View topic - Are you a member of an Environmental or other radical group

I quess paddlers are in the other group after all that revolution we created in the spring over canoe licences...
Well I must say I wear the name proudly
(What else would you expect from a foaming at the mouth, destroying the country union person....
I am glad the govenment thinks so highly as to lump us with...
(insert bad guy group here )
Wait a minute I think someone's at my door....
Jeff

Here's a link to one of many that are going to appear
http://news.sympatico.ctv.ca/home/pipel ... s/749fee51
"the right Hounorable Joe Oliver"... letter
http://business.financialpost.com/2012/ ... is-broken/

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Choosing to save a river is more often an act of passion than of careful calculation. You make the choice because the river has touched your life in an intimate and irreversible way, because you are unwilling to accept its loss. — (David Bolling, Ho

They can get pretty nasty when you try to try to exercise your rights in the face of their business opportunities. Shrug it off and support your cause - at least they won't burn us at the stake for consorting with the devil, yet...

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“What is the good of having a nice house without a decent planet to put it on?” - Thoreau

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

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In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.
Mark Twain

Yep, the soft economy has an amazing way of turning ideas that in a better economy would enjoy broad support into fringe radical topics. The environment is a radical issue in most people's minds until it suddenly impacts them (a family memeber gets cancer, their drinking water well is impacted, somebody wants to build a landfill, factory, mine, etc. in their backyard). Somehow all these issues are become alot more relevant.

You guys could live down here where capitalism runs roughshod over environmental views!

PK

Well said PK... my take, environmentalists are being scapegoated, raising the visibility of this other pipeline option (Northern Gateway) - the first option being the Keystone pipeline to the gulf oil refineries (which Obama doesn't want to think about right now, not until the 2012 Presidential campaigning is over).

After that, Obama or Romney will approve Keystone while Northern Gateway is still bogged down by thousands of screaming environmentalists turning up in public hearings. The oil will eventually flow to the states, Northen Gateway will be forgotten and everybody on both sides of the border will be happy with the resulting megabucks... well, almost everybody.

Hey, we've got oil! Do yawl down south want it or are those yellow devils in China gonna get it?

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"Environmental and other radical groups"

So this guy is suggesting that any Canadian that cares about our Natural Resources is a "radical" ?!? What a tool...

Call me a "radical"... but I care that our forests survive, that our wilderness areas remain intact, and the our precious (and non-renewable) petroleum deposits are not shipped off to Asia.
It's time Canada started to look after it's own country before exporting everything we have for a meagre profit.

Stop the pipeline, and keep our oil for Canadians. That's my "radical" point of view.

Yep, we have thousands of miles of petroleum pipeline already criss-crossing North America.... and nobody thinks about them until you have a media disaster like the Enbridge Oil Spill as we know it into a wetland of the Kalamazoo River here in Michigan, or the Exxon/Mobil Yellowstone River Oil Spill. We are two years into the Enbridge Cleanup here in Michigan, and while media state that the cleanup is progressing, boots on the ground still tell of visual evidence of petroleum in the static water in the welands still exist along long stretches of the river. There is good reason to take heed of he environmental radicals... as it's not always the story the companies want read about in the news papers and web based media outlets.

PK

Foes of Northern Gateway pipeline fear revocation of charitable status
shawn mccarthy AND steven chase
OTTAWA— From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2012 9:05PM EST
Last updated Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012 11:19AM EST

Environmentalists are fearful that the Conservative government is planning to limit their advocacy role after Prime Minister Stephen Harper complained that groups flush with “foreign money” are undermining a controversial pipeline review.

Mr. Harper and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver stoked activists’ fears in recent days by lashing out at environmental groups that have taken money from U.S. donors to build opposition to the $6.6-billion Northern Gateway pipeline that would carry oil-sands bitumen to the British Columbia coast.

More related to this story
•As review begins for Gateway pipeline, a warning from wary first nations
•Pipeline rhetoric is a radical attack on due process
•A quiz for Joe Oliver: How many died building CPR?
Photos
Day One of the controversial Northern Gateway hearings
Video
What Northern Gateway could mean for oil prices
Video
Minister Joe Oliver discusses Northern Gateway The Conservative-dominated Commons finance committee is set to begin a review of the charity sector, and several activists say government MPs have told business groups that the committee will look at the environmental sector’s transparency, its advocacy role and the flow of funds from outside the country.

