Part 1 of a report on how fracking poses risks to BC Hydro’s Peace River dams Read Part 2 of the report View timeline BC Hydro has known for well over a decade that its Peace Canyon dam is built on weak, unstable rock and that an earthquake triggered by a nearby natural gas industry …

Alberta Education Minister Adriana LaGrange is very concerned that teachers in classrooms across the province are turning students into anti-oil zealots. Her evidence? Two multiple-choice questions from a grade 10 Social Studies test, reportedly sent by a parent, that appear to cast aspersions on oilsands development (the offending options have been helpfully highlighted). In the first, …

With climate and energy issues dominating much of the political debate, the question of how and what students learn about these issues in our public schools has become an increasingly contentious issue. This is especially the case in Western Canada, where recent comments by conservative politicians and pundits like Alberta Education minister Adriana LaGrange and …

This report evaluates Alberta’s accelerated phase-out of coal-fired electricity against principles and lessons gleaned from the just transition literature. In November 2015, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s NDP government announced its Climate Leadership Plan, which aimed to accelerate the transition away from coal power toward natural gas and renewable electricity generation. The plan also included a …

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) manages one of the country’s largest pools of investment capital at over $400 billion.  How pension funds choose to invest has significant bearing on how we collectively address the climate emergency and the needed energy transition away from fossil fuels. This report asks if the CPPIB is investing …

For more than two years, the British Columbia government has vigorously fought efforts to compel the release of information on the hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies that it doles out to fossil fuel companies each year. It has either refused outright to release documents or it has handed over pages of essentially worthless …

In Canada between 2011 and 2018 the fossil fuel industry was one of the most active industry groups lobbying the federal government with over six contacts per working day made with government officials. During this period, the intensity of lobbying increased when salient policy issues—like the Environmental Assessment Act—arose or when there were big stakes …

The BC Utilities Commission (BCUC) inquiry into gas prices delivered its bombshell final report on August 30. Among its key findings: at least 13 cents per litre of the higher gas prices at the pump over the past couple years is “unexplained” relative to what one would expect from a functioning competitive market. This is …

In June 2015 “in an effort to expedite” the building of a pipeline by Alliance Pipeline Ltd., a company called Synergy Land Services submitted falsified documents to British Columbia’s Oil and Gas Commission. The documents were deliberately altered to suggest that archaeological work was done at two sites when in fact it had only been …

Last month, as part of the research for a book I am writing on mobilizing Canada for the climate emergency, I commissioned an extensive national public opinion poll from Abacus Data.* The full results of the poll can be found on the Abacus website here. I share highlights and my analysis below. Big picture: the …

In fewer than five years, three major dam collapses have occurred in the Americas—the most recent of which killed more than 230 people, and likely killed up to 260; many of the dead have never been recovered from the toxic mining sludge in which they were buried. The disasters that unfolded in both British Columbia …

When British Columbia’s new government took office in July 2017, one thing was notably absent in the mandate letter delivered by Premier John Horgan to the province’s new energy minister. Hydraulic fracturing—or fracking—was mentioned not once. Nor did the letter acknowledge that months earlier the New Democratic Party had committed to appoint a scientific panel …