Maybe it was the way Canada kept insisting that their good intentions were enough to excuse abuse and neglect. Or how, though they kept saying “sorry”, they couldn’t help but take up all the space, ‘flagspreading’ their way to occupy 98% of the sofa without once handing over the remote. Tired of watching Beachcombers re-runs and being gaslit over wounds ancient and fresh, Indigenous Peoples negotiated, accommodated and — finally — litigated. 

So it’s no big surprise that Canada’s legal systems tend to borrow from family law when it comes to repairing relationships. From the issuance of Advance Costs to fund litigation, all the way down to the idea of reconciliation itself, instruments developed to settle disputes between quarrelling parties have been adapted to address this country’s most fundamental fallout. 

Let’s look at just one case: colloquially known as the Defend the Treaties trial, Anderson v Alberta was launched in 2008 by Beaver Lake Cree Nation(BLCN). Located 200 km north of Edmonton in the heart of what was once Alberta’s boreal forest, BLCN was faced with the explosive expansion of oil and gas projects in their territory. As a result, the community was finding it increasingly impossible to get out on the land to hunt, fish, and collect berries and medicines. Without these activities, it was growing difficult for families to make ends meet, and to pass on cultural knowledge from elders to parents, and from parents to children. 

Imagine if every time you set out to check on your traplines, you discovered another road, another well, another tailings pond. What you once knew as a sinuous landscape layered with lineages of your ancestral ecosystem knowledge has become a maze of dead-ends and no-go zones. Imagine if the rare caribou or moose you did encounter was inedible, the meat poisoned after the animal licked at the salty-tasting bitumen that seeps to the bog’s surface because of in situ oil sands extraction. 

For the small Indigenous Nation, the writing was on the wall: go to court, or lose everything at the heart of what it means to be Beaver Lake Cree.  

The Ecological Promise at the Heart of Canada’s Treaties

“A truly exceptional matter of public interest.” 

That’s how Canada’s Supreme Court described Beaver Lake Cree Nation’s legal challenge. At its core, the case involves a tiny Nation standing up to Canada and Alberta to demand that the protections assured in Treaty 6 be upheld. The treaty, signed in 1876, spells it out in black and white: Indigenous rights to hunt, fish, and practice cultural activities on their territory are enshrined in perpetuity in one of the country’s oldest contracts. 

The treaty protects not just reserve land, but access to vast tracts of boreal forest that Beaver Lake Cree have been sustained by, and have stewarded, for thousands of years. 

The Defend the Treaties case emphasises that it’s the cumulative impacts of industry on treaty rights that is at issue. A win would force regulators to evaluate new project applications not piecemeal, as is currently the practice, but according to how any well, mine, or pipeline fit into the overall picture affecting the availability, health and productivity of hunting and fishing grounds. 

When the case was filed, environmentalists took notice. A scrappy start-up organisation called RAVEN (Respecting Aboriginal Values and Environmental Needs) took on fundraising for the case. “We felt like it shouldn’t be up to First Nations to bear the huge cost of holding industry to account,” says RAVEN’s founding Executive Director Susan Smitten. “It’s not fair to rely on the poorest people in what is now called Canada to stand alone and be the voice of reason in this effort. They have the power of their treaties to protect the planet, and we have the power of a nation to support them.” 

Together with Chief Al Lameman, for whom the Defend the Treaties case was initially named, Smitten first stewarded funds from the Cooperative Bank of the UK, whose members invested, recognizing the strategic importance of BLCN’s challenge in halting the devastating impacts of tar sands extraction. Since then, RAVEN has raised more than $2 million dollars to cover a portion of BLCN’s hefty legal bills. 

For the governments of Canada and Alberta, Beaver Lake Cree’s ambitious challenge was a dire portent of a future where oil was no longer king. They knew that adopting a holistic view of project impacts would slow down the gold-rush frenzy that fuels the race to develop Alberta’s tar sands and get at vast deposits of bitumen and natural gas.  

Besides the fact that Alberta is sitting on the largest deposit of crude oil on the planet is the irrevocable climate reality that if we extract and burn it, we’ll assure the extinction of a million species: including, if we really blow it, ourselves. 

The whole industry is built on the pressure of short-term imperatives. Especially in the years since the Copenhagen and Paris climate agreements, the race has been on to squeeze as much profit out of the tar sands as possible before serious emissions controls come along to curtail development and ultimately make their product obsolete. If industry continues at its rampant pace, there just won’t be any caribou left for Beaver Lake Cree Nation members to hunt – that would turn the conversation from one about conservation of precious resources into one about compensation for irrevocable losses. 

The challenge for Beaver Lake Cree is simple and urgent: if tar sands development continues to expand in their territories, BLCN’s treaty won’t be worth the parchment that it’s written on. 

Court to First Nations: How broke are you? 

After a decade of fighting motions to strike and appeals, the Nation has won the right to have its case heard in court: the trial is set for 2024. Beaver Lake Cree are also making the case for why the government should advance them the money needed to pay for it. 

12 long years after filing the Defend the Treaties challenge, Beaver Lake Cree Nation was exhausted and flat out of funds. So, in 2018, Chief Germaine Anderson applied for what are known as Advance Costs. 

Let’s just go back to the family law analogy. When a married couple who disagree are seeking a divorce, if the husband holds all the financial cards, it puts the wife at an unfair disadvantage. He can finagle the house, the car, and even the kids if she is reduced to relying on legal aid or forced to go under-represented. To avoid that kind of scenario, the courts developed an instrument so that the richer party would be ordered to advance a set amount to the more ‘impecunious’ party, allowing them to afford a decent lawyer. Though they are sometimes called ‘awards’, Advance Costs are not grants but rather are a tool to level the playing field so that both parties are on more equal footing. 

To receive Advance Costs, the less wealthy party has to turn out their pockets in front of the court and prove just how broke they are. 

That’s exactly what Beaver Lake Cree Nation did. It really should come as no surprise that a rural Indigenous Nation — struggling to cope with outdated infrastructure, substandard housing and a shabby education budget — might not be able to sustain million-dollar litigation. But the Nation had to argue for the necessity of, for example, paying for the delivery of clean drinking water to community members ahead of spending that money on litigation. 

