Oh Canada !

A very interesting article. As you have said, it has been a popular topic for some time and has a lot of opposition.

Your comment on Brian Mulrooney and Alexandra Morton is soooo very true.

Here in BC we have a premier that is everything you want your child not to be - liar, dishonest, deceitful, barely manages to keep himself out of prison - SO FAR,THOUGH THE BC RAIL CORRUPTION TRIAL MAY CHANGE THAT.

The premier of this province seems to have recklessness about his projects that put both people and property at risk. This Gordon (screw everyone) Campbell is in the pay of big business and cares not a wit about the trouble, pain and destruction his dangerous ideological vison of the province, causes. The oil sand and tanker shipping through Vancouver and Kitimat means big dollars for Campbell via average taxpayer - next to nothing from big businesses who pay no taxes.

The whole process is obscene and these large companies promote it for gain.

The Conservative vision for Canada as Steven Harper and Gordon Campbell would like to see it is not what I want to be part of. Yes, I have to use a motor vehicle to get around - there is no public transport system where I live. Little will being done by conservative governments as they get huge amounts of tax from the sale of oil products and of course, there is the carbon tax - another Gordon Campbell "screw everyone" move. Public pressure may be the answer - who knows.

Maybe one day we will have a government that cares about things other than themselves, maybe.

Thank you

Weaning ourselves off fossil fuels? What a joke Rafe.

We're addicted to a fossil fuelled life. The latest vehicle-sale stats for Canada show that the sale of big trucks, i.e. 4 by 4s rose, outpacing cars. What does that mean.
Travel through Bear Mountain in Langford. BIg houses. Nary a clothelines in sight. Hot tubs, Commuters. None of it sustainable but symtomatic of a society that refuses to give up what it considers necessities.
I interviewed a woman last week and she said on her street of 14 homes no one bothers to have a clothesline or garden, both easy actions that would go a long way in conservation.

Without Oil we would be still in the Stone Age

Oil provides the energy to do useful work. Our civilization depends on it. Without oil, Rafe would be a hunter-gatherer in the jungle instead of a journalist.

Rafe wakes up

The tanker traffic you're complaining about has been going on for 50 years, with those ships routinely transiting the Second Narrows. What took you so long?

And the terminal is in Burnaby, not Port Moody. That kind of fumble tends to hurt your credibility for the rest of the piece. KM won't bump the pipeline capacity to 700,000 bbls/day until they get customers signed up -- which they so far haven't done.

And given that some of the crude goes to Washington through a pipe, some of it goes to Chevron, and the pipeline also ships refined products -- your simple arithmetic "tanker a day" forecast won't happen even if they do bump it up to 700,000 bbls/day. (right now its 300,000/day). Those max capacity numbers do not represent the volumes that leave on a ship.

Tell you what. Post a picture of your car up on blocks, and your "stop doing it" mantra gains some weight. Otherwise, it's rank hypocrisy.

Max, not mex.

It's Aframax and Panamax. And they do not have specific lengths, rather these clasifications represent maximum dimensions. In the case of the Panamax, the maximum length, breadth, and draft of a vessel that can safely navigate the Panama Canal.

@ blackie

How is it hypocritical for him to call for a ban on oil exported from BC ports? Is the car in Asia?

It isn't just about oil ...

...it is about the risk in the exporting of it. If it was about Canadian use or our dependence on the automobile that would be one thing and I might pay some attention to comments from Illahie and Ramona. Rafe is right. This is about the risks just to make corporations rich. Those who want to sell their sludge to other countries for the big profits they can make are putting our coast at risk. The analogy of Russian roulette with 2000 chambers is dead one. Way to go Rafe.

It isn't only governments

It isn't only governments and industry who are lying but the universities that give them the ammunition.

It also happens all the time, when somebody dares to question the idiocies that pass for economics these days, the faithful immediately come back with the "stone axe hunter gatherer" nonsense.

Some of us have lived long enough, to have seen highly developed economies and civilizations, with hardly any cancers and diabetes, without the present criminal idiocies, called "globalization" and "free trade" forced on humanity.

The secret is locally based, self sufficient economies, eliminating unnecessary commuting, with resources and goods made locally and not transported around the world.

Another thing, the artificially induced travel hysteria with 90% of the airliners should be grounded and broken up, together with the military hardware.

I can remember Vancouver airport with a few daily flights, now averaging 700/day, with 16 million yearly passengers. I haven't flown since 1968 and haven't missed a thing.

We lived, worked for decent wages and were happy .

Also, why are these B 52 murder machine flights necessary over our heads all the time, day and night ?

