À la fin du mois de juillet, le ministre des Transports Marc Garneau a annoncé que le Canada accélérerait le retrait des wagons-citernes de la catégorie dont l’explosion au Lac-Mégantic en juillet 2013 a coûté la vie à 47 personnes. Plutôt que d’attendre 2018, comme aux États-Unis, le ministre a annoncé aux médias…
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It’s been three years since the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster. It killed 47 people — 49 including two suicides directly related to the tragedy. It left 27 children orphaned. It spilled six million litres of crude oil, poisoning the land and waterways. It destroyed the town centre and traumatized a…
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The Canadian public overwhelming believes that government’s first priority is to protect their health, safety and the environment. They do not trust corporations to regulate themselves, believing that they will privilege profits over safety. (See the CCPA report “Canada’s Regulatory Obstacle Course” for polling data.) Only after a major disaster…
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Both Canada and Norway are major petroleum exporters, producing roughly the same volume of oil and gas. Conservative governments hold power in both countries—Canada’s in majority and Norway’s as part of a centre-right coalition. Despite these similarities, the governments are worlds apart when it comes to climate change. Carbon emissions…
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Since management of Canada’s energy resources has become a major economic issue in this election, I thought it would be useful to review how Norway and Canada—both major producers and exporters of petroleum (oil and gas)—go about it. Spoiler alert: Norway manages its energy resources much better than we do….
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At a time when the federal government was cutting 3,100 full time positions at the Canada Revenue Agency (including highly trained auditors working on international tax evasion), CRA was given an additional $13.4 million to conduct political super audits on 60 charities. By and large these audits have targeted organizations…
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My report, Willful Blindness?, released today, summarizes the regulatory failures behind the Lac-Mégantic tragedy. The federal government has so far not acknowledged any culpability or responsibility for the accident. On the contrary, the Minister has blamed the accident on the negligence of individuals and not on gaps in the regulatory…
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The federal government has been attempting to silence NGOs with charitable status from speaking out on issues that matter to all Canadians. This initiative to intimidate and otherwise silence voices that challenge its policies—goes to the heart of Canadian democracy. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the Conservative government is attempting to…
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The decade long petro-boom has caused major distortions in the Canadian economy, and has driven growing interpersonal and interprovincial inequality. The flood of petro-revenue into Alberta— the source and destination of the vast majority of petro-wealth— pushed up its per capita GDP from 10% above the Canadian average in 2002,…
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One of goals in my paper, The Petro-Path Not Taken, was to compare Norway and Canada-Alberta’s record in distributing petroleum wealth amongst persons and amongst provinces. Norway has been very effective in distributing oil wealth amongst it regions and its population. Its level of income inequality is one of the…
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