PMO spokesman Andrew MacDougall dismissed as “speculation” the concerns that the government is targeting the environmental sector. He said Ottawa is focused on streamlining the environmental-review process so that groups can’t employ delaying tactics, echoing Mr. Oliver’s pledge to introduce new rules in the coming months.

James Rajotte, chair of the Commons finance committee, said the study is aimed at finding ways to make Canadians give more to charity.

He acknowledged that MPs are free to raise issues such as accountability of charities – but Mr. Rajotte said he couldn’t prejudge where things will go, noting the review hasn’t even begun yet.

He said any recommendations the committee makes would affect all charities.

“The whole view that this is a way of taking funding away, that’s not it at all,” he said. “And you don’t make a recommendation as a committee targeting one set of charities; you make a recommendation that would apply to all charities.”

But John Bennett, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, isn’t reassured.

“I’m quite convinced that we’re the next on the hit list of this government that doesn’t know how to find compromises but only bully people,” Mr. Bennett said. “On the charitable status, we could have some significant challenges.” He added that he is concerned that the statements the Tories have made are intended to prepare the ground for a crackdown on environmental groups.

An official at a national organization who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution said activists have been told of conversations in which Conservative MPs speak of their eagerness to clip the wings of environmental organizations.

“We’ve been told that they believe charity should be about churches, schools and hospitals and do not believe that advocacy should be funded by charities,” the official said.

Currently, charitable groups are limited in their political activities, with the boundaries established by the Income Tax Act and a Federal Court ruling, as well as the Canada Revenue Agency’s interpretation of those two standards.

They can pursue non-partisan political activity that is directly related to their primary charitable objectives and does not account for more than 10 per cent of their overall budget. They can also pursue educational activities so long as they are balanced and informative rather than emotional in nature.

Lawyers that work in the charitable sector say it would be difficult for the government to restrict the activity of the environmental groups without sideswiping others.

“Further restrictions imposed on charities’ ability to conduct political activities would not only affect progressive environmental charities but also evangelical churches, pro-Israel lobby groups or angler/hunter organizations,” Toronto lawyer Mark Blumberg said.

Still, the Canadian Revenue Agency has delisted charities in the past when it concluded that they had overstepped the bounds between charitable activity and unacceptable political activity.

“Charities engaged in these activities are engaged in a balancing act,” said Pamela Cross of the law firm Borden Ladner Gervais in Ottawa.

“Charities which do not pay attention to CRA's assessing practices could find themselves forced to defend their activities in the courts, a costly and lengthy process.”

Many of the refineries in the Gulf are in what is is termed a "foreign trade zone," and don't pay US taxes (for the refined product). This was set up initially for the processing of Venezuelan and Mexican heavy and sulfur rich crudes destined for the international market (primarily Latin America and Europe), and has been in decline over the last several years. Many of these refineries are currently operating at low capacities as a consequence. Keystone XL is already an export pipeline, a large share of capacity is promised to overseas markets. To bring the stuff back the States would mean a loss of profits to many US refiners. We get some jobs, but not a great deal of revenue from these projects (and in return, a lot of exposure to environmental risk from spills). I suppose this is the price we pay for not having Alberta oil sands located within our borders. Key demand centers these days are all overseas, not in the States (our vehicle fleet is getting more efficient and not less). The main decision from the US vantage point is whether we want to "partner" with Canada in the development of Albertan oil sands and export markets, and not primarily whether we need the crude or not. It would become yet another instance of the inextricable and mutually dependent nature of our two economies. How do you think future trade and tariff disputes would be decided with a vital Canadian economic lifeline winding it's way through the Nebraska Prairie and drought stricken plains of East Texas? Good thing we all get along, or else this could be a bad deal for many, and yet another bargaining chip in the high stakes game of energy and resource trading and development.

JEFFREY SIMPSON
‘Foreign money’ is a hypocritical diversion
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012 2:00AM EST

It has been rich, even comic, to listen to the Harper government blasting away at “foreign money,” “radical groups” and Hollywood movie stars for interfering in the environmental review of the Northern Gateway pipeline that’s just starting.

