Despite the recent release by Canada’s natural gas industry of a set of guiding principles governing the controversial gas well “stimulation” method known as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”, and despite the almost immediate endorsement of those principles by BC Premier and industry cheerleader Christy Clark, more and more British Columbians are justifiably worried about what [...]
Ben Parfitt’s Blog Posts
Ben Parfitt, Resource Policy Analyst at the CCPA’s BC Office, is a long-time writer on BC’s bountiful natural resources and the huge challenges involved in managing them in environmentally and socially responsible ways. He works closely with environmental activists and the many people who work in the province’s resource industries who are committed to progressive change.
Time to give shale gas industry a closer look before we’re totally fracked
November 9th, 2011 · Ben Parfitt · Comments Off · Climate change, Economy, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability, First Nations & Aboriginal, Uncategorized
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O’Leary breached CBC standards, Ombudsman rules
October 14th, 2011 · Ben Parfitt · 3 Comments · Media
It took just a week following the airing of an “interview” on CBC television’s The Lang & O’Leary Exchange for the public broadcaster’s Ombudsman, Kirk LaPointe, to rule that the public broadcaster’s journalistic standards had been breached. For all those who saw the segment on the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations – either when it aired [...]
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BC’s wood trade with China may be booming – but at a price
August 11th, 2011 · Ben Parfitt · 4 Comments · Economy, Employment & labour, Environment, resources & sustainability, First Nations & Aboriginal
This year, members of the Lax Kw’alaams First Nation expect to fill the holds of nine ocean freighters in Prince Rupert with raw logs from BC’s north coast – logs that will then be shipped across the Pacific Ocean to ports in China. The northern coastal Nation has been active in logging for some time, [...]
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Public consultation down the drain as government comes to fracking industry’s aid
August 3rd, 2011 · Ben Parfitt · Comments Off · Economy, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability, First Nations & Aboriginal, Transparency & accountability
It has been a year since word began to percolate in the Hudson’s Hope area that Talisman Energy Inc. was eying the Williston Reservoir a short distance east of town as a long-term source of water for use in developing its gas resources. Yet in the intervening months – months in which local residents watched [...]
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Darkwoods, the murky world of carbon credits and a “carbon neutral” B.C. government
July 15th, 2011 · Ben Parfitt · 3 Comments · Climate change, Economy, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability
It is spun in government press releases as a “first” for any jurisdiction in North America, an achievement that places British Columbia “on the leading edge” of efforts to combat climate change. But scratch the surface just a little and questions arise about the legitimacy of Environment Minister Terry Lake’s recent claim that “from this [...]
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The Wild West? Come on! Put your emotions in check
June 17th, 2011 · Ben Parfitt · Comments Off · Climate change, Economy, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability, First Nations & Aboriginal
The on-line newsmagazine, The Tyee, recently ran an opinion piece of mine under the headline “The Wild West and Dysfunctional BC Politics: Fracking and sour gas deserve debate, but get cartoon treatment from the Clark government.” My special thanks to Tyee editor David Beers or whoever it was who chose to run the image of [...]
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The Wild West and dysfunctional B.C. politics
June 14th, 2011 · Ben Parfitt · 2 Comments · Climate change, Economy, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability, First Nations & Aboriginal
Anyone wanting to see just how dysfunctional politics in B.C. has become should check out Bob Simpson’s recent Private Members’ statement in the provincial legislature. For seven minutes Simpson, Member of the Legislative Assembly for Cariboo North and one of two Independent MLAs, spoke about why he and fellow Independent Vicki Huntington (Delta South), had [...]
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Oil and our coast – surely southern B.C. as important as The Great Bear
June 2nd, 2011 · Ben Parfitt · Comments Off · Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability, First Nations & Aboriginal
Like Mitch Anderson, in a must-read feature article in The Tyee, I am perplexed at the comparatively little attention that environmental organizations pay to the growing prospect of massive increases in oil shipments out of the Port of Vancouver. For the last few years, a coalition of environmental organizations, First Nations and others have stepped [...]
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About Fracking Time: BC’s Independent MLAs Call on Premier to Investigate Hydraulic Fracturing
May 27th, 2011 · Ben Parfitt · Comments Off · Economy, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability, First Nations & Aboriginal, Provincial budget & finance
As British Columbia Premier Christy Clark makes her debut in the provincial legislature this coming week, the media spotlight will likely be on the predictable verbal sparring between her and Adrian Dix, the NDP’s recently minted leader, over Clark’s alleged “fix” of the Harmonized Sales Tax. Meaning that Independent MLAs Bob Simpson and Vicki Huntington [...]
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On the Forest Fire Front Line: One Ecologist’s Take on What it Will Take to Safeguard Communities
May 13th, 2011 · Ben Parfitt · 8 Comments · Economy, Environment, resources & sustainability, Municipalities, Provincial budget & finance
With one of the colder springs on record, many British Columbians quite naturally yearn for a good stretch of warm, dry weather. But for many people in the province, prolonged periods of hotter and drier weather are often far from welcome. That’s because when things get hot and dry they burn. And in many regions [...]
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