Having gone through the patronising process of being nickel and dimed by the government, the Nation managed to prove their ‘impecuniousness’ and in 2019 BLCN was awarded Advance Costs. Had that lower court ruling stood, it would have required Alberta, Canada and BLCN to share the costs of litigation to the tune of $300k each, annually, for the duration of the trial. 

In keeping with tactics the powers that be had been deploying all along, the award decision was appealed and overturned. With their very existence as a people at stake, fiercely committed to seeing justice done, BLCN took their Advance Costs fight to the Supreme Court of Canada. 

A milestone for Indigenous justice

After months of nail-biting, in March 2022 Beaver Lake Cree Nation received a unanimous Supreme Court Decision that will echo down the years as a landmark ruling on Indigenous access to justice. In a 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned Alberta’s removal of Beaver Lake Cree’s Advanced Cost order.

The Supreme Court recognized that in an era defined by reconciliation and respecting Indigenous self-determination — to take care of pressing community needs first, before spending on court costs — must come first.

While the SCC ruling requires Beaver Lake Cree Nation to go back to the trial judge for a deep dive into BLCN’s financial situation and how it meets the fine-print criteria of “pressing needs” set out by the court, their appeal is a huge win for access to justice. 

It is also a big win for RAVEN. 

“It’s not every day we watch the needle move to advance the law in favour of Indigenous rights,” says Smitten. “We’re really proud to be part of this, and humbled by the never-flagging determination of BLCN’s leadership.”

All’s fair in love and litigation

Advance costs are actually extraordinarily rare, as they require that applicants pass a series of legal tests. Anderson v. Alberta clarified what those tests will be going forward. One thing that has not changed is that Advance Costs are only available for cases that are considered to be in the public interest. The court determined that there is a strong public interest in obtaining a ruling on the claims brought forward by Beaver Lake Cree Nation in its Defend the Treaties challenge. That alone may seem obvious — tar sands expansion affects us all, and Albertans, Indigenous and settler alike, have treaty obligations that should matter to everyone. 

But the court went further. Recognizing that we are in a new era where self-determination and reconciliation confer upon First Nations the right to allocate spending as they see fit, the Supreme Court affirmed that Indigenous governments — not courts — are best suited to set their own priorities and identify the needs of their communities. 

The Court also found that when a government has used delay and outspend tactics — bloating the costs of, and timeline for, urgent legal action — the court should ‘exercise its discretion’ in awarding Advance Costs. From now on, the fact that a First Nation might choose to allocate its limited funds to address the needs of its community – including for cultural survival and to fund basic services that most other Canadians take for granted – should not be used as a basis to disqualify the First Nation from advance costs for litigation to protect its Section 35 rights. 

Back to our family law metaphor: the court’s new ruling means that the person in charge of the household and children will be able to determine their own priorities and needs ahead of what some judge decides is ‘best for them’. This ruling takes some of the paternalism out of the Advance Cost process and opens the door for Nations to meet government and industry on a more level playing field. 

The Supreme Court also awarded solicitor-client costs to Beaver Lake Cree Nation for all three levels of court hearings related to the Advance Cost application and appeal. Now that Canada and Alberta have to pay BLCN back for what the Nation spent on the Advance Costs process, BLCN can immediately use these funds to gather evidence, elder testimony, and prepare arguments for what could be one of the most monumental legal challenges Canada has ever seen. 

An ambiguous win

BLCN’s victory was a major milestone in the Nation’s decades-long process to push back against the cumulative impacts of industrial development in their territory. But you’d never know what a big win they scored from reading mainstream media coverage. 

Most outlets failed to recognize the groundbreaking nature of the SCC ruling. Headlines reported both that the Nation had won, and that they had lost. Partly, that’s because the Nation was sent back to the lower court in Alberta for a rehearing on Advance Costs, this time using the new test set out by the Supreme Court. But under those conditions, the Nation not only qualifies: they literally set the standard. The opportunity to go back to the court to adjudicate the award amount and terms under these new Supreme Court criteria may result in an even larger sum being awarded to the Nation. 

Karey Brooks, lawyer for Beaver Lake Cree Nation, is unequivocal. “The Supreme Court of Canada ruling is a huge win for access to justice.” 

She explains that the Court recognized Indigenous self-determination when it emphasised that a Nation’s pressing needs must be understood within the broader context from which a First Nation government makes decisions.

“I think it’s a huge win in that respect.” 

Fair’s Fair: Enshrining Access to Justice into Law

Going before the courts – for both advancing the original claim to trial and to achieve Advance Costs — Beaver Lake Cree Nation has been validated, and their right not only to pursue their case but to receive support, fully affirmed.

“The greatest barrier to justice – and victory for this court challenge – is the high cost of the legal system,” says RAVEN’s Susan Smitten. “How fantastic that a small group of dedicated donors was able to shore up this challenge to fund a trial that could stagger the tar sands behemoth. Also: how spooky to think how many worthy cases have faltered due to lack of resources.”

The implications of this judgement are nation-wide and capture in law the sovereignty of a Nation’s decision-making. Judges will now be able to take into account systemic factors such as the history of colonialism, displacement, and residential schools and how that history continues to operate today. 

Thanks to Beaver Lake Cree Nation, Indigenous Peoples will no longer, as a judge in Alberta’s Court of Queen’s Bench put it, have to “stand naked before the court.”

No matter how the lower court chooses to award Advance Costs, Beaver Lake Cree will still be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for the duration of the trial, which could last several years. No matter how the court rules: RAVEN will be there. 

“When we join forces as Indigenous Peoples and settlers, we can move mountains – and create better laws” Susan Smitten, Executive Director, RAVEN

This story was generously funded through support from Metcalfe Foundation.

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The effects of climate change are beginning to emerge through constant changing temperatures, water supply fluctuations, and increased average global temperatures. It can be felt all around the world in little ways.

