Judith Lavoie

Low supply, increasing demand, higher rents, and “renovictions”—is any relief in sight? DOREEN BEGORAY, 61, knows how quickly life can unravel when financial circumstances suddenly change. After 11 years as a sessional professor teaching sociology at the University of Victoria, Begoray got laid off. Unable to find another job, she opted to sell the house she owned to extract the equity from it. She planned to sustain herself by using that money to pay her way in the rental market. As the house proceeds got spent and rents increased, she could no longer find affordable accommodation that would allow her to keep her two dogs. “The dogs are the issue for me…so I moved into my car,” explains Begoray, who was by then living on a $320 monthly pension and $350 disability payment. “I just couldn’t find a place. It was ridiculous,” says Begoray, who spent more than eight months, from May to December, living in her Jeep Liberty, which she parked at night on Dallas Road by the off-leash dog park. “It’s actually quite cozy in my car, but I really missed bathrooms.” She showered at the Y and, during the day, would hang out at coffee shops where she could sit on the patio with her dogs. During that seven-month period, Begoray was not approached by police, despite sleeping directly under a sign prohibiting overnight camping. City of Victoria council is now looking at the possibility of taking down such signs and officially sanctioning the practice of sleeping in vehicles overnight. Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps This stop-gap measure to accommodate people facing the harshest realities of our near-zero vacancy rate is not, according to Mayor Lisa Helps, any sort of sustainable solution. “Sleeping in vehicles is not housing. I don’t want anyone sleeping in their vehicles…but, if they are sleeping in their vehicles, I think we should let them sleep,” Helps says. Although Begoray was on the lengthy BC Housing waiting list, only two subsidized buildings in Greater Victoria allow tenants to have two pets. Seeing her situation as increasingly hopeless, Begoray approached the staff at MLA Rob Fleming’s community office. With assistance from the office staff and a subsidy from Pacifica Housing, she found a studio apartment in Cook Street Village, but worries about others in similarly dire straits. “There was one person sleeping in the woods off Dallas Road who had mental health problems. It’s just barbaric that our society does not provide for people who need it,” Begoray laments. “Rental accommodation is just beyond expensive. The City and the Province and the country keep saying we are going to put all this money into housing, well let’s see some affordable housing…I want people to recognize this is a societal issue.” MLA Fleming also worries about the many others who are finding themselves in situations like these, and recently saw a garage listed as a two-bedroom apartment. The potential backlog of renovictions, he says, which would remove hundreds of units of housing stock, also looms darkly on the horizon. There’s no adequate safety net in place for those who would be displaced. “When we try to find housing in the affordable, non-profit portfolios, there’s a 2500-person waiting list,” he says. The supply-and-demand disparity also puts renters at the mercy of unscrupulous property owners. Stories abound of landlords being surreptitiously offered, and accepting, an instant lump payment to boost an applicant to the top of the list. Student Stephanie Cameron-Johnson, 23, describes how the owner of a house she rented tried to wring thousands of dollars from her and her roommates. After putting the house up for sale, her landlord insisted that, if they wanted to stay on as tenants, he would pocket both their $800 damage deposit and $800 pet deposit. He also asked them to pay for new floors and other renovations, and demanded additional compensation for utilities. “He wanted more than $7000 from us,” Cameron-Johnson says. While she’s grateful that a mediator appointed by the Residential Tenancy Branch advocated for them, the dispute left a bad taste and meant a long, unfruitful search for a new rental. She eventually gave up, and moved back in with family. THERE ARE THOUSANDS MORE CASUALTIES of the current affordability crisis, with some more visible than others. Greater Victoria “officially” has almost 1400 homeless, according to last year’s Point in Time Count. That number includes 175-plus “chronically homeless” individuals, another 353 in shelters on the night of the count, and 842 “provisionally accommodated,” meaning couch-surfing, in motels, or in other temporary housing. These numbers are always in flux, says Don Elliott, executive director of Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness. As well, these numbers are only the most-obvious tip of a much more substantial iceberg, one that is amplifying in a self-perpetuating cycle of high rents, desperate demand, and meagre supply. “There’s a huge group of people who are employed and are not able to access affordable housing,” Elliott says; not surprising when the vacancy rate remains stuck at a stubborn 0.5 percent, and average rents in Greater Victoria keep rising (5.5 percent in 2016 alone). Social service providers on the front lines see exactly who is ending