On The Map with Avi Lewis: Alberta Oil Sands

Here is Avi Lewis and the Parkland Institute's take on oil sands as a source of continental energy supply.

The framing of the visuals and pull quotes are pretty onesided. That is to be expected from these sources. That said the dialogue with Diane Gibson is very factual and balanced and a good discussion on a range of important contenental energy issues.

Speaking of big issues oil snads issues. It is a big mistake for the Alberta government to be reducing openness and accountability for disclosing oil sands revenues and royalty information. The Privcy Commissioner is on it and the Auditor General has be critical of past lapses in acountability for royalty payments and collections. FOIP laws already protect industry from disclosure of proprietary information.

This is not good policy nor good governance and a bad step in the wrong direction.

Sen. Barack Obama discusses net neutrality on MTV

Net Neutrality is a big deal for anyone who values free speech. Obama is on side and gets it.

Access fees and messing around with bandwidth and quality are not to be allowed in a free and democratic society.

Big service providers who want to make the Internet more like television are shaping or throttling. That is selling you a certain bandwidth service but they provide different download and upload speed. This is breach of contract and private sector infringements on my free speech rights. They have no business doing that at all.

CRTC is dealing with the shaping and throttling issues in a complaint against Bell but they are all doing it. A decision was expected in October but it is delayed "due to the complexity of the issues." What complexity? Give me the bandwidth I contracted for total and get out of the way of an open access Internet.

It is not television and it is not the telephone business regardless of how much the old-style thinking of the service providers try and convince themselves of those delusions. The Internet is about connectivity and content and freedom of speech and assembly.

Is Harper Hapless to Deal With the Economic Crisis?

Looks like most of the ideas to deal with the economic crisis will be coming from the Premier's at tomorrows First Minister's meeting. Stephen "the Fundamentals are Strong" Harper is becoming more like a deer in the market meltdown headlights. I hope he takes good notes at the G20 meetings in Washington next week. He clearly needs some ideas about what to do in response. Let's home he listens to others then George Bush for a change.

Alberta's Environment Minister Renner Visits Fort Chipewyan

UPDATE: FORT McMURRAY TODAY is reporting on November 12th that as a result of his trip to Ft Chip, Minister Renner is promising air and water studies in the area to relieve concerns about contamination.

Wow! Here is a step in the right direction. Alberta's Minister of the Environment is going up to Fort Chipewyan on Monday to listen to health concerns of the community related to oil sands development.


It is important that the Minister of the Environment engage in health issues relating from environmental issues, policy and practices. Clean water, air and land is an environmental responsibility but also a health issue for humans and the biota as a whole.


I was at the Keepers of the Water conference in Ft Chip earlier this fall as part of my work with the Canadian Boreal Initiative on biodiversity offsets for oil sands projects. I spent four days in Ft Chip and met a lot of great people and had time to talk to many of them extensively.


I learned more about the issues of health and environment linkages at the conference meetings and from those locals who picked me up as I hitch hiked from place to place. I became acutely aware of the clean water issues and concerns in the community. I saw first hand the now famous two-mouthed fish caught in the Athabasca river near the community.


Many years ago the Athabasca river was a sewage dump for the pulp mills along its shores. When ALPAC was approved in the late 80's it was the largest single line pulp mill on the planet. The water quality and related health issues became front and centre as a public policy concern. The net result was the environmental conditions on the ALPAC approval, suggested by ALPAC itself, BTW, actually enhanced the overall water quality of the Athabasca river. This is because they and all the other mills on the river also changed their corporate cultures and their ecological approaches to doing business in a more sustainable way. Full disclosure - I was advising ALPAC on issues management concerns over the mill approval process at the time


Environment and health are integrated and related concerns and the folks at Ft Chip are acutely aware of this reality. Nice to see someone taking the political lead on this public policy issue and not just shuffling it off to a report process.


Good for Rob Renner! I am looking forward to hearing what the Minister picks up and what resonates with him from this visit.

Obama Launches New Website on Transition

Obama has launched a new website on the transition and for the transition period. Sure there is only one President at a time and Bush is beyond a lame duck until January 20. He should become mute and emasculated until the Inauguration.


If I were to follow any developments in the US governance I'm thinking this Obama effort is the site to use.

Here is a link to the election night victory speech vidoe from the new site.