In Toretsk, Ukraine, a local coal mine supplying 67 000 workers is on the road to catastrophe. Not because of the effect of coal being used in the industrial sector, rather  it has more to do with how they begin to harvest the coal from the deep bedrock in the ground.

 Abandoned mines, that are now harvested to their capacity, are being filled with toxic groundwater filled consisting of heavy metals and external pollutants. Because they are located stories underground it is close to groundwater aquifers. This puts freshwater resources at harm’s way for the tens of thousands of workers living in the area.  The toxic water can contaminate the ground by seeping into the soil which will then make the area unusable for farming and agriculture. If the water leaked by accident, it would migrate down the Kryvyi Torets and the Siverskyi Donets river where the whole area receives drinking water. On top of unavailable water, methane gas is being released to the surface that has the ability to cause earthquakes that are a  9.0 magnitude on the seismic scale and explosions on the surface that is surrounded by broken up bedrock.

According to the head of the Toretsk’s Civil Military Administration, Vasyl Chynchyk, only two of the mines are still in operation and the rest are abandoned. Their only solution is to remove the water and put it in safe containers away from freshwater resources.

“You can’t just close a mine and forget about it, because the risks are too high,” said Yevhen Yakovlev, a hydrogeologist who works at the natural resources department of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. “Mine waters will rise, pollute the drinking water and destroy the soil.”

Due to the constant war in Donbas’ no investments will be made to have better solutions. There is too much raised tension.Moreover, the solutions in place are not effective enough for the coal mines to continue to be in operation.

“According to our measurements of the water levels in the region, the pumping stations there [in occupied parts of the Donbas] are out of order,” said Viktor Yermakov, an environmental scientist, and a member of the Trilateral Contact Group.

Although the disaster may not be immediate, it will happen in the next 5 to 10 years. The effects are already being seen by experts in the field, and not giving the public enough information to make informed decisions to where their liability aligns.The first sign was the closing of an abandoned mine, and now it’s time to sign up to make serious changes to mitigate fossil fuel effects. 

A Fish Species Has Evolved Due to Climate Change

Source: McGill University

A species of fish has been shown to adapt its genetic traits due to seasonal shifts caused by climate change. This week, a team of lead scientists at  McGill University discussed their findings on the adaptation of the threespine stickleback fish due to persistent “climatic changes” observed over a period of time.

The research group suggested that specific genetic adaptations being more frequent in populations, were directly related to natural selection—described as the process in which populations of organisms randomly change (genetically or otherwise) to be more or less advantageous overtime. In which those adaptations that are more favourable to the environment will survive the longest, while the other traits will likely die out.

In the case of this species, natural selection pertaining to adaptation in response to temperature change was observed. Specifically, only individuals which had genome sequencing that aided in the construction of different habitats during (unprecedented) wet winters and dry summers, were able to survive into the next season. The scientists believed that such habitat shifts similarly occurred 10 000 years ago, when the species first arrived in California due to alternative temporal conditions.

Experts at the university suggest that such rapid genetic changes speaks to how rapidly natural selection is occurring in the present. Moreover, it is a significant case in understanding how nature might adapt to changing environmental metrics caused by climate change.

Ford Government faces Lawsuit over changes to Ontario Environmental Assessment, Bill 197

Source: London Free Press

Bill 197  was passed last July in Ontario as part of the Covid Recovery Act. Included in the bill were sweeping changes to the Environmental Assessment Act (EAA) aimed at shortening the Environmental Assessment (EA) process and getting rid of “red tape”. These changes were the first major changes to the Ontario EAA in over 30 years. 

Environmentalists, however, have questioned the legality of the changes. This week environmental groups and various first nations groups will be in court challenging the Ford government’s changes to the Ontario EAA. The 2 major issues environmentalists have raised are that the government did not have the authority to cancel public consultations on the changes to the EAA and that the fast tracked EAA process will have detrimental environmental effects. 

One argument made this week was by Canadian Environmental Law Association Lawyer (CELA) Castrilli. Castrilli is contesting the government claim that the bill was urgent and is in violation of the Ontario Environment Bill of Rights. The Ontario Environmental Bill of Rights gives an ordinance that the Government must consult the public for 30 days for human changes to the environment.  During the COVID-19 pandemic the government suspended several environmental protection rules but lifted them a month before introducing the bill. The government passed the bill arguing that it was too “urgent” to wait for a full consultation due to COVID-19. Castriilli argues that the government still has to follow the rules, even during a pandemic. 

Also according to Castrilli, the bill will have earth shattering impacts on the environment. Bill 197 expanded the controversial practice of minister zoning orders (MZO’s). 

The court will hear arguments later this week from First Nations groups: the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians, Attawapiskat First Nation, Chapleau Cree First Nation, Eagle Lake First Nation, Fort Albany First Nation, Magnetawan First Nation, Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, Temagami First Nation and the Teme-Augama Anishnabai community. 

The outcome of the court hearing will be monitored closely and the outcome will have substantial effect on environmental issues in Ontario and Canada more broadly. 

International Energy Agency Report: Fossil Fuel Investment Must End Now

Source: CBC News

The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a report Tuesday that stated fossil fuel investments must be stopped for global climate goals to be met by 2050. The International Energy Agency is the most authoritative energy group in the world. This global climate goal is in line with several countries including Canada and the U.S goal to reach net zero emissions energy sector. 

The report outlines over 400 steps on how to achieve a net zero global energy sector by 2050. Examples may include an increased investment in solar and wind power by 2030.  It has been understood that the end to investing in fossil fuels are the key steps to reaching a net zero global energy sector. Another key takeaway from the report is that no internal combustion vehicles should be sold after 2035 to meet these goals. 

The report outlines how transforming the energy sector would bring tremendous economic benefits and create millions of new jobs. The investment in renewable energy would most importantly eventually have lower energy costs and prevent a “climate catastrophe” according to Greenpeace activist Keith Stewart.

However, there has been push back to the report from groups in the Canadian energy sector. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) labeled the report as “unrealistic”. The director of the CAPP Tim McMillan stated that solutions need to be “grounded in the real world”. 