up in shelter beds—and why. They report an alarming and steady increase of people who have become unexpectedly homeless because they can no longer afford to pay their rent, have been renovicted (when a property owner legally terminates a lease to improve a rental unit, then re-rents it at a much higher rate or sells it), or just cannot manage to locate adequate housing in such a competitive market, where landlords often receive 30 or more applications for each available apartment. Don McTavish, director of residential services for the Cool Aid Society, concurs with Elliott, saying that between 15 and 20 percent of those using Victoria’s shelters are indeed employed. In an effort to keep them out of shelters and in their homes, Cool Aid administers a one-time subsidy program for people who are more or less making ends meet, but are about to lose their rental because of a missed utility or rent payment. The program is well-used, McTavish says, indicating the growing number of households teetering on the edge of homelessness. “Most of the time [those receiving this subsidy] are people we have not seen in the shelters before.” During the homeless count, 721 individuals agreed to be interviewed. While 20 percent said they were homeless because of addiction or substance abuse, 18.9 per cent gave job loss as the primary reason and 13.6 percent had been evicted because they were unable to pay the rent. When asked about the main barrier to finding a place to live, 60 percent said their income was too low and 56 percent that rents were too high. Statistics make it clear that many renters are stretched to the limit. The Canadian Rental Housing Index reports that 24 percent of all renters in the CRD spend more than half their gross, pre-tax income on shelter. The Community Social Planning Council has calculated that the Living Wage for Victoria is $20.02 an hour, yet BC’s minimum wage is only $10.85 an hour. The situation is worse, of course, for those on income assistance, where rates have remained frozen since 2007. A single person on basic income assistance receives $610 per month and a single parent with one child receives $946 a month. Average rents in the CRD are now at $785 for a batchelor suite and $912 for a one-bedroom. (CMHC) “So, there are two very significant economic drivers and that is what we are trying to focus on,” says Elliott, whose research shows that a minimum of 250 to 500 units of supportive housing and 1500 units of affordable housing are needed in Greater Victoria. A new report by Housing Central and the BC Rental Housing Coalition, which includes groups such as the BC Non-Profit Housing Association, LandLord BC and the BC Seniors Living Association, analyzes what it will take to get everyone adequately housed. It calculates that it will take $1.8 billion annually over the next decade to solve the province’s affordable housing crisis. In its 10-year road map, the group recommends the cost be shared among the federal and provincial governments and the non-profit sector (non-profit investment could come from leveraging land assets and using community land trusts to attract government and private-sector investment to construct rental housing). (See www.housingcentral.ca.) Their research indicates almost 70 percent of renters in the province are spending more than they can afford on housing. In the Capital Regional District, that translates into 3024 households with average incomes less than $22,378 in core housing need, and 12,164 in need of income support. In addition, the report notes, more than 3000 households with average incomes of $55,511 are living in inadequate housing because they cannot find suitable, affordable accommodation. Almost $177 million is needed annually to upgrade the rental housing supply in the Capital Region. The organization stresses that its estimates are “conservative.” ALTHOUGH THE FIGURES APPEAR DAUNTING, Mayor Lisa Helps believes the region is making progress. The missing piece of the complicated puzzle, she feels, is federal funding. “In 1989 the federal government spent $114 per Canadian on affordable housing and in 2014 the federal government spent $15 per Canadian on affordable housing. At the same time, the population of Canada grew by 30 percent, so that is the root of the problem,” she says. She notes that the new federal Liberal government has made significant commitments to housing, but says it’s a challenge to make up for the 30-year gap in federal funding. While there is abundant construction around the region—including new, market-price rental units being built for the first time in decades—it isn’t enough even for the newcomers arriving. Helps notes that between 2011 and 2016 a total of 5775 new residents moved to Victoria, but only 2802 new housing units were built. (Victoria averages 1.8 people per household, so the math shows a shortfall of over 700 units.) And the new units have not reduced rental rates on older units. “There is so much demand, landlords are charging almost the same for old stock as for new stock,” explains Elliott of the Coalition to End Homelessness. “So, yes, we are seeing a lot more construction, but no, it’s unlikely that homeless or low-income individuals will be able to take advantage of that increase in supply.” A 1970s one-bedroom rents for as high as $1100 or $1200 a month, he says, “and that is about a five-percent increase compared to last year.” Helps believes that all the construction, along with other steps being taken by the City, Region and Province will lead to some relief in the next couple of years. The BC government, for instance, in the wake of Victoria’s tent city, spent more than $25 million to buy and renovate properties, creating about 190 spaces. It also announced another $45 million for housing projects that will provide 510 units for those with low to moderate incomes. At the regional level, Helps points to the CRD’s Regional Housing First Program, with $30 million coming from taxpayers and $30 million from the Province. That program will see 880 new rental units built over the next five years with rents ranging from $375 a month to 85 percent of the market rate. She says the first two buildings have already been approved for funding, and will include 50 units to be rented at $375 a month. Helps also points to moves by the City: Council just voted to allow garden suites in single-family zones; applications for rental buildings are being fast-tracked; and developers are being encouraged to include affordable units when going to council with a project. “We are on the right track,” she says, adding, “We have got all the things we need in place except federal funding for housing, so hopefully that will flow.” Meanwhile, those working in the housing field are delighted to see the issue topping party priority lists during the provincial election campaign, and are keeping their fingers crossed that promises will translate into concrete action after the election. The Liberals are promising to build 5000 more units of affordable housing over three years, with $855 million for social housing; expand the existing home renovation tax credit to help homeowners add rental suites; and close loopholes landlords use to evade rent controls. The NDP is promising to use partnerships to build 114,000 rental, social, student residence and co-op homes over the next decade, and pledging to bring in a $400-a-year tax rebate for renters together with additional protections from landlords who use renovations as an excuse to sidestep rent increase rules. The BC Greens are promising $750 million a year to support construction of about 4000 new units of affordable housing annually, an investment of $100 million a year for retrofits of older units and more protection for renters through the Residential Tenancy Act. Kathy Stinson, Victoria Cool Aid Society CEO, is encouraged to see not-for-profit groups and different levels of government working together. “Even some of the private developers have committed to putting in five percent of the units as affordable housing,” she says. “I am more optimistic than I have been for some time.” But the question for those looking for somewhere to live, without handing over more than half their paycheque every month, is whether the various initiatives will be translated into bricks and mortar in time to prevent their slide into homelessness. This article has been updated. In the original version, we quoted Mayor Helps as stating that the federal government spent $15 per Canadian on affordable housing in 2014. Helps says the correct number is $58 per Canadian. Judith Lavoie is an award-winning journalist specializing in the environment, First Nations, and social issues. Twitter @LavoieJudith.

We analyzed the climate action strategies of BC’s political parties in the lead-up to May’s election. ON A FRIDAY AFTERNOON LAST SUMMER, after a six-month delay, the BC Liberals released their climate plan. It was a time slot guaranteed to attract the least possible public attention. Still, with announcements that the carbon tax would remain frozen and the 2020 emissions target abandoned, the plan was predictably greeted by charges that Premier Christy Clark had abandoned any pretense of the climate leadership claimed under former premier Gordon Campbell. Thomas Pedersen, chair of the Canadian Climate Forum and founding executive director of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, wrote in an email that the Liberal plan not only ensured that BC would miss the legislated 2020 target, but the Province would almost certainly miss the 2030 target, suggested by its own Climate Leadership Team. He also said it was likely to miss the 2050 target of 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions relative to 2007. “It would appear that Premier Clark has thrown in the towel with respect to taking any serious action on emissions reduction in BC,” said Pedersen, who hopes government inaction will be top of mind in the upcoming election. Indeed, as the May 2017 election looms, there’s an increasing appetite among voters to understand what measures are needed to address one of the primary social and economic problems facing the Province and the world at large. Marc Lee, senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said there is little that could be called leadership and not much of a plan in the Liberal Climate Leadership Plan. “It’s more a glossy public relations document. For the most part they have delivered an advertising campaign that promotes them as a climate leader when, in fact, there’s almost nothing in that plan,” he said. It’s a view vehemently denied