Come Listen to the Man Fracking Powers Tried to Silence

On Jan. 28, in Vancouver, you have the opportunity to spend an evening with Andrew Nikiforuk, one the finest journalists, one of the finest minds, one the most courageous and public spirited people I have ever met.

If you are a regular reader of The Tyee you probably recognize Andrew's byline. But you may not know of his new book on fracking in Canada with a fascinating, real-life hero at the centre of it.

You also may not know how hostile a place Canada can be for a journalist as effective as Andrew Nikiforuk.

And before you buy a ticket for the "Standing up to Fracking" Jan. 28 event, you'd probably like to know more about what will be discussed.

So I thought I'd quickly fill you in on all that here.

'Slick Water' and a hero named Jessica Ernst

Andrew first met Alberta landowner and oil patch consultant Jessica Ernst in 2004 while reporting for the Globe and Mail's Report on Business on "unconventional" energy sources -- like fracked gas. It wasn't until the next year that the harm fracking can do became personal for Ernst. She'd discovered groundwater contamination on her own land 113 kilometres northeast of Calgary, and Andrew returned to write about that for Canadian Business.

He couldn't believe the level of fraud she had documented or how the Alberta Energy Regulator had banished all communication from her to thwart her efforts. In fact her story about pollution eerily previewed the trouble and controversy fracking would later cause across the continent.

To discourage any reporting on the case, flaks for the energy regulator phoned the editors of Canadian Business magazine in 2006 and told them that Andrew was just a third rate reporter who couldn't get a job at a rural newspaper. The intimidation didn't work because the editors knew Nikiforuk well: he had contributed to the magazine for more than a decade.

In fact, by the time Andrew met Jessica Ernst, he had not only been covering oil and gas issues in Canada for 10 years, he had published an award-winning book profiling a quite different resister to drilling in Alberta. It was titled Wiebo Ludwig's War Against Big Oil, and it won the Governor General's Award for non-fiction in 2002. Andrew went on to write The Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of the Continent, a national bestseller that won the 2009 Rachel Carson Environment Book Award. Next, Andrew made manifest the destructive ripple effect of climate change by writing about a forest devouring insect we know too well in B.C. Empire of the Beetle was nominated for the Governor General's Award for non-fiction. He followed with The Energy of Slaves, a fresh look at our fossil fuel dependence and delusion, and now he is out with his story of Jessica Ernst's fight: Slick Water: Fracking and One Insider's Stand against the World's Most Powerful Industry.

Sent to Canada's journalist Siberia

So no one could accuse Andrew of not knowing his stuff or not writing about what matters. And yet here, I believe, is a mark of shame upon Canada's media universe. The more Andrew Nikiforuk documented the downsides of oilsands mining, fracking and fossil fuel-based economics, the harder it seemed for him to find editors willing to publish him. The offers from business and general interest magazines where he'd done prize-winning reporting mysteriously dried up.

Well, I'm no dummy. I admired Andrew's skills and his ability to wring sweat from those in power. I saw how important it was that he not be silenced. Fortunately, The Tyee doesn't depend a bit on oil and gas ads. And so I am extremely proud to say The Tyee has published hundreds of stories by Andrew since 2010, including his first piece about Jessica Ernst's lawsuit, on April 20, 2011. It is entitled: Albertan, Tired of Her Tap Water Catching Fire, Sues. (Clearly I don't write headlines as smoothly as Andrew writes entire books.)

Andrew has written in The Tyee many articles about Ernst's struggle, as well as fracking's environmental, technical, geological and economic realities. Against vigorous opposition by the industry, he told us how fracking wells leak more than advertised, how fracked gas is as emissions intensive as coal, and how fracking causes dangerous earthquakes.

Andrew's other stalwart backer has been Greystone Books. Committed to quality and powerful storytelling about big issues, the Vancouver-based publisher is the reason we have Slick Water to read.

The book is the product of nearly 15 years of reporting on coal bed methane extraction and the personal story of Jessica Ernst, a wounded yet strong and courageous figure. It is the story of the fracking industry's bullying ways. It is an indictment, as well, of the public regulators who we assume hold as their first priority the protection of the public. As Ernst has now legally argued all the way to the top court in the nation, and as Andrew's Slick Water details, the regulator's official position is that it has "no duty of care" to protect landowners or other citizens whose lives are ruined by fracking.

Jessica Ernst's battle is not about money; it is about justice and the protection of a public resource: groundwater. She is fighting for the rights of all of us under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. If she wins, she will have ripped away a blanket immunity from lawsuits enjoyed by government agencies. Regulators will be forced to protect the public over industry, or face consequences.

That's the battle that began on a lonely patch of farmland in Rosebud, Alberta, with Andrew Nikiforuk the only journalist on the scene willing to witness it, and write about it, until it fully played out.

The Vancouver event: Fracking's risks for BC

Along the way, Andrew has come to fear for us here in B.C., as well. Asked what is the most important issue facing British Columbia, he answers: "The shale gas boom and the total lack of government policy. Shale gas is to this province what bitumen is to Alberta: it's a political game changer with formidable liabilities." That belief, based on two decades of reporting and brought right up to date by Slick Water and numerous recent articles in The Tyee, will be Andrew's subject matter on Jan. 28. Among the questions he will address:

How is fracking tied to Premier Christy Clark's liquified natural gas ambitions?

Is LNG a climate change solution or another climate change problem?

Is fracking as safe as the B.C. government has maintained?

Is fracking and LNG such a job creator that the risk is worth it?

Should we be worried about the thousand-plus earthquakes fracking has now caused in northern B.C. alone?

Is the Site C dam necessary to power B.C.'s citizens' needs, or is it a major giveaway to the fracking/LNG industry?

Are our regulators capable and willing to protect us from dangers posed by fracking?

What can citizens do to hold government, regulators and industry accountable?

Is there a better way?

I am privileged to have been invited to join the Jan. 28 event by engaging Andrew, and the audience, in a discussion after he makes his 45 minute presentation. If you hunger for the truth, and wish to be in the presence of a journalist who has uncovered it whatever the price, I urge you to be in attendance. Click here for the details and how to buy a ticket.