Class action lawsuits level the playing field; they restore the balance of power between the formidable corporation and the solitary, vulnerable litigant. However, the Canadian judiciary appears to be re-examining its function as arbiter in the burgeoning, conflict-ridden field of environmental protection.

            In 2006, the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled on two separate class action lawsuits, one against St. Lawrence Cement Inc. and the other against Domfer Metal Powders Limited, that the ‘law of nuisance,’ as a remedy to redress environmental degradation, has its limitations.

            The “St. Lawrence decision” is significant, not only for Quebec residents but for all…

» Continue reading Supreme Court to Decide On Citizens’ Legal Remedies Against Corporate Pollution

It is an anomaly – one that doesn’t serve the public interest – that the now-reconfigured Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) persists in regulating oil and gas development through a laissez faire regime of best regulatory practices.

Historical events like the Great Depression, followed by Keynesian state interference in the economies of Western democracies, have largely debunked Scottish philosopher-economist Adam Smith’s theory that an ‘invisible hand’ juggles the competing interests of stakeholders in our free-market, capitalist economy. Today’s political economists increasingly lament globalization’s failure to equitably distribute wealth among individuals and business enterprises.

Why, then, does Alberta’s energy regulator persist…

» Continue reading “Best Practices” Approach To Regulate Energy Development Is Flawed, Outmoded

           At its highest levels, the Alberta government has admitted to having failed to appreciate the magnitude of the province’s ongoing economic and demographic boom. Yet more than two years ago, the Department of Energy embarked on a remarkably prescient path towards streamlining the regulatory process used for approving expansion and enhancement of our public utility transmission system.

           The department’s backroom agenda to enact new legislation that disassembles the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB), and restores the regulatory process to its pre-1995 stature, passed first reading as Bill 46, the Alberta Utilities Commission Act, on June 14 this year – coincidentally…

» Continue reading Cover Story - Alberta’s New Utilities Act Is Ripe for Court Challenge

              As if southern Alberta landowners didn’t already have enough to contend with, now AltaLink Management Ltd. is poised to run an overhead 240-kilovolt transmission line between Lethbridge and Pincher Creek that would dissect the southeastern portion of the Porcupine Hills.

              Landowners are already trying to cope with climatologists’ dire projections that global warming is likely to trigger prolonged drought conditions, with oil and gas companies drilling exploratory gas wells in the pristine Porcupine Hills, and with seismic blasting west of Nanton that threatens underground spring water supplies.

              AltaLink says its electricity transmission project is important for Alberta’s developing…

» Continue reading Public inquiry needed into Alberta’s planned electric system expansion

Alaska Highway Gas Project
Anticipates New Incentives,
Mackenzie Project Also Likely
To Need Fiscal ‘Sweetener’

 

           The $20-billion Alaska Highway pipeline project is expected to be reinvigorated thanks to anticipated new incentives from the Alaska government, industry officials told a Calgary conference.

           The incentives could include a $500-million equity investment and attractive tax and royalty reliefs, officials told the Canadian Energy Research Institute’s 2007 Natural Gas Conference in early March. At least 12 groups or companies have expressed an interest in bidding for the right to build the 5,600-km pipeline.

          Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in March introduced a bill, the Alaska Gasline Inducements Act, in the state legislature seeking…

» Continue reading Alaska Highway Gas Project Anticipates New Incentives, Mackenzie Project Also Likely To Need Fiscal ‘Sweetener’

Norway’s State-Run
Energy Sector Touted
As Successful Model

           Economist Ole Gunnar Austvik, an associate professor at Lillehammer University College in Oslo, Norway, enlightened the Parkland Institute conference with a model of the state as entrepreneur, in his presentation: “An Alternative Perspective: The Norwegian Example.”

           It was not until 1970 that Norway discovered oil offshore on its continental shelf. Austvik said that from Norway’s inception as an oil producer, its policy in developing its energy sector has been overwhelmingly a sovereign one and that the oil reserves should benefit the entire nation.

           In 1972, the Norwegian government established Statoil as an instrument of…

» Continue reading Norway’s state-owned energy sector touted as good model

 

           Gordon Laxer, director and co-founder of the Parkland Institute, told the conference that the current structure of NAFTA is the largest obstacle to Canada achieving energy sustainability.

           Article 605 of NAFTA, known as the “proportionality clause,” limits any reduction by Canada of the total energy supply exported to a level not below the average level supplied in the preceding 36 months. Laxer offered three possible solutions to overcome this impediment:

1) Invocation of Article 2012 of NAFTA, which provides that a party is relieved of complying with the proportionality clause when a crisis, such as an…

» Continue reading NAFTA seen as obstacle to Canada’s energy self-sufficiency

            EDMONTON – Global energy production and consumption needs to be “re-localized,” rationed and diversified in order to sustain a world that has become dependent on fossil fuels, says author Julian Darley.

           “Energy and not money makes the world go round,” he told the Parkland Institute’s 10^th annual conference, Power for the People: Determining our Energy Future, held in Edmonton.

Darley is the author of High Noon for Natural Gas: The New Energy Crisis, and the founder of Global Public Media and director of the Vancouver-based Post Carbon Institute.

           Tracing global economic development back to…

» Continue reading Parkland Institute Conference: Expert calls for new ways of managing global energy production and consumption