Despite countries’ ambitious and bold goals for greenhouse gas reductions, emissions are expected to grow in the near future. Current demand for fossil fuels is predicted to increase over the next few years. The IEA stated that 2021 will have the second-largest annual increase in emissions since 2010. Some have argued that what the IEA says should be done like in the second largest producing country of North America.  a

If countries like Canada are to meet their bold climate change targets, emissions for 2021 and 2022 must be reduced drastically. The changes outlined by the IEA should be taken into consideration and implemented immediately for the targets to be met. Actions always speak louder than words.

A Sustainable Look at Cryptocurrencies

Source: CNBC

As a young individual getting into the working world, I am being encouraged to invest and “let my money work for me, …to build your wealth, you should invest your money.” Investing provides an avenue for one to expend money in such a way that there is potential to earn strong rates of return. I am very new to the investment world and have spent the last few months researching and subscribing to newsletters on why I should invest, what I should invest in, and how to invest. 

 This week, investment platforms have been buzzing over cryptocurrency- a digital or virtual asset based on a network that is distributed across many computers. This comes after Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, said he wouldn’t use or accept Bitcoin until he is sure it’s produced sustainably as he was “concerned about the rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions.” Bitcoin has been receiving a lot of attention on its negative environmental impacts, and some of its investors have been reapportioning their digital assets to more sustainable investments; even though attempts have been made to reduce Bitcoin’s impact. 

 Mining cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin, requires a lot of electricity to keep the computers running as well as air conditioning needed to prevent them from overheating. Bitcoin mining is performed by high-powered computers that solve complex computational puzzles. This process of solving problems, referred to as “Proof of Work”,  is necessary to maintain the ledger of transactions and verifies the legitimacy of Bitcoin transactions, and thus, a lot of processing power to produce one single token. As a result, this process consumes a lot of energy. 

Research has shown that in 2019, Bitcoin was responsible for approximately 22-22.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. The journal Nature suggests that emissions from Bitcoin mining alone could increase global warming by 2 degrees before 2050. For a better visual, emissions from Bitcoin are comparable to the total emissions from cities such as Hamburg or Las Vegas.  

Musk has suggested that the company will move towards a more sustainable cryptocurrency, Dogecoin. Dogecoin, although a more sustainable option than Bitcoin, does have its pitfalls as well. 

 There are over 4500 mineable coins and tokens in the cryptocurrency world, with a variety of parameters. This makes it difficult to highlight which currency is greener than the other. However, there are cryptocurrencies that are inherently more energy efficient than Bitcoin and Dogecoin. These cryptocurrencies use a “Proof of Storage” (or “Proof of Stake”) systems that use significantly less energy, and in some cases currencies that use a “block lattice” technology that does not require any mining. 

So, if you are a new or experienced investor consider allocating your assets in sustainable investments as well as eco-friendly cryptocurrencies that you (may) hold. Do your research and if you are not sure where to start, there are a plethora of blogs out there that list the most eco-friendly cryptocurrencies. Good luck with your sustainable investment adventures! 

The post The Week This Friday Vol. 49 appeared first on A\J.

Eliminating tax on forested lands would certainly make it easier for more municipalities to strive for a percentage of forest cover that represents a lower risk.”

Over recent decades, forests have been cut down at alarming rates to create space for housing and agricultural lands. While necessary to accommodate our rapidly growing world population, a balance must be kept between forest coverage and human development, particularly in the context of climate change. Now more than ever, we are in need of new and savvy tactics to assure reforestation.

Eliminating tax on forested lands would certainly make it easier for more municipalities to strive for a percentage of forest cover that represents a lower risk.”

It is well known that trees perform many of the ecological services we have come to depend on including absorbing carbon dioxide from the air, where it stays put for many years; providing essential habitat for countless species; reducing the threat of floods; preventing soil erosion; and providing a livelihood for humans. [1]. Canadians are aware of these benefits and are always encourages to plant more trees – should we have incentives in place for this?

In a 2018 report, the South Nation Conservation Authority [2] recommends to improve local forest cover in the municipalities within its jurisdiction. One of the proposed policies involved encouraging municipalities to consider a 0% tax rate on all forested lands. This would serve as an economic incentive that encourages residents to plant more trees, thereby helping to maintain or create forested lands. It is beneficial for municipalities to encourage any increase in forest coverage within their jurisdiction as Environment and Climate Change Canada recommends that a minimum of 30% forest coverage be maintained. This, however, represents a high risk approach that may not support a high species richness, and that sustains aquatic systems that are only marginally healthy. A low risk approach is one where 50% forest coverage is present [3]. Eliminating tax on forested lands would certainly make it easier for more municipalities to strive for a percentage of forest cover that represents a lower risk.

The reality is that many people require financial incentives to be able to take action against climate change as some of the solutions we are currently aware of require time, money, and effort. This is true when it comes to planting trees, especially a whole future forest, as they can be expensive and often require some level of specialized knowledge for this to be done correctly. Where exactly should the trees be planted on a property to offer the most benefit? Which species should be planted? Are the trees I planted 2 years ago still healthy? These are aspects of tree planting that most people might not have thought about until they were actually standing shovel in hand, ready to break ground. These are things, however, that a forestry technician has been trained to consider. 

I believe that every tree is important”

Many conservation agencies employ forestry technicians as forests are an important part of any watershed management. Such technicians can visit a property, assess it to determine which trees should go where, and come back periodically after planting to ensure the health of the trees. Such a service complementing a 0% tax rate on forested lands would be most beneficial if implemented at the municipality level. Municipalities could manage the financial aspect of a program while a conservation agency could be employed to help ensure its proper application. Recently, many political figures have made promises to plant millions or billions of trees here and there. Instead of planting these trees haphazardly all over Canada, why not tap into a network of partnerships between conservation agencies and municipalities so that it can be done strategically and can be monitored more closely afterwards. 

