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Six Tough Questions about the China Trade Deal
Six Tough Questions about the China Trade Deal
Gus Van Harten, author of ‘Sold Down the Yangtze,’ breaks down the FIPA’s impacts.
In a conversation with Andrew Nikiforuk, Van Harten answered six questions about the trade agreement, which the Harper government finalized last year.
Andrew Nikiforuk: Investor-state arbitration is a new tool in the relentless economic march of globalization. What new threats does this foreign investor protection system pose to a democracy?
Gus Van Harten: In Canada, we can elect a government, and the government is subject to the Constitution and Canadian laws, as interpreted by Canadian courts. That’s our democracy.
But the federal government is signing more and more trade agreements that expand a system of “investor-state arbitration,” or what I describe in the book as a world pseudo court. The purpose of the pseudo court is to protect foreign investors, meaning usually the world’s wealthiest companies and people, from the rest of us. Instead of public courts, you now have private lawyers sitting as “arbitrators” with the power to decide how much Canadians must pay to compensate foreign investors for our country’s decisions.
Basically, the power of Canada’s legislatures and judges is being shifted to large companies and wealthy individuals and to a small group of lawyers. The shift is anti-democratic because it will be very difficult for future governments to reverse. Even so, governments can still do things to limit the damage, as I explain in the book.
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More Industry Linked Earthquakes Recorded in Alberta
More Industry Linked Earthquakes Recorded in Alberta
New seismic reporting system ‘a good start’ but ‘not foolproof,’ says hazard expert.
More industry-linked earthquakes have shaken up Alberta’s oil and gas fields in recent weeks from Fox Creek to Peace River, say experts and regulators.
In Fox Creek, Alberta, where industry triggered a 4.4 magnitude earthquake, a company fracking in the Duvernay Formation has reported more tremors.
“On May 28, an operator in the Fox Creek area reported two seismic events, of a magnitude 2.2 and 2.1 respectively,” confirmed Ryan Bartlett, a spokesperson for the Alberta Energy Regulator.
“The events were associated with hydraulic fracturing operations,” said Bartlett, “and were reported to the [regulator] as required by Subsurface Order #2,” a new set of regulations to monitor seismicity set up last February.
In addition, a shallow 3.5 magnitude earthquake occurred near Rocky Mountain House in central Alberta where a history of quick and high-volume gas extraction from the Strachan gas pool has triggered swarms of tremors since 1976.
Gail Atkinson, one of Canada’s foremost experts on earthquake hazards, said the June 2 event near Rocky Mountain House “appears likely to have been triggered by hydraulic fracture operations nearby, though the details of those operations are not yet available.”
The fracking of tight oil formations along the Rocky Mountains, says a recent industry case study, can divert fracking fluids into faults with the risk of “generating induced seismicity of large enough magnitude to be felt at the surface.”
Just northeast of the town of Peace River, residents recently heard a loud boom as two earthquakes shook an area where industry extracts bitumen by injecting steam into the ground. The regulator’s Alberta Geological Survey branch is investigating the events.
“We can’t take things out of the earth and expect things not to move,” said nearby resident and rancher Carmen Langer.
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US Federal Report Confirms Water Pollution by Fracking
US Federal Report Confirms Water Pollution by Fracking
Based on limited data, EPA study finds no ‘widespread’ impacts.
Despite being limited by data gaps, the United States Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that hydraulic fracturing technology has polluted ground and surface water in cases ranging from Alberta to Pennsylvania.
The 500-page draft report reverses the findings of a 2004 EPA study that concluded that the technology, which involves the high-pressure injection of fluids, gases, chemicals, water and sand into rock formations that hold oil and gas, posed no risk to groundwater.
While the report found that fracking has not led to “widespread” water pollution across the U.S., it does debunk claims that the technology has never contaminated groundwater or that industry never fracks directly into drinking water aquifers.
EPA ON FRACKING: THE 2004 REPORT
The EPA’s first study on the technology, “Evaluation of Impacts to Underground Sources of Drinking Water by Hydraulic Fracturing of Coalbed Methane Reservoirs,” found that fracking was safe and largely reflected the views of the George W. Bush administration.
The report was a government response to complaints and legal challenges related to the impacts of shallow fracking of coal formations across the U.S. — the precursor to the shale gas revolution.
Despite extensive evidence of methane migration into groundwater in Colorado, West Virginia and Alabama, the agency concluded in its 2004 report that “the injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids into coalbed methane wells poses little or no threat” to drinking water and “does not justify additional study at this time.”
At the same time the report noted that the coalbed methane industry had not only, in 10 out of 11 coal basins, fracked coal seams containing drinking water, but had done so with toxic fracking fluids, such as diesel fuel.
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Who Is BC’s Big LNG Partner? A Petronas Primer
Who Is BC’s Big LNG Partner? A Petronas Primer
Group led by Malaysia’s national oil company aims to build terminal near Prince Rupert.
Just one week after the Lax Kw’alaams band rejected a $1-billion offer by Petronas to build a liquefied natural gas terminal at the mouth of the Skeena River in British Columbia, Premier Christy Clark has signed an agreement with Malaysia’s national oil company to “establish the path to a final investment decision on the project.”
Part of that path includes a long-term commitment by the provincial government not to raise natural gas royalties, regardless of changes in global prices for the commodity.
Natural gas, like oil, is one of the world’s most volatile commodities in price.
“With this certainty, industry can plan their operations over a longer period of time and commit capital to jobs and production needs, while the Province has a guaranteed royalty revenue each year,” said a government news release.
Pacific NorthWest LNG, which is largely owned by Petronas, has yet to make a final investment decision, and the proposed multibillion-dollar project near Prince Rupert must still pass an environmental review.
Just what kind of company is Petronas, and what’s its relationship to the Malaysian government? The Tyee looked at the public record.
1. The government of Malaysia set upthe national oil company in 1974 when oil prices jumped from $1.50 to $12. The government did so with the goal of safeguarding “the sovereign rights of Malaysia and the legitimate rights and interests of Malaysians in the ownership and development of petroleum resources.” The company’s success has helped the government to reach out to the Muslim world.
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