Energy

Canada’s premiers and prime minister met under tense circumstances in Montreal Friday, and left a day of meetings without a shared agenda on energy or the environment.

The First Nations leader who received an apology from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Tuesday for failed Trans Mountain pipeline consultations says he won’t accept the apology until Trudeau visits his community.

Ontario and federal environment ministers remain locked in a stalemate on climate action, but characterized their discussions Thursday as useful and constructive. They discussed such areas of agreement as protecting species at risk, plastic pollution and conservation of the Great Lakes.

The developers of a long-delayed electricity transmission project to transport hydroelectric power from Quebec to the New York City metropolitan area say that construction will start in 2020.

As the two party leaders intent on knocking Kathleen Wynne out of the premier’s office this year talked about their plans for Hydro One, utilities commissioners in Washington were watching and listening. And they were becoming increasingly concerned that a merger between Hydro One and Spokane-based Avista Corp. would always be at risk of political interference.

When Finance Minister Morneau delivered his Fall Economic Update in the third week of November he painted a rosy picture of Trans Mountain’s financial performance. What Morneau didn’t tell Canadians is that if he had included interest expense for the debt taken on to buy the pipeline, there is actually a loss.

The Canadian Crown corporation that controls the Trans Mountain oil pipeline booked over $20 million in interest expenses in a single month.

TransCanada served an injunction on Nov. 26, 2018, against two leaders of the Unist'ot'en camp, accusing the members of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation of blocking access in the area around the Morice River Bridge. Hereditary leaders of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation stand unified against pipelines in the territories they are obliged to protect through their traditional system of governance.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly warned a First Nations leader against disparaging communities that have agreed to allow the Trans Mountain pipeline across their land in exchange for economic benefits.

"I was so emotional. They were talking directly about proposed marine terminals and the increase in tanker traffic and how it would affect the west coast," she said. "They were asking, if there's a spill, who's going to be held accountable? Who's going to clean it up?"

As a moratorium on oil tankers off the north coast moves closer to becoming law, the Hereditary Chiefs and political leaders of First Nations along the North Pacific Coast pledge our full support for the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act and urge the Senate to pass Bill C-48.

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley has announced plans to cut production of oil from her province, in response to a widening gap in the market price for western Canadian crude versus what other crude oils are getting on the market. The gap is triggering losses in provincial coffers of hundreds of millions of dollars.

A steady barrage of climate reports is bumming us out. What's an aware person to do?

As Alberta Premier Rachel Notley continues to pitch for more trains to carry 120,000 additional barrels of oil out of the landlocked province, Transport Minister Marc Garneau says Canada's rail system has become safer since a deadly train derailment, oil spill and explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Que. in 2013.

The Green New Deal, catapulted onto the national agenda by a fiery mixture of political champions like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and mass youth-led organizing by the Sunrise Movement, is perhaps the most straightforward policy proposal for tackling climate change that many of us have ever seen.