Of course, a 0% tax rate on forested lands would need to come with a substitute for the revenue shortfall experienced by the municipalities adopting it. After all, property taxes make up the bulk of their respective budget. It has been proposed that if needed, the loss in revenue could be offset by similarly increasing the taxation rate on cleared lands [4]. This could have the effect of not only encouraging reforestation but also providing an incentive against deforestation. More ambitiously, it can be argued that some of the money collected through a program such as the federal carbon tax could be rechanneled to municipalities adopting the new tax rate. This way, those who make real efforts to be environmentally conscious could receive tax relief both through a system such as the federal carbon tax in the form of tax credits, and through a 0% tax rate on forested lands program in the form of reduced property taxes. Hopefully, this level of financial incentive might incite greener behaviour by the population.

Considering the fact that more and more cities are incorporating sustainability and climate change into their action plans and strategies, it would not be that far off to implement a program of this nature. If even one hundred hectares of trees could be planted, or if a few landowners could reconsider clearing their forests, I would consider such a program successful. Some might say that this would equate to a drop of water in the ocean, but I believe that every tree is important. If, while implementing this, we could encourage more people to see how much more valuable trees are to us when they remain in the ground, who knows what kind of ripple effect this could have on climate change awareness.

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On a muggy Autumn night in Toronto last week, award-winning environmental writer (and long-time A/J columnist) Andrew Nikiforuk explained to two dozen people at the Gladstone Hotel the root of his interest in the underdog, the downtrodden and the dispossessed: “I come from a long line of peasants … with their feet on the ground.”

It makes sense. The Calgary-based author has long been at the forefront of writing about this country’s environmental calamities and those affected by them long before mainstream media coverage kicks its slow-moving gears into drive. He’s at it again in Slick Water: Fracking and One Insider’s Stand Against the World’s Most Powerful Industry in which he tackles the hydraulic fracturing industry in Canada, a country whose citizens, according to Nikiforuk, share “profoundly different” views on the controversial practice.

It’s a point Mark Mattson, the evening’s moderator and head of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, made several times: our Toronto ballroom was only half full for the book launch, while similar events on Canada’s coasts — both east and west — would be standing room only. Mattson also predicted a much larger crowd would turnout in New York State or Pennsylvania where fracking is a grassroots, hot-button issue akin to wind turbines in this province. With 25,000 oil and gas wells already dug in Ontario, the province doesn’t seem to recognize that fracking is as big a reality for Canada’s most populous province as it is for Alberta — same technology, different scale.

Slick Water sees Nikiforuk turn his attention to the “enormously complicated” Jessica Ernst and her ongoing struggle against Encana, the Alberta government and the Energy Resources Conservation Board, an oil and gas industry “regulator.” Beginning in 2004, Ernst, a stubborn but “brilliant scientific researcher,” to Nikiforuk’s telling, began investigating oil company Encana’s fracking practices when she discovered methane in the drinking water of her rural community northeast of Calgary.

Rather than taking a payment from Encana and signing a document ensuring her silence on the matter as so many others have, Ernst fought on, racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. (Nikiforuk told the launch party, to much applause, that 15 percent of the proceeds from Slick Water will help Ernst pay her lawyers; though even if she’s successful, Ernst may still be in debt for taking on the energy sector.) Her case will be heard at the Supreme Court of Canada beginning in January 2016.

Ernst’s case highlights the “modern agenda for corporate fraud,” Nikiforuk told the crowd. This is what happens when the industry regulator is funded by industry, he said, and staffed by people once employed in the oil and gas sector and those looking to use a brief stint with the Energy Resources Conservation Board as a springboard to more lucrative work in the industry. It creates a regulatory framework without transparency. It’s the same pattern of denial, prove it, silence and blame employed by the Catholic Church in covering up sexual abuse allegations made against high-ranking members of the clergy, Nikiforuk said. It’s an allegory he returned to repeatedly to explain how people ignore situations known to be troubling until the weight of evidence forces society to acknowledge the danger in its midst.

Slick Water is Nikiforuk sticking to what he does best — rousing us rabble to care about groundwater contamination and corporate fraud. Pipelines may get all the attention in Central Canada, but we can’t be blind to the plethora of other environmental evils ravaging the country. The book that began as a story about groundwater contamination quickly became a story about fracking technology: but even this soon evolved into a story of how corporate fraud and government acquiescence are threatening public health and safety. There are 4.3 million oil and gas wells in North America, 500,000 in Western Canada alone, and almost all of them leak methane into water or the atmosphere. Canada has been home to some of the largest fracking-related earthquakes in Earth’s history, Nikiforuk said. The 12 year trial of Jessica Ernst to confront the companies and government agencies who looked away while her water was poisoned warns that hydraulic fracturing and its associate dangers are no uniquely American phenomenon. Once again, Nikiforuk is right to wake us from our slumber.

The post Slick Water appeared first on A\J.

Over the last two years, the government of British Columbia, along with Ottawa, has become an aggressive promoter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to Asia. The get-rich scheme would require puncturing much of the province’s northern forests and farmlands with thousands of unconventional wells. 

In her government’s sales pitch, Premier Christy Clark vows that shale gas is “clean;” that exporting it to China and other Asian markets will reduce carbon emissions; and that fracking shale gas basins has little environmental impact. The province also swears that there is enough gas in the ground to last 150 years.

But a new report for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives by David Hughes, one of the nation’s smartest energy thinkers, challenges these claims and tells another story altogether. The province has lied, and lied fiercely.  

Let’s first begin with a few observations about the desirability of liquefying and then transporting natural gas around the world. Gases extracted from shale basins require enormous amounts of energy and capital to fracture, and then liquefying that fractured gas demands even more energy spending. As a result, net energy returns from shale gas are lower than most renewables including wind, geothermal and solar. In plain English, a civilization concerned about its energy security would skip LNG and just invest in renewables.

Due to its low energy density, natural gas also costs between seven and ten times more to transport than oil or coal. That explains why most natural gas is consumed where it is mined. It also explains why complex and high-cost LNG terminals may be a banker’s dream but are not a global solution to any energy problem.

No matter. The BC government swears that it has an abundant supply of shale gas to export: a fantastic 2,933 trillion cubic feet (tcf), or more than 150 years’ worth. (Canadians burn about 2.8 tcf a year.)