Ed Deak.

Oil Dependency

"Oil provides the energy to do useful work. Our civilization depends on it. Without oil, Rafe would be a hunter-gatherer in the jungle instead of a journalist."

Arguably it was wind and water power allowing for the milling of grain that really kick started our civilization. We were also utilizing an number of other fuels for heat and energy for centuries after hunting and gathering was abandoned by agricultural societies. Of course, it's true that fossil fuels are a very valuable resource. Unfortunately, that just highlights the idiocy of burning it so profligately when smarter choices should rule the day.

In Rafe's defence...

To user alive: Who better to know that politicians routinely lie than a former, recovering politician? I'd take Rafe's opinion over yours any day of the week, precisely because he's been there and you haven't.

To user Illahie, who utters the standard issue big oil PR line: "Without Oil we would be still in the Stone Age." Right, and it's going to be oil that puts us right back to that stone age, you and your SUV included, bub. The point of the exercise here is not to set up faulty either/or dilemmas. Rafe is not suggesting we quit oil cold turkey tomorrow. He and others are generally saying we need more alternatives. We need to prepare for peak oil (which some scientists argue is already upon us). We need fuel/energy sources that won't put us at such massive environmental risk (I wonder if BP's cost-benefit analysis studies took into account the current nightmare scenario playing out in the Gulf?) -- to the point that we are shipping toxic sludge via Vancouver harbour to feed our addiction. The only thing stone age in all of this is the mentality that got us to this point in the first place.

Good article Rafe, but something tells me that that good folks in Fort McMurray, Shell or the new energy minister here in BC ain't listening.

justifying use of oil

It amazed me the other day when I was watching a US news channel covering the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Filmed on one of the beaches in Louisiana there were people saying they did not want any restrictions put on deep water drilling for oil. The reason given was they need the jobs. It didn't seem to register on them that they were looking at the possible destruction of the entire gulf. BP now says as much as 100,000 barrels of oil are gushing into the gulf every day but somehow money and jobs took priority over the loss of their environment.

Is it really going to take a gigantic oil spill in Burrard Inlet or along our western coast before we insist on protecting our environment? Are we willing to say good bye to Stanley Park?

The tar sands in Alberta are one of the largest environmental disasters in the world and the effects of shipping that crude oil mud has the potential to cause even more harm than the oil in the gulf.

The comments aimed at Rife Mair are nothing more than an attempt to shoot the messenger. Once an oil spill happens it won't matter what political stripe you subscribe to, it will affect us all equally.

Iggy to the rescue

Iggy just gave Kinder Morgan's aspirations a tremendous boost by announcing a Liberal policy to ban oil tankers on the north coast. Of course he isn't government and likely never will be -- but if I were a prospective Asian crude buyer I think I'd be making some phone calls to Kinder Morgan at this point.

Are we crazy?

Why would we allow larger tankers that put our harbour and coast at risk to profit the owners invested in the Alberta tar sands? Is the benefit to BC businesses and BC workers worth the risk? Somehow I do not think so. We have a Federal moratorium on drilling off our coast for good reason, it is not worth the risk to our waters. The Provincial Liberals are trying to get this moratorium lifted and are allowing drilling in South Eastern BC against the wishes of local residents.

No to any tankers

through Georgia Straight!

Even if there was a tanker spill in

the Port of Vancouver, we needn't worry. I am quite certain the government will have us all out there soaking it up with paper dollars.

Having been called a radical, socialist peacenik for thinking the national wisdom is a 'brick short of a load', I am beginning to wonder if I have it all wrong. Maybe it's people like 'us', who continue talking about the same sorts of things over and over when nobody is listening, who are truly mad.

Part II - "Even if there was a tanker spill in...

the Port of Vancouver, we needn't worry. I am quite certain the government will have us all out there soaking it up with paper dollars."

Actually we could use newspapers from CanWest. There is a lot more of them around doing nothing than paper dollars.

Enbridge, Trans-Canada, Kinder Morgan, etc.

The CEO of Enbridge recently expressed full confidence that the Gateway project from the Tar Sands to Kitimat, shipping oil thence to Asia by supertanker, would be approved and will go ahead. Surely his ace in the hole (aside from a supportive prime minister doughhead) is the fact that people in Vancouver will become more and more anxious about oil shipping out through Vancouver Harbour!

Vancouver has the population and the votes. We in the North have orcas, salmon, oolichan, and some of the most spectacular wilderness in the world. We don't want Gateway.

If Vancouverites actually come alive and fight oil transit out of the harbour there, will you please be good enough to support our fight against Enbridge here?

