Tag Archives: Conservative party

Education, Environment

A summer scarred by wildfire and drought puts climate crisis top of mind as university resumes

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

After a summer marked by unprecedented wildfire and drought, it’s not surprising the climate crisis is top of mind as the school year launches, Vancouver Island University (VIU) geography professor Jeff Lewis says. 

There’s the usual hustle, bustle and excitement with the start of every school year, but virtually everyone returning to campus likely had direct experience with some sort of climate impact over the past few months, said Lewis. 

People across B.C. and most of Canada faced a range of issues — whether it was road closures, interrupted travel plans, cloying smoke, or more extreme threats and stress to themselves or loved ones due to mass evacuations or the loss of homes, businesses or communities to flames or floods. 

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Politics

Elizabeth May comes to Campbell River: Why Greens matter

Green Party leader Elizabeth May flew in from Ottawa on Saturday, May 6. She was the feature speaker at the North Island – Powell River Electoral District Association (EDA) AGM at the Maritime Heritage Centre in Campbell River. Around 60 people from Campbell River, Comox, Powell River, Port McNeil, Quadra Island and Cortes Island were in attendance.  

This is an edited transcript of her speech, and a couple of excerpts from the subsequent remarks made by local Green Party candidate Jessica Wegg.

Continue reading Elizabeth May comes to Campbell River: Why Greens matter →
Energy

Challenge to federal law that poses ‘existential threat’ to Alberta goes to Supreme Court

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

The Supreme Court of Canada this week will examine whether the federal law that evaluates the impacts of proposed resource projects is unconstitutional.

The Impact Assessment Act (IAA) looks into the environmental, health and economic impacts of proposed resource projects — like pipelines and mines — and came into force in 2019 when the federal government passed Bill C-69.

Soon after, the Alberta government brought a legal challenge against the law and its regulations, arguing it was federal overreach encroaching on provincial jurisdiction. The Alberta Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the provincial government in May 2022, calling the IAA an “existential threat” to the provincial right to control and develop resources.

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Environment

Canada’s Environment Minister says the federal government will take a ‘long, hard look’ at upping its climate target following IPCC report

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

As the world stares down an ongoing and rapidly worsening climate crisis, wealthy countries like Canada must hit the “fast-forward button” and push up their net-zero emissions deadlines to 2040, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said Monday.

Guterres’ remarks accompanied the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — the last of this decade — which shows the goal of keeping global warming under 1.5 C “is achievable,” he said. “But it will take a quantum leap in climate action.”

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Rivers & Oceans

Fisheries and Oceans Canada faces deluge of calls to improve ‘suspect’ science

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is being flooded with calls for change after a parliamentary committee examined how the federal agency conducts, interprets and acts on its own science. 

The investigation ended with 49 recommendations to address concerns about how DFO science is presented to the fisheries minister and the public before important political decisions are made — particularly those involving B.C. salmon farms or commercial fisheries on either coast. 

Continue reading Fisheries and Oceans Canada faces deluge of calls to improve ‘suspect’ science →