But energy analyst David Hughes says 2,933 tcf is a totally preposterous number. Even the province’s BC Oil and Gas Commission reports that the province has only 42 tcf of proven reserves, with a potential to climb as high 400 tcf given the right amount of cash and technology.

Premier Christie Clark vows that shale gas is “clean.”…
The province has lied, and lied fiercely.

To Hughes, who has mapped many of the country’s coal and shale gas fields, the 2,933 tcf number is a blatant misrepresentation of reality, given rapid depletion rates and low recovery rates for shale gas.

Next comes the claim that burning the province’s “clean” shale gas in China will somehow reduce that nation’s dirty carbon footprint, if not global GHG emissions.

Given that shale gas fields leak on average three percent of their methane into the atmosphere (some fields leak as much as nine percent) and methane is a much more potent GHG than CO₂, Hughes calculates LNG exports would makes things worse. (Given leaks and waste, it will take the extraction of 1.44 units of gas to export just one unit of gas.)

When those leakage rates are properly accounted for, “burning imported BC LNG in China would produce 27 percent more greenhouse gas emissions from the various processes in the LNG supply chain on a 20-year time frame,” in comparison with best-technology Chinese coal production, concludes Hughes.

Last but not least, the province pretends that fracking shale gas basins is totally safe and environmentally sound. One government “fact” sheet admits that fracking causes “very small, barely detectable movements underground” – but not to worry.  

In reality, the fracking of shale basins has triggered hundreds of earthquakes in Northeastern BC and many have been felt on the ground. Scientists know little about their long-term consequences. In addition, the drilling of tens of thousands of wells to fill five proposed LNG terminals would fragment the province’s boreal forest, exterminate woodland caribou and consume as much water as a city of 300,000 people.

David Hughes asks a vital question: Why aren’t we developing a long-term energy plan beyond short-term liquidation of another dirty resource for foreign markets? 

More of Nikiforuj’s Energy Matrix columns here.

The post What Lies Beneath appeared first on A\J.

“Water or gas — that’s our choice,” Tabuns explained to the House. “We can’t have both.”

A private member’s bill from Toronto-area NDP MPP Peter Tabuns to ban fracking in the province passed second reading Thursday by a 29-18 vote with support from the governing Liberals.

“Water or gas — that’s our choice,” Tabuns explained to the House. “We can’t have both.”

Threats to groundwater contamination as found in Pennsylvania this month; links to triggering earthquakes in Ohio and Alberta; questions over the perilous, ponzi-like investment structure supporting the fracking industry. It all led Tabuns to believe the substantial risks the sector poses for Ontario far outweigh any potential rewards in jobs or cheaper natural gas prices.

Despite overwhelmingly voting in favour of the legislation, some Liberal MPPs suggested the bill was not only unnecessary but harmful. Mississauga-area MPP Bob Delaney reminded the House that 50 per cent of Ontarians currently heat their homes with natural gas from shale deposits in other jurisdictions. He questioned how rational it is to risk growth in the province’s oil and gas sector by banning the practice forever. Delaney later voted against the bill, the lone Liberal to do so.

The government’s strongest argument against the bill was that no fracking applications are currently before the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry to look for shale gas. If and when an official application is made, MNRF Minister Bill Mauro assured the House the government would not approve any requests without proper consultation with the public, Aboriginal groups and other stakeholders.

Tabuns’ bill would ensure that no future government could change their minds and open Southern Ontario up to hydraulic fracturing beneath Lake Erie.

But “that is no protection at all,” Tabuns said. It leaves the regulation of a harmful resource practice up to the whim of the government, and governments change, he said. Attitudes within governments also shift over time. Tabuns’ bill would ensure that no future government could change their minds and open Southern Ontario up to hydraulic fracturing beneath Lake Erie, located at the northwestern tip of the highly-productive Marcellus Shale deposit stretching from Tennessee to New York.

Moreover, while it’s true no formal applications to explore or drill in Ontario have been tabled, Tabuns told A\J he has spoken with numerous energy companies who claim they are actively talking about shale gas extraction with North American governments, Ontario included. It may simply be a matter of time before companies look to tap Ontario’s gas potential, however commercially uneconomical it may currently appear. 

Tabuns’ bill has already touched a nerve with energy-sector players in and out of the province. The Ontario Energy Association called the bill “premature” and “unnecessary” while Union Gas, a $5.8-billion subsidiary of Houston-based Spectra Energy, recently blanketed MPPs with a letter blasting Bill 82 and urging all members to vote against it.

The bill simply stokes “fear and uncertainty” about natural gas, reads the May 5th letter from Union Gas government affairs director Matthew Gibson. Moreover, regulation around natural gas extraction “belongs in jurisdictions where that practice is actually taking place,” they note.

Not according to Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller. In his 2012-2013 Annual Report, Ontario’s environmental watchdog argued it would be “wise and prudent for regulators to develop rules before allowing industry to proceed.” The experience in Quebec, where unspecific oil and gas rules proved inadequate to govern fracking, shows how critical it is to get ahead of the game.  

“Sufficient regulation is necessary for safeguarding properties, citizens and the environment,” Miller wrote.

Predictably, Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives came out strongly against the Bill, positioning themselves as defenders of the province’s oil and gas sector.

Bob Bailey, a Tory MPP from Ontario’s refining capital, Sarnia, said Bill 82 “sends the wrong message to industry” that millions in investment and thousands of jobs are unwanted. Former Tory leader Tim Hudak opined that he wished there was more fracking potential in Ontario while John Yakabuski warned if the province closed the door on fracking now it may never be pried open again.

Despite passing second reading, Tabuns’ legislation still faces a steep climb toward becoming law. The Liberals enjoy a majority government, controlling all bills that come before committee. Bill 82 may languish on the order paper rather than see the light of day at General Government committee.

If you believe fracking has no place in Ontario’s energy landscape, you can write your MPP and request that Bill 82 be called at committee for further debate.

See where fracking is happening across Canada in our Fracking Hotspots map.

The post Ontario Anti-Fracking Bill Passes Second Reading appeared first on A\J.

