will be reading this summer, contributors ground longer arguments about the state of the world in recent Canadian and international non-fiction releases with a connection to the CCPA’s underlying mandate: to promote social, economic and environmental justice.
In early May, evidence emerged that natural gas companies had built dozens of large dams during a poorly regulated building spree.
As many as 60 large earthen structures were bulldozed into place by fossil fuel companies—without first getting the required authorizations from provincial authorities.
When the provincial government created the Oil and Gas Commission in 1998, it did much more than open a “one stop shop” for speedy oil and gas industry approvals; it also set British Columbia on a collision course with First Nations.
The consequences of that collision course are more apparent with each passing day, and are most evident in a potentially precedent-setting civil suit launched by the Blueberry River First Nation (BRFN), whose territory overlays northeast BC’s richest natural gas play—the Montney basin.