Of course, such people and their money have entered the fray in Canada. It isn’t the first time (think of U.S. interventions against cutting old-growth forests in B.C.) and it won’t be the last. We live in a global world, and we share a continent with the U.S. (and Mexico) where one country’s decisions can affect the continent and planet.
Think back to last year, and the ones before that. TransCanada Pipelines sought U.S. approval for the Keystone XL pipeline to ship oil from Alberta’s tar sands to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. Regulatory hearings were required. Ultimately, the State Department (read: President Barack Obama’s administration) had to decide.

To influence U.S. opinion, both at the level of legislators and the general public, Canadian companies poured untold millions into the fray. They papered Washington with lobbyists, including someone who was once high up in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic nomination and two former U.S. ambassadors to Canada. The Harper government put Canada’s entire diplomatic apparatus in the U.S. behind the Keystone campaign. The Prime Minister himself went to the U.S. and declared approval of Keystone a “no-brainer.”

These “radicals” (that is, Canadian business-at-any-cost types) and “foreign money” (read: Canadian dollars) intervened directly in the U.S. regulatory and political processes, as “foreign” interests often do to further their economic advantage. So to hear Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver and Prime Minister Stephen Harper railing against “foreign” (read: American) intervention in the Gateway hearings is, shall we say, a bit rich. What’s sauce for the goose really should be sauce for the gander.

The Harper government also took great public offence at the Obama administration’s decision to delay its verdict on Keystone pending further environmental studies in Nebraska, despite proponents changing the route. Mr. Harper hinted darkly that, if Americans didn’t want Canada’s oil, then someone else – presumably the Chinese – would.

The Obama administration’s decision was correctly interpreted by the Harper government as being all about U.S. presidential politics. Environmentalists had been very pro-Obama in the last election, and they’d been disappointed by his environmental record. The Keystone delay was largely about appeasing them, however temporarily. How shocking!

About as shocking as the Harper government’s rejection of BHP Billiton’s proposed takeover of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan. For a government committed to an open-door policy for foreign investment, whose Foreign Investment Review Agency had been a paper tiger under the Conservatives, what could possibly have persuaded the Harper government to reject the BHP takeover, and at the last moment?

Politics, of course. The then-minority Conservatives, facing an election, feared losing as many as half a dozen seats in Saskatchewan. To save those seats, the Harper government swallowed its principles and stiffed BHP. How shocking!

The government rightly decries the length of some environmental hearings. But the opposition to the Gateway pipeline isn’t largely foreign inspired. That argument is a hypocritical diversion – hypocritical, given Canadian interventions in U.S. decisions. The main opposition comes from the multiplicity of aboriginal groups.

The National Energy Board will eventually rubber-stamp the project. It always does, but not until years of hearings – unless the Harper government changes the legislation. Even then, legal challenges will go all the way to the Supreme Court. That court has issued an opaque ruling obliging governments and private interests to consult aboriginals before using land to which they’ve claimed title.

Since B.C. aboriginals have claimed the entire province, sometimes with overlapping claims, and since the B.C. commission supposed to settle land claims has been almost a total bust, the Gateway pipeline has entered the impenetrable thickets of aboriginal politics, title and law – meaning it won’t be built for a very long time, if at all.

Idylwyld, I heard on the news last night that oil industry lobbyists and Congress passed a bill earlier to force Obama to make a decision on the Keystone pipeline in February... so the issue (painted black and white by politicians and media - environmentalists vs jobs & economy) should be resolved much sooner now. The pipeline means jobs and profits to boost the economy, which is probably the reason for the pressure to push the decision through.

America does seem to have enough oil for now, still, there's always that need for energy security independent of the uncertainty tied to Middle East oil which still supplies some of America's needs. The Iranian threat to close Hormuz Strait shipping lanes to oil tankers underscores that, along with all the other ongoing Middle East tensions.

I'd bet that Keystone gets the nod of approval in February, American beer will be fine.

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This is pure politics, and nothing else. The State Department is already on record (mandated by law) stating they need a least year to review permits for proposed routes and alternatives.