While Levant makes a compelling geopolitical argument for economics and energy self-sufficiency trumping the environment, he stumbles when referring to peak-oil theorists as “doomsayers.” Levant’s position that energy conservation and the development of alternative renewable sources of energy (such as wind and solar) are ill-conceived because of our planet’s plentiful shale oil and gas reserves is seriously flawed. It is because of diminishing conventional reserves that industry has had to resort to the messy business of fracking.

While Levant makes a compelling geopolitical argument for economics and energy self-sufficiency trumping the environment, he stumbles when referring to peak-oil theorists as ‘doomsayers.’

Levant emphasizes that by endorsing shale oil and gas as a transitional energy source, the US under Obama has not only achieved greater energy security, but has also become a gas exporter. However, half a decade later, Obama has introduced legislation to sharply curb GHG emissions sourced from coal-generated power plants. Given that the US has had to contend with numerous climate-related disasters, it’s not surprising that Obama has refused to approve the Keystone XL pipeline and has prioritized tackling GHG emissions. And now China, the world’s second-largest emitter, with its hundreds of smoggy cities, has committed to weaning itself off dirty coal as its primary energy source. But despite Levant’s assurances that fracking neither contaminates water nor triggers earthquakes, the jury is still out on the environmental impacts of fracking.

In order for shale gas to live up to its reputation as a clean, transitional energy source, scores of petroleum engineers, geologists and geophysicists are urging industry to invest in air quality monitoring equipment and to develop technology to reduce the risk of methane leakage. Methane is a highly flammable gas with mysterious migratory properties and the potential, during the fracking process, to pollute not only the atmosphere but also to contaminate subsurface water reserves. To safeguard their groundwater, France, Bulgaria and three Canadian provinces have banned fracking. Where fracking persists, it is incumbent upon government to effectively regulate operations and to enforce regulations.

Levant also overlooks the environmental footprint of the thousands of kilometres of pipelines that connect gas wells to compressor stations and processing plants. To the dismay of landowners, the same lending institutions that finance the oil and gas industry are reluctant to accept land subjected to fracking as security for a mortgage. In North Dakota and Texas, where a fracking boom has boosted local economies, the benefits are likely to be outweighed by irreversible environmental degradation.

Despite Levant’s accolades for the Chinese regime refusing to pander to environmentalists, widespread political unrest over fracking has been reported. China’s shale gas deposits are believed to be the largest in the world, and yet it recently negotiated a multibillion-dollar framework agreement with Russia for the supply of conventional oil and gas. As the global economy comes to grips with a “carbon bubble” and plummeting oil prices, ratification of the agreement has stalled.

In many ways, Groundswell is a sequel to Levant’s Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada’s Oil Sands, which defends against the “dirty oil” label attributed to Alberta’s tar sands. In both books, Levant urges his readers to endorse fracking and the tar sands as substitutes for the conventional oil and gas supplied by non-democratic regimes like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia. The sudden downturn in oil prices – ostensibly caused by OPEC refusing to cut supply – reveals how Levant has oversimplified the inherent complexities of our global economy’s dependence upon fossil fuels, not only as its primary energy source but also as a benchmark commodity. Alarming parallels can be drawn between the mortgage crisis of 2008 and the overvaluation of the oil and gas industry’s assets and net worth.

Notwithstanding Groundswell’s biased analysis of the potential for shale gas fracking to transition our increasingly volatile, conflict-ridden globalized economy to a more sustainable, energy-secure world order, Levant has published a well-researched, witty and thought-provoking book. 

Groundswell: The Case for Fracking, Ezra Levant, Toronto: McLelland & Stewart, 2014, 272 pages.

See where fracking is happening in Canada.

The post Groundswell: The Case for Fracking appeared first on A\J.

The powerful industry, which bills the brute-force technology as “safe and proven,” repeatedly downplayed the earthquake risks the same way it belittled the threat of climate change.

FOR YEARS NOW the oil and gas industry has argued that “seismic activity caused by hydraulic fracturing is not a hazard or a nuisance.”

The powerful industry, which bills the brute-force technology as “safe and proven,” repeatedly downplayed the earthquake risks the same way it belittled the threat of climate change.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Association confidently declared, for example, that pumping large volumes of pressurized fluids to crack rock will indeed create small magnitude quakes but this activity “cannot be detected at the surface.”

The American Petroleum Institute was even bolder. It boasted that hydraulic fracturing “does not cause earthquakes” or create vibration “of noticeable size.”

But Canadian and American fracking operations have since proved the lobbyists very wrong. The industry has also rewritten the continent’s seismic record in shale gas fracking zones.

Read more Energy Matrix columns.

This is an excerpt from A\J’s Ultimate Health Issue

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The post Industry Made Quakes appeared first on A\J.

The message is clear: given that 80 per cent of Canada’s bitumen is too deep to be mined, steaming it out of the ground represents a trouble-free Oz, if not a future world of innovative cleanliness. 

YOU’VE HEARD the ads. Beyond the ugly open pit mines lies a different sort of oil sands, intones a friendly Cenovus voice. The difference, goes the ad, consists of some 100 gleaming steam plants in Alberta’s boreal forest where industry can safely recover oil from 450 metres beneath the ground with little impact.

The message is clear: given that 80 per cent of Canada’s bitumen is too deep to be mined, steaming it out of the ground represents a trouble-free Oz, if not a future world of innovative cleanliness. 

But it’s all a grand illusion. And you can thank Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., a major bitumen player, for pulling back the curtain. 

In the spring of 2013, the company sprouted massive leaks in four locations at their Primrose field in the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range. The leaks simply won’t stop, and more than 12,000 barrels of steamy bitumen have since erupted through fissures in the earth as long as 100 metres. 

RELATED: Climate Change Containment Unit on Site at Enbridge Oil Spill Drill

The uncontrollable event, which has killed many wildlife and forced the partial draining of a 53-hectare lake, now stands as the fourth-largest oil spill in the province’s history. CNRL has spent $40-million to date mopping up the junk crude and hasn’t stopped producing bitumen. 

