Must Reads from Last Week
BC Greens Weekly Update
If you’re not a member of the BC Green Party you’re not getting these weekly updates. I really like their format. In fact, the format of these Must Reads is somewhat similar. The weekly update that came out on Sunday leads with Site C. If you’ve been wondering exactly what the BC Greens’ position is on Site C, read this. There’s much more in this weekly update, including Sonia Furstenau on salmon farms and the blood and effluent being pumped into the water in Clayoquot.
Site C
There are lots of options to let the government know you want them to cancel Site C (if that is, in fact, what you want).
CHEK News is doing a poll. Cast your vote here. When last I checked, it was 78% in favour of cancelling and 22% in favour of going ahead with it. It’s a quick, easy way to weigh in on this decision.
Tiny House Warriors
If you don’t know about these folks, they are AMAZING. There is a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds to build tiny homes along the proposed Kinder Morgan route, to show Indigenous presence and claim. Check out their Facebook page. Here is an update I got this week:
| Project Update: Tiny House Warriors - W’sanec Territory Build Posted by li kellerWe are so thrilled to announce that we’ve surpassed our $10,000 goal and this tiny house is now complete! Last week, together with a group of Secwepemc Nation Tiny House Warriors, the tiny house left the build site making important stops on its way to blocking kinder-morgan trans-canada pipeline expansion on Secwepemc territory. The house, named Orca Warrior, received two beautiful mural paintings, one by Kwantlen artist Brandon Gabriel, pictured above, and another in a community art build coordinated by Métis artist Christi Belcourt and Anishinaabe artist Isaac Murdoch, pictured below. The tiny house stood in front of pipeline financier TD bank in downtown “vancouver” for a divestment action, and in front of the kinder morgan terminal in “burnaby” with activists keeping surveillance, before making its way to Secwepemc territory. As donations are still rolling in, any funds received beyond the expenses of building Tiny House #3 will go towards the remaining tiny houses to be built on Secwepemc territory to stop the kinder-morgan trans-canada pipeline expansion! Thanks tremendously to all you volunteer builders, cooks, fundraisers, and donors for making this project a huge success and for supporting Indigenous sovereignty! With gratitude, Check out this campaign at: https://chuffed.org/project/tiny-house-warriors-wsanec-build. |
Wooing Amazon
A review of some of the bids to woo Amazon’s HQ2 to other cities and states shows it’s not all about the money. In some cases democracy itself is a bargaining chip.
While this article is from Seattle, Amazon is also being wooed by Montreal. I wonder what Montreal is offering? From the information I could gather online, not much is being revealed about how much Montreal and Quebec are willing to give to Amazon.
More War Against Renewable Energy
Don’t be fooled by attacks on the lithium battery
This article by David Suzuki is a clear, balanced expose of propaganda and misinformation from the fossil fuel industry. The image below is “…circulating the Internet, credited to the community organization, Saskatchewan Proud, [and] has attacked electric vehicles while promoting Canada’s oilsands.”
Excerpt: “In their efforts to discredit renewable energy and support continued fossil fuel burning, many anti-environmentalists have circulated a dual image purporting to compare a lithium mine with an oilsands operation….The image is a poor attempt to prove that lithium batteries and renewable energy are worse for the environment than energy from oilsands bitumen. The first problem is that the “lithium mine” is actually BHP Billiton’s Escondida copper mine in Chile (the world’s largest). The bottom image is of an Alberta oilsands operation, but it’s an in situ underground facility and doesn’t represent the enormous open-pit mining operations used to extract most bitumen.”
Kinder Morgan: Premier Notley in Vancouver
Rachel Notley thinks she can convince British Columbians of the merits of Kinder Morgan. She believes that if she just talks about it enough, we will all take it as gospel.
https://www.biv.com/article/2017/12/alberta-key-canadas-climate-action-plan-notley/
From December 7, 2017:
National Energy Board rules in favour of Trans Mountain on Burnaby pipeline impasse
Excerpt: “B.C.’s Environment Minister is sharply criticizing a National Energy Board ruling in favour of Kinder Morgan Canada’s efforts to bypass Burnaby bylaws that stand in the way of its Trans Mountain expansion project.”
There’s a Vancouver Sun poll to vote on whether or not you agree with the NEB’s decision to approve Kinder Morgan. Check it out and cast your vote. Right now it shows 66.8% of people in support of Kinder Morgan and 33.19% opposed. Have your say on this.
Elizabeth May
A very brief, off-the-cuff video with Elizabeth last week. Elizabeth’s Saanich-Gulf Islands (SGI) EDA is starting to do these brief videos with Elizabeth wherever she goes. They are very informal, not scripted, not staged. Wherever Elizabeth goes across the country, SGI would like a local Green to shoot a very brief video with Elizabeth talking about what’s coming up for her in the next week.
And here’s a second video from December 9th in Vancouver. These videos will give all of us a sense of what Elizabeth does on a daily basis. She is so hard-working.
BC Electoral Reform Referendum
Webinar on Rural-Urban Proportional voting system. I’ve attended the other webinars put on by Fair Vote. They are always informative and easy to understand.
Sunday December 10, 2 PM EST
PR Systems for Canada Series
Part Three: Made-for-Canada hybrid, blended systems – Rural-Urban Proportional
REGISTER HERE: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/2400232069497311234
The BC government has set up a site for the 2018 referendum. They are looking for feedback between now and February 28, 2018, at 4 p.m. Everyone please check out the questionnaire and make a written submission if you think some of the questions are too confusing or obscure. For example, they have a PR system called MMM which Terry Dance-Bennink of Fair Vote BC says she’s never even heard of. There are links to read about different systems, the questionnaire, and for written submissions to citizenengagement@gov.bc.ca.
But BEFORE YOU GO TO THE SURVEY, check out Fair Vote BC’s guide to the questionnaire. As you may remember, the Federal Liberals created a similar MyDemocracy.ca for supposed consultation when Justin Trudeau decided to throw out his promise of electoral reform. Many of those questions were obviously designed to be confusing, or were impossible choices. Fair Vote has gone through the survey and provides thoughts on the questions.
Here is a video with Terry Dance-Bennink giving the keynote address at the Comox Valley Council of Canadians AGM earlier this month. She’s a great proponent of electoral reform, and this video is a bit of an overview of the issue.
BC Electoral Reform Referendum, Part 2: The Gauntlet is Thrown
The BC Liberals are mounting their anti-PR campaign. Andrew Wilkinson, a BC Liberal leadership candidate, calls it “The NDP’s Stealth Campaign.”
Dianne Watts, another leadership candidate has said on Twitter, “Defeating proportional representation is my #1 priority. I’m hellbent on ensuring we defeat it.
For trivia nerds, check out this Facebook page: Great Moments in First Past the Post History.
BC Electoral Reform Referendum, Part 3: Get involved locally
Check out Fair Vote Comox Valley’s Facebook page.
There are going to be two volunteer organizing events by Fair Vote Comox Valley: Sunday, December 17th at 2 p.m. and Monday, December 18th at 7 p.m. If you are interested in working on our local referendum campaign and can make either of these two times, please contact Megan Ardyche, m.ardyche@gmail.com.
Fair Vote Comox Valley is also now accepting donations. If you can’t give your time, please consider giving some money to support this campaign over the next year. This is our moment to change BC’s electoral system. Get in on the action! Again, you can contact Megan at m.ardyche@gmail.com if you’d like information on donating.
Thought of the day:
Be prepared to go deep. When I watched this video, I was so proud that the Green Party embodies all of this.
