Climate change & energy policy

Climate change and energy issues in the 2017 BC election platforms

Apr 18, 2017
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From the fracking fields and Site C dam in BC’s northeast to an LNG terminal and Kinder Morgan’s pipeline and tanker expansion in the southwest, energy issues should figure prominently in BC’s 2017 election campaign. Climate change, the result of all that pollution from dirty energy development here and elsewhere, is an overarching challenge. In… View Article

Faking climate action: BC’s misleading forest gambit

Apr 3, 2017
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In its August 2016 climate plan update—and subsequent advertising campaign—the BC government put forests front and centre. While this may sound positive, it is really a sleight of hand by a province seeking to shirk its responsibility to reduce fossil fuel emissions. The BC government claims (without providing any evidence) that its vaguely defined forest… View Article

The rise and fall of climate action in BC

Feb 13, 2017
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It was a decade ago, in the February 13, 2007 Speech from the Throne, when the BC government launched into a frenzy of climate action never before seen in the province. Almost all of the BC government’s current “climate leadership” claims – so heavily promoted in a pre-election advertising spree – came out of a… View Article

BC’s natural gas giveaway: Production soars, revenues plummet

Feb 9, 2017
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Not long ago, BC received huge annual royalty revenues from its growing natural gas sector. The revenues were often billed as paying for essential public services like health care and education, and were appealing politically as they meant governments did not have to raise taxes to do so. The provincial government claimed that new production… View Article

Canada cannot have it both ways on climate and fossil fuel expansion

Jan 25, 2017
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With great fanfare and a claim that “Canada is back,” Prime Minister Trudeau helped usher in the Paris Agreement on climate change in December 2015. Since then, however, the federal government has pushed to expand fossil fuel production through new bitumen pipelines and LNG terminals. This contradiction points to a loophole in the Paris Agreement,… View Article

When LNG plants get a special deal on Hydro rates, who pays?

Dec 20, 2016
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It’s always telling to see who in our province is able to win special treatment from the BC government. The BC Utilities Commission is currently reviewing residential BC Hydro rates, something they do periodically. As part of that process, the BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre (BCPIAC), on behalf of numerous organizations representing low-income British Columbians… View Article