The company’s Cold Lake operation injects highly pressured steam 450 meters into the ground for a month and then pumps like hell from the same wellbore. It is not an earth-friendly operation. This so-called “huff and puff” process forces so much pressurized fluid underground that the operation uplifts the earth by more than a foot. As the frothy bitumen is pumped out, the land then subsides. Satellites can record the heaving and subsiding from space.

All of this movement can play havoc with wellbores. As of 2009, more than one-third of all well-casing failures in the province (more than 1,700) occurred at steam-plant operations in the oil sands. 

As the frothy bitumen is pumped out, the land then subsides. Satellites can record the heaving and subsiding from space. 

But continuous steam injection can do more than shear off wellbores. It can also deform a bitumen formation so badly as to “reduce rock strength, induce new fractures or re-activate existing fractures posing contained risk of containment or breach of cap rock,” say experts at the giant oil servicing company Schlumberger. Furthermore, the fracturing of cap rock “can provide pathways for bitumen and steam to flow to aquifers or to the surface, causing significant risk to safety and the environment.”

And that’s probably what happened at CNRL’s Primrose operation, where a very worried oil sands regulator is now conducting a major investigation. The company blames the bitumen disaster on the simultaneous failure of the four wellbores. But that’s unlikely given that some of those wells are located as much as 15 km apart.

As a consequence, cap rock integrity has become the new focus of concern in the oil sands. Broken cap rocks are not uncommon. In 2006, a Total E&P Canada operation blew a hole in a cap rock and created a 300-metre-wide depression in the forest north of Fort McMurray. A report tardily issued four years later by the regulator described the accident as a “catastrophic event.” 

RELATED: Is it tar sands or oil sands?

Meanwhile, steam has been leaking to the surface or into groundwater or other companies’ wellbores throughout the region. Steaming shallow deposits of bitumen just 150 metres below the ground poses so many risks that the provincial regulator has suspended all operations in more than 100 townships due to “the risk of steam and reservoir fluids being released at surface.” 

In addition to busting cap rocks, Alberta’s steam plants have experienced chronic cost overruns, pollution issues from hydrogen sulfide and poor production records due to the rising amount of steam needed to extract even one barrel of bitumen.

There is more bad news: the carbon footprint of steam-production methods is three times greater than that of conventional mining projects. The steam process’ impact on land is nearly double that of open pit mines due to their extremely high consumption of natural gas. And energy returns for the projects match the poor returns of biofuels such as ethanol.

So yes, there is a different and very extreme oil sands player out there. And it’s in big trouble. 

The post Huffing & Puffing appeared first on A\J.

The oil and gas industry has a pernicious engineering problem: leaky wells. When industry cements or seals a wellbore, stray gas from shallow or intermediate zones can migrate along the casing to the surface or into aquifers. So too can brine and other hydrocarbons. And with the advent of hydraulic fracturing, the scale of this largely unacknowledged liability to groundwater and climate change is growing dramatically.

In fact, a new University of Waterloo study warns that the leaky wellbore crisis in both active and abandoned energy wells has already contributed “to the erosion of the social license that permits the functioning of the upstream hydrocarbon industry.” Maurice Dusseault, one of the nation’s top petroleum geologists, contributed to the big study.

The subterranean problem, which effectively dogs the oil patch from Texas to British Columbia, has been simmering for a long time. Each and every well drilled into the ground can potentially become a superhighway for methane and other gases such as radon, which might otherwise take millions of years to migrate to the surface.

Methane, a gas lighter than air, can also migrate as far as 14 kilometres from its source. It can travel along a wellbore and then connect to pre-existing faults or natural fractures and then pop up into basements or groundwater sources. It can even exit rural kitchen taps in a milky, flammable, bubbling brew.

The scale of the largely invisible problem remains unsettling. In Norway, 24 per cent of offshore wells leak, and in the Gulf of Mexico more than half of aging oil wells have sprung leaks. Ten per cent of all active and suspended gas wells in British Columbia spew methane. In addition, some hydraulically fractured shale gas wells in the province have become “super emitters” that spew as much as 3,000 cubic metres of methane a year.

About 20 per cent of Saskatchewan’s more than 87,000 wells leak. Alberta regulators report that some 27,000 out of about 315,000 wells are chronic seepers. But that’s a mammoth underestimate. Heavy oil fields in Lloydminster, for example, have reported leakage rates as high as 45 per cent.

Hydraulic fracturing has magnified the problem. Unlike conventional drilling, the brute force of the technology exerts high pressures on wellbores. Horizontal wells that are greater in length than depth also tend to leak more. During oil and gas booms the quality of cement jobs deteriorates as companies cut corners to drill more wells. 

Abandoned wells present another conundrum. Alberta has abandoned 150,000 oil and gas wells, but neither government nor industry monitors these wellbores for cracked cement seals or methane leaks.

A 2014 PhD thesis tells the bad news story. For the first time ever, Mary Kang, a civil engineer grad student at Princeton, directly measured leaks at 19 abandoned wells in a northern area of Pennsylvania. (The state pioneered US oil production in the 1850s and has between 280,000 and 970,000 abandoned wells.) All 19 seeped like hell. Moreover, the best-plugged wells leaked as badly as the unplugged ones. The methane emissions ebbed and flowed with the weather and seasons too.

But the startling finding was this: three of the wells were methane super emitters. That meant leaky abandoned wellbores – infrastructure that is ignored in climate change assessments – accounted for anywhere between 4 and 7 per cent of the state’s total man-made methane pollution.

If that sort of uncomfortable math were done in Alberta, or Texas, then shale gas might be outlawed. Whenever methane leaks account for more than 3.2 per cent of industry production, natural gas has a bigger climate footprint than coal-fired electricity, according to collaborative research by US scientists.

Fixing a leaky wellbore is not easy or cheap. Costs can range from $150,000 to $600,000 per well. More importantly, repair jobs have a poor track record, characterized by what the Waterloo study called “persistent underreporting of negative results.” (Dig deeper into the study here.)

So, Houston, we have an ugly methane problem. Every oil and gas well drilled in the ground will leak and become a methane pathway for eternity. To date, neither industry nor government has a cleanup plan. 

The post Silent But Deadly appeared first on A\J.