by Environment Minister Mary Polak, who insists the Liberals have not abandoned climate change, but are being practical. BC is already “way out in front” when it comes to a carbon tax, Polak said in an interview. “The last time I checked, if you are in front, you are not following anyone, you are leading and we are leading by a lot,” Polak said. The Liberal plan calls for BC to wait until other provinces catch up to the $30 per tonne carbon tax before increasing the level to $50 by 2022, as mandated by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Polak pointed out that BC already has some of the lowest per capita emissions in the country because of clean hydropower. According to Environment Canada figures, the 2013 emissions per capita for BC were 13.7 tonnes, compared to the Canadian average of 20.7 tonnes per capita and a whopping 66-plus tonnes per capita in Alberta and Saskatchewan. However, BC is slightly above per capita rates for Ontario and Quebec. The relatively good performance makes it difficult to shave off emissions, Polak said. “The kind of emissions reductions we are going to get in BC are a lot of work to find. It’s a little like watching one of those programs where people compete to lose weight. If you are the person who is quite large, the weight drops quite quickly. If you are trying to drop the last 10 pounds, it’s difficult,” she said. IN CONTRAST TO THE MIDSUMMER DOLDRUMS announcement from the Liberals, provincial New Democrats, with well-publicized support from several environmental organizations, announced details of their climate action plan in February. They promised to, among other things, unfreeze the carbon tax and set emissions targets for 2030 and 2050. “I am sure it will be an issue in the election and we were more than happy to put out our plan well in advance of the election. We want people to know we have a plan and that we care,” said George Heyman, NDP environment spokesman. “It’s not a question of the environment or the economy. It’s a question of a strong economy based on strong action on climate change.” Citing a study by Clean Energy Canada and Navius Research on the implications for jobs and the economy if BC met its 2050 climate target, the NDP plan states: “Climate leadership will create 900,000 new jobs between now and 2050 and provincial GDP is expected to nearly double to $425 billion a year by 2050.” New Democrats would increase the carbon tax from $30 a tonne to $50 a tonne by 2022—estimated to cost consumers an extra 4.4 cents per litre, meaning a total of about 11.4 cents a litre carbon tax—and would start phasing in the increase in 2020 instead of 2021 as required by the national carbon price. The NDP have made climate action a central plank of their platform. This contrasts to 2009 when they campaigned against a carbon tax. Leader John Horgan, while describing how the party views have changed since then, managed to accelerate the issue to the front burner with promises of a rebate cheque for 80 percent of households as the carbon tax increases, followed by direct investment of the tax proceeds in projects such as transit, infrastructure and clean technology. The NDP plan notes that right now “Less than 40 percent of BC families get a rebate from Christy Clark’s tax.” The bulk of the proceeds from the carbon tax—65 percent—go to corporate tax cuts. Adding drama to the climate action differences, BC Green Party leader Andrew Weaver, a noted climate scientist, is playing his cards close to his chest and holding back on releasing his plan. “We are not going to release the plan early because we have two parties that are out of ideas and, every time the BC Greens put something forward, they co-opt it as theirs. We will do it in due course,” Weaver said in an interview. When the BC Green’s roadmap to addressing climate change is released, it will certainly be better than anything that is currently on the table, he assured Focus. “The Liberals have no plan and the NDP plan is that we will do something in 2020…It’s clear they are just kicking the can down the road and they won’t be held accountable for anything because it’s 2020,” said Weaver, adding that there has to be new thinking to replace three decades of failing to meet targets. FOR THOSE WITHOUT A SCIENCE OR CLIMATOLOGY BACKGROUND, what are reasonable targets and how can the average voter assess the balance between economic interests and fighting climate change? It’s a question that Andrew Gage, West Coast Environmental Law Association staff counsel, has attempted to answer with a score card comparing the Liberal and NDP plans. Overall the NDP plan received a B and the Liberals received an F. “The BC NDP’s climate plan suffers from a lack of detail, which is understandable given the more limited resources of an opposition party. It is a promising start, which will need to be fleshed out further if the party wins the election in May,” he wrote. The BC Liberals, on the other hand, he stated, “seem to have dropped the mantle of climate action that their former leader, Gordon Campbell, had taken up.” In an interview, Gage explained that, provincially and nationally, governments have had a tradition of setting targets with no plans to get us there. Time is running out, he noted, yet the Liberal plan will not reduce emissions until after 