All posts by Guest Post

Communications

The day pipeline security followed me — and what I learned later about Canada’s spy agency

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Matt Simmons – The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

The truck slowly pulled alongside as I idled at the side of a remote dirt road in northern B.C. No cell service, the nearest town half an  hour away. I’d pulled off to let industrial traffic heading the other  direction pass. It was 2022 and I was on my way to meet with Indigenous  land defenders embroiled in a years-long fight against a major pipeline  being built through Wet’suwet’en lands and waters without the permission  of Hereditary Chiefs. 

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Community, Environment

Vancouver mayor plans to eliminate city’s climate and sustainability department

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By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter 

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim is planning to eliminate the city’s sustainability and climate department under the guise of a push to prevent increases to property taxes in his proposed “Zero Means Zero” 2026 budget. 

Canada’s National Observer learned about the planned cuts from sources familiar with internal conversations; the information was then corroborated by opposition city councillor Pete Fry. Opposition councillor Lucy Maloney confirmed that council had received a proposal for cuts to the city’s planning, urban design and sustainability departments but no further details. Under the alleged proposal, Vancouver would gut its entire sustainability and climate team and move staff to other departments, lay them off or see some quit outright. 

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Indigenous Nations

Cariboo nation calls B.C. out on misinformation about Aboriginal title

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By Andie Mollins, The Williams Lake Tribune, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Tŝilhqot’in National Government (TNG) is calling on governments to set the facts straight around Aboriginal title and to stop what TNG calls fear-mongering.

“It’s been working well, it’s been happening for 11 years…I don’t know why B.C. is not coming forward and sharing those facts” said Jenny Philbrick, executive director of the TNG, about the nation’s own declaration of title.

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Cost of Climate Change, Politics

‘Climate negative’: Canada’s energy transition progress stalls in first Carney budget

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By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter 

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first budget did not deliver new investments on climate or clean tech. In fact, some experts say it takes a step backwards.

The “climate competitiveness strategy” Carney has been teasing spanned 10 pages out of the 406-page document. It committed to improve the federal government’s emissions reduction workhorse — the industrial carbon pricing system — but provided precious few details on how it would do so, while leaving the door wide open to ditching the proposed cap on oil and gas sector emissions and weakening greenwashing rules. 

“This is the most climate negative budget we’ve seen in more than a decade since the Harper era,” Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood, a senior researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, told Canada’s National Observer during the budget lockup in Ottawa.

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Forests, Politics

BC won’t run anti-tariff ads, Eby says after emergency summit

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By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter 

BC Premier David Eby is putting his anti-tariff ads on ice after an emergency summit with federal ministers on Monday morning.

“We’ve committed to the federal government that when the time comes to be speaking directly to Americans, we’ll do it in partnership with them,” Eby told reporters at a press conference in Vancouver immediately after the emergency softwood lumber summit.

“We will not be running the ads by ourselves.” 

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