Kitimat residents vote no on gateway pipeline

KITIMAT, B.C. - The residents of Kitimat, B.C. have voted against the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline project in a non-binding plebiscite.

The ballot count from Saturday's vote was 1,793 opposed versus 1,278 who supported the multi-billion dollar project — a margin of 58.4 per cent to 41.6 per cent.

The results from two polling stations and an advance vote all showed a clear majority for the “No” side.

Enbridge loses the Kitimat plebiscite on Northern Gateway

With a hushed crowd of about one hundred, the unofficial result of the Kitimat plebiscite was read aloud Saturday evening.  Instantly, those gathered at the downtown park erupted into screams of joy.

Enbridge has lost the vote.

Harper government pressured to reject Northern Gateway after Kitimat defeat

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his new Natural Resources Minister, Greg Rickford, are facing growing calls to reject the Northern Gateway oil sands pipeline, after the project was defeated in a critical Kitimat plebiscite vote Saturday.

Nathan Cullen, NDP MP for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, said the $6.5 billion project no longer has social license.

"Enbridge should listen, the Conservatives should listen," said Cullen Saturday night in Kitimat, shortly after announcing the vote's outcome to an ecstatic crowd in the street.  

Haisla First Nation Chief Councillor says Enbridge trying to buy Kitimat vote

This late in the day, a poll of its residents has no binding effect on the project. Next week, the District of Kitimat will seek the views of its residents on Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline Project. But to what end? If anything, it will lead to further uncertainty.

Deciding to hold a referendum at this late date is a slap in the face to all the work done by the Haisla Nation on this project. The Haisla Nation dedicated time and money toward testing Northern Gateway’s evidence and claims about safety and environmental protection, while the District stood by and did nothing.

China's largest bank in deal to finance Kitimat refinery

China's largest bank will be helping to finance the proposed Kitimat refinery, which would process oil from the Alberta oilsands in B.C., instead of the raw bitumen being shipped overseas.

B.C. media mogul David Black said he has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) for the proposed refinery that is estimated to cost $25 billion.

Kitimat Refinery Project Demands Transparency

It is big news. An astounding $25 billion has been raised to build pipelines, tankers and one of the biggest refineries in the world at Kitimat, British Columbia. David Black, owner of the Black Media chain, first announced the proposed project last summer. Since then, Black, through his company Kitimat Clean, has hired the Swiss-based firm, Oppenheimer Investments Group to assemble the financing and see the project through "from start to finish."

According to news reports, Richard Cooke, a senior managing director for Oppenheimer Investments Group, says that his firm has "arranged and [has] the funding committed to do this whole project." This is quite a feat, of course, considering that the $25 billion amounts to more than half the annual budget revenue for the entire province of British Columbia. And that the oil industry itself has not invested in new refinery creation in Canada since the 1980s because of low profit margins and refinery overcapacity.

Kitimat refinery would be a game-changer

In a startling development, the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline idea has been resurrected. Until Friday, the smart money was calling this line doomed by overwhelming political forces. Its chances must now be at least 50-50.

The startling development is a proposal for a $13-billion oil refinery at Kitimat, B.C., that would provide 6,000 construction jobs for five years and 3,000 direct jobs thereafter, as well as thousands of service spinoffs. Hundreds of millions of dollars in new tax revenues would be generated annually. In effect, our resources would have value added here instead of in China. No government could ignore that kind of opportunity.

Kitimat oil refinery could blacken province’s reputation, foes say

If the proposed oil refinery in Kitimat is built, it could end up forcing the province to jettison its long-term environmental goals, opponents say.

“Building the refinery would have very large implications for B.C.’s green commitment,” said Jennifer Grant, director of the oilsands program at Alberta’s Pembina Institute.

“B.C. could potentially have to give up its green targets because [constructing the facility is] an intensive project with huge carbon footprints.”

B.C. Premier Plans Liquefied Natural Gas Exports

Liquefied natural gas is the future of energy exports in B.C., Premier Christy Clark announced on Friday morning.

Clark was at Burnaby's BCIT campus to set out a new 10-year energy plan for the province, which includes the construction of two liquid natural gas plants in northern B.C. by 2020.

The premier said the plants in Kitimat would generate $2 billion in new revenue for the government each year.

"Like all commodities, natural gas prices go up and down. But one thing is clear to us: it is worth a lot more to us in Asia than it is in North America — a market to which we are currently captive," said Clark.