2030. His scorecard shows that the Liberals, although they met the 2012 targets, failed to meet the 2016 target and will fail to meet the legislated 2020 target. “The government’s plan does affirm the 2050 target of an 80 percent reduction in emissions, but identifies no path to achieving it,” the score card notes. The NDP plan also aims to achieve the 2050 target but proposes a new 2030 target of 40 percent reduction. The NDP will also create new targets for different parts of the BC economy, such as transportation, industry and home building, the report card notes. On the job creation front, WCEL gives the NDP a B because it “recognizes the synergies between building a new type of economy and job creation” and its willingness to divert carbon tax revenue into transit, building retrofits and other measures to reduce carbon pollution. The Liberals earn only a D: “The Liberal plan assumes that job creation lies in conventional industries, and does not fully realize the job creation potential of moving towards a sustainable economy.” Gage noted that BC’s carbon emissions are on an upwards trajectory, and that the Liberal plan relies largely on forestry measures—ranging from tree-planting and fertilizing forests to increase the amount of carbon they can store, to using wood for building rather than pulp and paper. Polak, when asked about this, argued that the government’s aggressive actions on forestry will save about 11 megatonnes annually. The government is aiming to reduce annual emissions by 20 megatonnes by 2050. And, she insisted, emissions are not continuing to rise. “What we have seen is a slight uptick and then a slight downturn in the following years. The trend line is still down and we would like to see it going down more,” she said. Provincial figures show that in 2014—the latest year for which data is available—BC’s emissions had dropped by about 5.5 percent from the 66.3 megatonnes of emissions in the baseline year of 2007. However, there has been a 2.7 per cent increase since 2011. To Polak’s complaint that the NDP plan gives no details on how to achieve targets, Heyman told me the NDP plan lays out the framework and, if elected as government, one of its first steps will be to reconvene the Climate Leadership Team—adding labour representatives to the mix of environmentalists, academics, First Nations, community and industry representatives—to recommend how to cut emissions sector by sector. THE CLIMATE LEADERSHIP TEAM was put together by the Clark government in May 2015 with a mandate to provide recommendations on updating the Province’s climate action plan and advising government on policies needed to meet emissions targets while maintaining a strong economy. The members were a who’s-who of the academic, environmental, First Nations, business and community sectors, with members such as Pedersen, Matt Horne of the Pembina Institute, Merran Smith of Clean Energy Canada and David Keane of the BC LNG Alliance. Remarkably, in November 2015, the team released a blueprint for reducing carbon pollution and reached consensus on 32 recommendations, with only one key recommendation on increasing the carbon tax by $10 a year starting in 2018, having a dissenting opinion from one member. The recommendations included reaffirming the 2050 target of 80 percent reduction in emissions below the 2007 level; a 2030 target of 40 percent reduction, broken down through the transportation, industrial and building sectors; expanding coverage of the carbon tax to all emission sources; amending the Environmental Assessment Act to include the social cost of carbon; amending the Clean Energy Act to increase the target for clean energy to 100 percent by 2025; phasing out diesel generation in remote communities; reducing fugitive and vented methane emissions; and development of a low-carbon transportation strategy. The plan seems to have been removed from the web and Tzeporah Berman, a member of the team, said “Not a single recommendation was accepted as we designed it.” She also told Focus that the NDP has been consulting with team members and, although there is no plan to take up the team’s original recommendation of a $10 carbon tax increase by 2018, the plans appear positive. She feels it makes sense to harmonize carbon tax increases with federal pricing and simultaneously increase regulations to meet emissions reduction targets. Berman also noted that, “The evidence is showing regulations in California, like zero emission vehicles and tighter low carbon fuel standards are having a bigger impact than price, ” and that both are needed to meet targets. Polak disputed the claim that her government has ignored all the recommendations. “The plan we announced, which is only phase one and will get us 25 megatonnes, addresses 19 of their 32 recommendations,” she said. “Where the team was expressing their displeasure was with us not taking the aggressive pricing they wanted us to pursue in our carbon tax and there is good reason for that,” Polak said. Other provinces have to first come up to BC’s standard, she reiterated. THE STICKING POINT for many environmental groups doing comparisons of the climate plans is the Liberals’ inclusion of subsidies for the LNG industry. Provincial numbers show natural gas accounted for 18 percent of the Province’s 2014 emissions, and they