"Should Congress impose an arbitrary deadline for the permit decision, its actions would not only compromise the process, it would prohibit the Department from acting consistently with National Environmental Policy Act requirements by not allowing sufficient time for the development of this information. In the absence of properly completing the process, the Department would be unable to make a determination to issue a permit for this project" (here).

A two month deadline for making such a wide ranging decision (involving international borders and trans-boundary commerce between multiple States) is not a sufficient time frame for making this decision. The political strategy here is to force Obama to say no (he has no other alternative within that time frame), and to campaign throughout the Fall on his "job-killing agenda." You're right it's black and white in the media, but it's more suitable to a plot twist on celluloid or a fantasy novel than a pragmatic, scientifically rigorous, and legally mandated environmental, policy, and engineering review. Obama seems perfectly content to say "no" to the fantasy timeline, and campaign as the only serious person in the room who understands the complexities of the situation, and what is required by law to secure the best agreement for the american people, jobs, and the economy (as well as resolve major differences between the States, since a vast majority of Republicans in Nebraska, as well as Democrats, are opposing the proposal). This would be a long and drawn out process, even with Republicans running the show.

You can buy me a Lebatt Blue at WCS ... if you think we'll get our answer by mid-Feb.

So the State Dept is saying that a year is needed before a decision can be made... this seems inconsistent with earlier reports that Obama could have made a decision late 2011. Maybe in principle only, yes or no, without actually having the exact route defined, so that some job preparation could get under way.

If it now turns out that's illegal, why wasn't this known before the much-anticipated announcement of a decision? Afterwards, the press IIRC, said Obama was using delaying tactics, playing for time until after the election.

Maybe the beer will have to wait until then, Miller's High Life for me.

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Thanks for those posts Mac!
This process to quiet the eco groups started with the last Lib. government during their election, Mr. Harper has just turned up the volume a whole lot with each of his elections.
I was verbally spanked by a couple large eco groups for being to vocal on the NWPA... and their fear was the same that they would lose their tax status.
I mentioned that if Harper got a majority he would come after that status sooner or later anyhow and they might as well draw a line in the sand and start to fight

Well we can see where we are going now,
Maybe they should give up their status and come out fighting...
But those of us involved in other smaller fights better practice thier rope-a-dope in the mean time.
Maybe Mother earth will help convert the governments
but they will still put the blame on others....
Jeff

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Choosing to save a river is more often an act of passion than of careful calculation. You make the choice because the river has touched your life in an intimate and irreversible way, because you are unwilling to accept its loss. — (David Bolling, Ho

This concerned the old route proposal. The decision fell to Obama after a lengthy (3 year plus) environmental review by the State Department, and a failure of the reviewing agencies to sign off on the environmental review (unanimous support was needed). The issue thus fell to the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) … who can mediate interagency disputes, hold hearings, publish it's own findings and recommendations, and as a last resort recommend executive action by the President. Obama said no, and told the State Department to spend the next year developing a detailed environmental assessment of a proposed re-route around the Ogalala aquifer (so far as I understand it). The State Department says it wants to be left alone by Congress to develop it's research and reports in a credible and comprehensive manner (and possibly win the approval of all reviewing agencies providing input into the process … which would be the best of all possible outcomes).

The highly charged political nature of these issues hasn't helped matters any (and election year politicking is adding to the melee). The Deepwater Horizon spill took place at the start of the process. The State Department actually had to issue an unprecedented second EIS in response, and start the whole process over again. The operational Phase 1 of Keystone kept sprouting leaks in it's first year (14 in number). Never a good thing. And there have been numerous charges of haste, influence peddling, mismanagement, and the like (which you get with increasing public attention). It's worth noting, there are no neat ideological lines on this one: Clinton attempted to rubber stamp the project early on (and received much criticism for doing so), Nebraska Republicans mounted an organized campaign of opposition, and trade unions (backed by democratic allies) have always been major supporters of pipeline (and have used their influence to get the project approved). It will definitely be interesting to see how Obama deals with issue, but I think it's unlikely he will overrule State Department and other agencies, particularly overrule his own timetable for fully developing environmental impacts and studies on a proposed re-route. To my mind, Obama is attempting to de-politicize the issue by moving it away from an election year timetable. I'm sure there are others who view this differently.