Tag Archives: CAPP

Energy, Politics

A Peek Into Big Oil’s Playbook with Environmental Defence

Environmental Defence just released a report showing that last year oil and gas company lobbyists were targeting the Conservative Party, in preference to the Canadian Government, by more than a 2 to 1 ratio. Cortes Currents interviewed Emilia Belliveau, lead author of ‘Big Oil’s Playbook, A Summary of Big Oil’s 2024 Federal Lobbying’ and asked Max Thaysen, from the Cortes Island Climate Action Network for his insights.  

Emilia Belliveau:  “Environmental Defence is a charity, so we are nonpartisan. What I can do is simply relay the facts, which are that the Bloc Québécois and the Green Party did not take any lobbyist meetings. The NDP took a very small number, four. Then you have most of the lobby meetings targeting the Federal Liberals and the Federal Conservatives. The Federal Liberals had 62 meetings with ministers and 29 meetings with backbencher MPs, and Conservative MPs took 216  lobby meetings.”

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Energy

Passing the buck at TMX pipeline hearings

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

Now that TMX is complete, the question of who should bear the brunt of the project’s cost overruns is making the rounds on Parliament Hill.

A federal committee delved into this issue on Wednesday night, with some witnesses and MPs insisting the oil and gas sector should shoulder the burden because they are the ones profiting, while others argued the pipeline benefits all Canadians.

Oil industry executives called to testify at the Oct. 9 committee meeting on Trans Mountain’s massively over-budget pipeline expansion were met with a combative NDP leader.

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Energy

TMX in the crosshairs on MPs’ first day back in Ottawa

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

Canadian MPs are back in the capital and kicked off day one by digging into the climate and financial impacts of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (TMX).

Over five committee meetings in coming weeks, federal ministers, experts and interest groups will testify about TMX’s impact on Canada’s climate targets, how the cost to taxpayers soared, and government plans to sell TMX.

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Environment

FOCI: Continuity & Change

The Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) has a new President, is getting prepared to launch out in new directions and is also trying to raise $30,000 by the end of the month. The first two of those announcements may be interrelated, the third definitely is not. It is a result of two large contracts coming to an end, more on that later. First, Mike Moore has been one of FOCI’s members for decades and is now taking on a more active leadership role.

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Energy

‘Hard to believe it’s real’: B.C.’s energy regulator repeatedly gave Coastal GasLink a pass on alleged environmental infractions

Editor’s note: Another account of how government regulators are not equipped to do their job and the resulting lack of oversight may be putting the public at risk.

By Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

When officials from the BC Energy Regulator travelled to Wet’suwet’en territory in September 2022, they were planning a routine inspection of a fish-bearing stream.

Two years had passed since Coastal GasLink completed installation of a section of pipeline through the stream, a tributary of Tchesinkut Creek, near the community of Burns Lake in northwest B.C.

They discovered Coastal GasLink had never finished restoring the waterway and, for two years, pipeline construction had been impacting fish habitat. It was a mess. 

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