Gwen and I raised three adult children in North Vancouver. Each lives in this community, as do our seven grandchildren. Before retirement, I worked in accounting and small business management. Since 2009, I have published commentary about public issues at IN-SIGHTS.CA.
Owners of social media platforms profit from tidal waves of hate and disinformation. Boy, do they profit. According to Forbes, Facebook’s Zuckerberg is worth C$230 billion, while co-founders Saverin and Moskovitz share C$50 billion. Twitter’s Elon Musk is said to be worth C$275 billion, while Google founders Page and Brin hold $320 billion between them. That’s almost a trillion dollars in the hands of six greedy men.
The people of British Columbia will soon pay $3 billion a year in carbon tax. Yet actions of governments, fossil fuel producers, financiers, and people holding extreme wealth ensure that climate change is dealt with more by words and empty promises than by meaningful actions.
In the 2024 Throne Speech, the government of David Eby claimed that “greenhouse gas emissions are down 5 per cent from six years ago.” The claim is simply untrue. It is made by ignoring vast sources of emissions.
If you are a climate change denier, better miss this BBC report. If you are not, feel sad for future generations…
Star columnist Armine Yalnizyan wrote about the tapeworm economy that emerges when governments finance private corporations to deliver services to the public. She says it “like introducing a parasite that slowly robs the body of nutrients and destroys its organs.”
Regular IN-SIGHTS reader Ken Holowanky wrote a letter to the Times Colonist in response to a diatribe by Gwyn Morgan, a man called “Shale Gas Baron” in The Tyee’s headline for a 2011 article by Andrew Nikiforuk. With the letter writer’s permission, I will repeat it. But first, a little about Gwyn Morgan…
In late January, Manitoba Hydro CEO Jay Grewal said the utility would need new sources of electricity within five or six years. She reiterated a plan to meet new demand by contracting with private electricity producers. Shortly after, the Manitoba government fired Jay Grewal.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reported that wind and solar accounted for 71 percent of U.S. electric-power capacity additions in 2022. 8.5 GW of wind power capacity was added for investments totalling C$16 billion. By comparison, Site C will cost at least C$16 billion and provide 1.1 GW of power capacity. However, the budget for the project near Fort St. John has not been updated for three years…
While walking through a North Vancouver grocery store owned by Jim Pattison, one of Canada’s richest billionaires, I was astounded by price changes imposed in the last few years. To get to […]
Across Canada in 2023, wildfires burned 18.5 million hectares (45.7 million acres). That is eight times the 25-year average reported by Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. But fire and resulting air pollution are only part of the problems presented by climate change…
Private capital manager Axium Infrastructure Inc. now owns a large part of the Edwards Sanborn power facility. The company is familiar to those following private power companies that supply BC Hydro. With Manulife in 2018, Axium acquired 90% of Forrest Kerr, Volcano Creek, and McLymont Creek power generating facilities developed by AltaGas in northeast British Columbia.
February 8, 2024 news item: BCE slashes 9% of workforce, puts blame at the feet of regulators and policymakers. The cuts affect about 4,800 jobs and follow the elimination of 1,300 jobs last June…
The NDP’s Selina Robinson situation has been a subject of much debate in recent days. It began when the Coquitlam-Maillardville MLA and Advanced Education Minister made controversial statements in a late-January forum hosted by B’nai Brith.,,
Repeated here is something I wrote about BC Hydro in early 2017 for The Common Sense Canadian, an online journal covering Canada’s economy and environment. The site was co-founded by Damien Gillis and the late Rafe Mair and ran for a decade. It remains a worthwhile archive of several thousand stories. A few statements are revised to reflect current information.
Years ago, Rafe Mair wrote that W.A.C. Bennett, if he were alive in 2009, would have been a member of the NDP, in those days a party firmly positioned on the left. Although he railed theatrically against socialists throughout his political career, Bennett knew that public ownership of near-monopolies was sensible…
This country was once known as a peacemaker and peacekeeper. Now it is better known for selling instruments of death and destruction. As occurs in other sectors, profit-seeking arms dealers are either amoral or immoral. In this ProPublica article, Canada is mentioned 26 times…
Climate scientists tell us to reduce and ultimately eliminate burning of fossil fuels, products that are the dominant cause of global warming. Worldwide, the oil and gas industry and its supporters in governments and elsewhere plan for us to burn more…
EDP Renewables has begun operations at its Sharp Hills wind farm 250 kilometres northeast of Calgary. Construction of the 300 megawatt project — approved by Rachel Notley’s NDP government — began in 2021. Each megawatt of capacity is costing $2 million at this $600 million facility. By comparison, a megawatt of capacity at Site C will cost about $18 million, if the 10-year long construction project is able to produce electricity in 2025.
In a 2022 virtual appearance at the University of Toronto, Canadian Margaret Atwood talked about the future of democracy. She warned about the “deliberate creation of chaos” by those who prefer authoritarianism. Financial Times editor Roula Khalaf said Atwood’s appearance was part of an editorial initiative to provide expert commentary about the fragile state of democracy in 2024.
Many self-interested people told us that non-destructive alternatives to hydropower would not work in British Columbia. These, they said, were unreliable and could not always send power to the grid on demand. Dispatchability was key, according to pseudo experts. This despite BC Hydro having reservoirs that act like giant batteries.
Here is the problem with the USA and Trump, Canada can be economically castrated by the USA, if Trump wished,…
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Of course. Everyone who can listen to Evan Solomon finish a sentence without shouting knows we just gotta have more…
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Canada was never a long time ally, we were a buffer state between Russia and the USA and the USA…