(By the way, good news from the Federal Liberal Party today on a tanker moratorium...)

As for our oil-addicted lives, yes, we're in a box. But if anyone prefers freedom to drive over containing climate change, unlimited plasticization of the planet over drowning Richmond a few decades down the road, he's an idiot.

Check Bill Rees's presentation on .

Tankers on the Coast

I'm curious as to why there is no mention of the proposed tanker facility on the South Arm of the Fraser River where the plan is to transport jet fuel all the way across Richmond to the airport. Holding tanks on the river's edge are also proposed - this has now gone to the provincial government for approval. For those who don't know the area, the pipeline to the airport from the south arm will travel through farmland and residential areas - not to mention that the proposed facility would be right across the road from the large sports complex with the rinks, theatres and Watermania; directly across the river from Deas Park and in an active commercial fishing area which also has endangered wildlife species.

Despite the fact that Richmond City Council voted against such a project, they apparently have no control over the Port Authority who owns the land.

Rafe and Tyee, plase take this one on, too.

Why?

Because the big banks have invested heavily in the oil and automotive industries and it is the big banks to whom we are all beholden, thanks to mismanagement - a euphemism considering the corruption we observe - by our elected officials of wealth we generate.

The banks are rich enough. Cancel all debt. Start from zero.

G8 nightmare on tap. Bottom's up!

Crude oil not for 50 years.

"Blackie" above either blunders or willingly deceives. "The tanker traffic you're complaining about has been going on for 50 years..."

Wrong: The crude oil traffic is new since 2007, the size of tankers is new, and the frequency unprecedented.

There is a big difference between the oil barges that ship refined gasoline products to BC communities (a long BC tradition) and crude oil tankers that ship tar sands sludge to refineries in California, China, and elsewhere.

So Rafe is correct. This is a big change and a big deal. A spill of refined gasoline is not great for the marine environment, but the gasoline will evaporate relatively quickly. Crude oil is a different matter by several orders of magnitude. A spill of crude oil in Burrard Inlet or Georgia Strait would shut down our harbour, devastate our marine environment, close our fisheries, and shred our coastal economy.

We have not been shipping large tankers of crude oil for 50 years. More like 3 years. In 2005, Kinder-Morgan (ex-Enron billionaires) bought Terasen Pipelines and received National Energy Board approval to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline capacity. Thus began the plan to turn Vancouver into an oil port for tar sands crude.

Three years ago, China and Canada began "testing" the feasibility of shipping crude oil to China from Vancouver. Since then the large crude oil tanker traffic has increase from zero to about 2 tankers per week.

Kinder-Morgan wants to expand this to 10 tankers per week.

Rafe was correct. This is a new threat to our coast.

There is a group in B.C. working to stop this insane practice. See: www.notanks.org.

Rex Weyler

Rafe Breath of Fresh Air

Rafe always delivers the goods: speaking plainly is a skill long gone with our political and economic elites. Against their carefully scripted bafflegab, spin and mis-truths, Rafe aims for plain speaking and plain talking. Speaking plainly will always be available to citizens and authors alike. It just takes courage. We're fortunate to have so many writers in the Tyee who have this increasingly rare trait.

God save us from the oil industry! Indeed, it may be the death of us all.

Rex Weyler

What he said.

revisionist history

ResWyler says: "Blackie" above either blunders or willingly deceives.

Where you got the idea that the oil export traffic from Westridge started in 2007 is beyond me. I know there was one year when the volume was zero -- maybe that was 2006? But there have been oil shipments in varying amounts through the Second Narrows for 50 years. If you don't believe me, find something that refutes that and I'll revise my thinking.

Yes, the ships are getting bigger. Yes, there are more of them -- there's no news in that. The ships may get bigger still -- the port is looking at what needs to be done to allow a Suezmax-sized ship through the Second Narrows. Suezmax hold a million barrels of oil.
Now that Iggy has doused the Kitimat plan with cold water, I expect the push for more ships through Vancouver will accelerate.

China has taken tests shipments, and will surely take more. But most of that oil still goes to California. Some even goes through the Panama Canal to the Gulf ports. KM has already said publicly that if the China trade is to grow, they'll need bigger ships. They will also consider a new loading terminal near Roberts Bank to keep those bigger ships out of the inner harbour.

Rex says: Rafe was correct. This is a new threat to our coast."

Rafe is wrong. The threat has been there for decades. Your only quibble on this is size -- but Aframax and Panamax vessels have been coming to Westridge for many years. And while they are bigger than some of the 50s style tankers that plied the waters, they're also a lot safer.