Thoughts on BC Politics and More

I sometimes catch myself staring out over the waters of British Columbia’s coastline — so calm, so vast, so brimming with unspoken opportunity — and I can’t help but wonder how anyone could fail to notice the promise that Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) represents for our nation’s future. This country sits atop some of the largest gas reserves on Earth, and we have two coasts eager to connect our product to global markets. I’m a quietly enthusiastic type by nature, and I don’t often indulge in the “I-told-you-so” routine, but whenever I encounter someone who just hasn’t cottoned on to the excitement around LNG, I feel compelled to stage a gentle intervention. In my day-to-day role as CEO of Resource Works, I work with communities from Fort St. John to Kitimat, and beyond. Let me assure you, if you want to see Canadians at work, proud of their craft, and eyeing a brighter future, you’ll find them along the pipeline routes and port terminals that are part of our budding...

We’re at a moment of economic stress, with competing visions for how Canadian society should return to normalcy through the pandemic crisis ... Stewart Muir looks at the situation. Road to pandemic recovery ... It’s plain to see that pursuing successful recovery means choosing responsible utilization of the natural resources owned by each province. Now more than ever we are seeing governments realizing (sometimes reluctantly) that only with industry as a partner can they effectively balance the economic use of publicly owned oil and gas reserves, mineral deposits and forests, with other priorities including local ecosystem maintenance, Indigenous rights, and global climate concerns. Polarization has led to blurring of one very important issue I'm going to explore here. With the pandemic, a number of pressure groups have seen the opportunity to hitch their perennial anti-development messaging to the economic recovery issue, as if the Depression-like collapse we continue to experie...

A British Columbia civil servant has a second job – as a director at the Unist'ot'en camp originally created to block any pipeline that might be planned for a North West corridor. Her government employer is monitoring the situation, just weeks after $400,000 in public funding was announced for the camp. Veteran journalist Stewart Muir assembled a number of facts about the situation. REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION: An agency of the British Columbia government has issued a news release attempting to explain its financial support for a pipeline protest camp where one of its current employees is also now employed. The Unist'ot'en site in a remote location near Smithers is the eye of the storm in a heavily publicized dispute involving contested claims about which members of the Wet’suwet'en Nation have the right to negotiate with governments and industry.  Although 20 First Nations are supportive of the Coastal Gas Link pipeline, a number o...

Encana’s gone. As have thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of investment capital in Alberta over the past decade. And with a minority Liberal government in Ottawa, it feels like things can only get worse – not only on the energy file, but for all of Canada. Stewart Muir, Executive Director of Vancouver-based  Resource Works ,  posted last week this must-read piece on what the federal election means for energy and unity  in Canada. Here’s what he says the Liberal resource sector policies, including C69 and C48, have done so far: “ We know for a fact that in 2018 alone, 37 major projects worth $77 billion were cancelled in Canada. The CEO of Enbridge recently stated that more than $30 billion in investment has been lost due to major pipeline projects being cancelled or stalled. The University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy said that pipeline capacity constraints mean $14 billion a year in lost revenue per year ”. “ Today,...

Since January, 2017 a campaign has been underway to hold fossil fuel companies financially ‘accountable’ for the effects of a changing climate on BC communities by taking several actions including writing demand letters to the top 20 fossil fuel companies and connecting with other cities to explore options for legal action against such companies. Through our work, we at Resource Works have given a lot of thought to the idea of lawsuits and demand letters aimed at oil companies. Our climate litigation objective: persuade provincial governments to change the law to allow litigation against fossil fuel companies. Problem is, there is no sign that this could actually happen. Climate litigation favors conflict over collaboration. Climate Litigation Strategy for Municipal Councils know that civic officials are continually seeking the best path forward in times of change. This policy brief sets out a few facts about the litigation campaign and proposes a path to...