We’ve known for a while that Christy Clark mixes religion and politics. Shortly before the 2013 election, she campaigned before an evangelical group at the private Vancouver Club and in 2015, Clark’s Government gifted […]
Theocratic British Columiba
Gas sales in new fiscal year begin on a sour note
Premier Clark and friends are organizing demonstrations, trying to keep the LNG fantasy alive with voters, at least for another year. BC Liberals won’t admit economic reality but producers have already passed […]
Know and ‘No’ to LNG
…To gamble away our world class treasure of a river and the cultural and economic values that are sustained by it for a relatively few short term jobs that will leave us with less than nothing when they end, to give away our birthright to a corporate entity some call the Malaysian Mafia, to imagine that there is anything natural about fracked methane, that thousands of kilometers of pipeline across wilderness will leave streams and rivers and wildlife habitat intact, that massive dredging and construction in the Skeena estuary will have “no significant effect” on salmon and other species, that the earth can somehow afford yet another huge dump of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, or that this will somehow benefit our children and grandchildren, is to live in a dream world.
BC’s intended major LNG partner
130 Canadian and international scientists urged the Trudeau government to reject a recent Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) report that concluded the Petronas-backed Pacific NorthWest LNG project could be built safely for the environment. Joseph Welch’s famous quote could be directed to Rich Coleman: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?
Late for the party – Updated
Though it makes entertaining if financially absurd theatre, unfortunately for BC taxpayers, political grandstanding is irrelevant. It offers zero leverage and has no bearing on whether this effort will be seen later as either a brilliant initiative or a barking mad Ponzi scheme. The argument that pushing massive projects like Site C still is “necessary” [says who? what are the facts?] and the belief that all those other LNG fantasies ever were invaluable to taxpayers now looks more like attempts to pretend that the risk of such investments failing simply doesn’t matter. Like a sinking Titanic the bridge believes it can all be managed. Just Remain Calm.
Industry – policy maker or welfare bum?
Many people believe that BC Hydro’s current job #1 is enabling the delivery of water and cheap power to northeast gas fields and heavily subsidized energy to remote mine sites. If true, […]
Andrew Nikiforuk on LNG
In B.C. the government uses propaganda not only to integrate its citizens into its wacky LNG fantasy, but to subsidize foreign companies and pay for unneeded dams and transmission lines at the same time. It is designed to make taxpayers smile while they are being robbed.
Time for action
A reader comment in a preceding article: We all have to be ‘shovel ready’ for the upcoming election and ‘Turf the Liberals’.There will be massive 1%er sponsored support and corporate funded advertorials […]
An "accidental activist" on LNG
Dr. Eoin Finn, who has a residence on Bowyer Island in Howe Sound, is a retired partner of KPMG and holds Ph.D. (Physical Chemistry) and MBA (International Business) degrees. BC’s proven natural […]
Recent Twitter activity
LEAKED: Script idea for the year long TV advertising blitz already begun by the BC Liberal Government. #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/zeUMn5ujg2 — Norm Farrell (@Norm_Farrell) February 26, 2016 //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Heading should read “Dishonouring the […]
Truth found in numbers, lies found in words
I am reading budget documents and will soon be writing more about the provincial government’s financial smoke and mirrors but I have initial comments. Natural Gas BC Liberals, particularly Premier Clark, are […]
Vanishing revenues
There is too little public discussion of huge costs and questionable benefits of an industry that employs a tiny fraction of BC’s workers (0.4% in 2014 according to BC Stats). With land […]
How "clean" is BC’s natural gas industry?
Methane: The other important greenhouse gas, Environmental Defense Fund: By emitting just a little bit of methane, mankind is greatly accelerating the rate of climatic change. – Steve Hamburg EDF Chief Scientist […]
Gas production ↑ 85%, public revenue ↓ 90%
Premier Clark averred that meeting needs of children in government care is dependent on new funding from new industrial and commercial activities in British Columbia… That condition was not applied to construction of the Site C dam that will ultimately cost $10-$15 billion. Nor was it applied to about $10 billion of road and bridge construction in the lower mainland or $1 billion spent to deliver subsidized power to Murray Edwards’ Red Chris mine. Nor was it a condition precedent when Clark wanted to expand the size of her cabinet or hire yet more government spin doctors. A $200 million tax break for our richest citizens did not depend on new economic activity.
What gas industry?
What BC gets from natural gas industry in 2015 does not even pay half the cost of Gas Development Ministry. #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/1wDCkQsbC7 — Norm Farrell (@Norm_Farrell) December 11, 2015 //platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsNote: Numbers from […]
LNG: a decade of oversupply
Toil ahead for oil, but expect double trouble for LNG, Angela Macdonald-Smith, Energy Reporter, Sydney Morning Herald, December 7, 2014 The crude oil market is seen as being in dire straits, but […]
Our wealth commands us
As a student politician in her untenured days at SFU, Christy Clark operated with an imperfect moral compass. When final history is written, the hallmark of her premiership will be deceit and corruption. Her government regularly wages war against working people and helps contractors evade the few responsibilities owed employees. Income and disability assistance rates were last raised on June 1, 2007 but annual drilling subsidies to gas producers climbed 130% in the same time frame, from $370 million to $850 million. In addition, since 2007, natural gas royalties receipts declined from $1.2 billion to $185 million in the current fiscal year. Revenues from gas and petroleum rights sales fell from $2.4 billion in fiscal year 2009 to only $9.7 million in the first 11 months of 2015.
When industry buys a government…
Who knew that Christy Clark would make Gordon Campbell look like an effective, if somewhat dishonest, Premier. #bcpoli — Norm Farrell (@Norm_Farrell) December 4, 2015 //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Did gas industry get a good […]
Thinking of you Christy
Bloomberg Business says, “Spare a thought for anyone who bet on a recovery in liquefied natural gas prices after last year’s 45 percent plunge.” Bloomberg also says: LNG to northeast Asia, home […]
Ahem, indeed
A while back, I complained on Twitter that corporate media types were failing to report on the near complete disappearance of revenues from this year’s monthly sales of petroleum and natural gas […]
in-sights.ca 
Blair Fix at _Economics from the Top Down_ also wrote two very good papers on the converion of housing into…