A pipeline that would deliver the gas from northeast B.C. to Kitimat has already been approved, and the National Energy Board has also approved the export permits needed to send the liquefied natural gas overseas.

The B.C. government said future liquid natural gas exploration and development could produce around $20 billion in investment and create thousands of new long-term jobs.

In a related announcement the premier revealed a change in the province's standard for energy self-sufficiency, which will clear the way for the liquid natural gas plants to get the enormous power requirements they need to convert the gas.

Original Article
Source: Huff 
Author: cbc 

Pipeline has one backer in two days - Native elders oppose project

A lone intervener spoke out in favour of Enbridge Inc.'s $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipelines during the first two days of a federal review, saying the project would bring economic, social and environmental diversification locally and worldwide.

It doesn't make sense to locate all economic development in large urban centres because increased population brings more pollution, Peter King, a resident of the nearby community of Kitimat, told a three-member panel on Wednesday at hearings in Kitamaat Village, a Haisla First Nation of 700 a short drive from the town where a tanker port is proposed to ship bitumen from the Alberta oilsands to refineries in Asia.

King was the only speaker - of 18 - who spoke in favour of the project during the opening of the hearings expected to run for 18 months.

King, 53, also questioned whether British Columbians had the right to deny access oil to countries like Japan, which is facing pressing energy needs following the tsunami that destroyed part of the country's nuclear energy capacity.

King also argued that oil can be transported safely from Kitimat through the Douglas Channel into the Pacific.

A pipefitter who worked for West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd.'s pulp and paper mill for 34 years (the mill was closed in 2010), King now works at Rio Tinto Alcan's $2.7-billion aluminum smelter modernization.

As review begins for Gateway pipeline, a warning from wary first nations

Not far from the dark waters that could one day carry supertankers of oil-sands crude to the Pacific Ocean, the pitched battle over the Northern Gateway pipeline took a very public stage as opponents called on God and salmon to fight a project they see as dangerous.

Over the next two years, the federal review panel assessing the $6.6-billion proposed Enbridge Inc. pipeline will travel to dozens of communities, on the route and off it, and hear from the thousands who have asked to speak.

On Tuesday, the first day of public hearings, the three-person panel arrived in Kitamaat Village, a Haisla community on the shores of Douglas Channel. Although Ottawa has invoked the spectre of foreign-funded radicals plotting to derail the project, the real fight was here, in coastal communities where the Exxon Valdez spill still resonates and many first nations communities fear the consequences of a pipeline on their traditional territory and local waters.

Kitamaat Village’s spectacular waterfront could one day look out on the end of the Gateway pipeline and the ships that would carry crude to new customers in Asia and California, delivering untold extra riches to Canada’s energy sector and governments. That is, if the panel gives its blessing to a project that, while Enbridge has pledged to build it to the most modern safety standards, has stirred immense concern about what oil could do to the bounty of seafood and recreation in this part of northern British Columbia.

Before the panel could speak, it faced a community calling on a higher power to defeat the project. In the highly charged atmosphere that has surrounded the Northern Gateway, even an opening invocation was a battle cry.

“We ask you to protect our traditional territory and its treasures,” Verlie Nelson, the daughter of a Haisla clan matriarch, said in a prayer before the panel.

Northern Gateway Pipeline: Hearings Begin With Anger At Oliver's 'Radical Groups' Quip

KITIMAAT VILLAGE, B.C. - Environmental hearings into the proposed Northern Gateway oil pipeline got off to a much-anticipated start Tuesday, the tension immediately whipped up by comments from the federal natural resources minister the day before.

Haisla dancers and drummers paraded into the aboriginal community's meeting hall before Haida aboriginal leader Art Sterritt announced his irritation with minister Joe Oliver's suggestion Monday that radical environmentalists funded by big U.S. money were trying to disrupt the project.

Sterritt, who represents 10 coastal First Nations opposed to the project, said it is aboriginal people who must live with the threat of an oil spill if the project goes ahead and that the federal government is trying to colour the hearings.

"We've got an Alberta prime minister trying to bully British Columbians," he said.

Outside of the meeting hall, a lone man stood in support of the Northern Gateway pipeline project.

Matthew Mask, a local plumber dressed in a Super Mario costume, said plumbers need oil jobs.

He mocked the pipeline protesters, saying that while he was prepared to stand outside the hall in the cold early-morning hours, protesters were sleeping in their warm beds.