will rise if the LNG industry takes off. Polak argues that using electricity instead of natural gas in the production of both oil and gas, reduces emissions while ensuring that jobs are saved. She said that, on the international stage, many jurisdictions are a couple of decades away from viable renewable energy, such as solar or wind, so offering natural gas from BC, which is “the cleanest LNG in the world,” means they are not using coal or diesel. “You have a chance to significantly reduce emissions worldwide,” she said. BC has an emissions cap on LNG facilities, but critics say that although LNG is cleaner than coal, emissions from extraction still make it impossible to count LNG as a clean industry. West Coast Environmental Law’s Andrew Gage said BC’s climate plan must be one of the only ones in the world that proposes to increase subsidies to fossil fuels in the name of climate action, through cheap electricity and infrastructure for LNG and other oil and gas operations. “Making sure the LNG industry has cheap electricity seems to be counter to the goals of a climate plan. When you make sure you have extra ways to extract fossil fuels, I don’t consider it to be a climate plan. It’s more a ‘let’s appear to be doing something’ plan,” he said. Economist Marc Lee described government support for LNG expansion and subsidies, which include a low royalty regime locked in for 25 years, as a massive contradiction. “All of that will completely swamp any benefits that are going to come from this very modest plan,” he said. As for the NDP, leader John Horgan has said LNG projects will be considered only if they are in the right location, First Nations concerns are resolved, and emissions fit within a carbon reduction plan. For Heyman the key is developing clean energy in BC and creating jobs based on a green economy. “If you look around the world, the clean energy sector is thriving…We can do that in BC if we have a carbon reduction plan throughout every sector that is mapped out for years to come,” he said. Weaver, who finds little substance in the NDP plan, does agree that clean energy and green jobs are the key to a prosperous future for BC. “We cannot talk about a climate plan in isolation from an economic plan. That will be our strategy. Our climate plan will actually be our economic plan,” he said. “The economic opportunity of dealing with emissions is the greatest economic revolution humanity will ever experience,” he said. Steve Kux, a climate change analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation, said BC has a long way to go in supporting a clean tech industry, even though it is apparent that those are the jobs that will become more valuable as the world moves away from fossil fuels. “There’s definitely an opportunity. The question is whether or not we are going to see it,” he said. As political parties present their conflicting views of the best way to fight emissions and deal with the changing climate, the Province’s Auditor General Carol Bellringer is looking at whether the Province is adequately managing risks presented by climate change. Unfortunately, her report will not be completed until after the election. So British Columbians will have to weigh the different visions before heading to the polls. Andrew Gage is hoping people will vote for the kind of future they want to see for our planet and communities. “Climate change has always been an issue that the more you understand about it, the more upsetting and scary it gets,” he said. Judith Lavoie is an award-winning journalist specializing in the environment, First Nations, and social issues. Twitter @LavoieJudith.

Environment Minister Polak cancelled South Island Aggregates’ wastewater discharge permit, but will the bad taste left behind impact the provincial election? CHAMPAGNE FLOWED in Shawnigan Lake village in late February as elated residents celebrated Environment Minister Mary Polak’s decision to cancel the provincial permit for a controversial contaminated waste site upstream from the lake that supplies their drinking water. “We were celebrating with champagne and hugs and even a few tears. After an hour-and-a-half there were five empty bottles of champagne. This celebration has been a long time coming,” said Sonia Furstenau, Shawnigan’s director on the Cowichan Valley Regional District board and a Green Party candidate in Cowichan Valley. However, Polak’s decision, although a major victory, is not quite the end of the war that came to a head in 2013 when the Province issued a permit allowing Cobble Hill Holdings to store up to 100,000 tonnes of contaminated soil a year on the Stebbings Road property. Until the soil is removed, residents will be keeping a wary eye on the weather wondering if rain or snow will bring poison flowing into the adjacent stream and, over time, into Shawnigan Lake. “It’s not the end. We need to get the soil removed,” said Furstenau, who has been at the forefront of the community battle. Provincial tests showed that, late last year, nine metals exceeded drinking water guidelines, and concerned residents are adamant that Polak must ensure the site is completely cleaned. In January, BC Supreme Court Justice Robert Sewell referred the case back to the Environmental Appeal Board after he found Cobble Hill Holdings had given “false and misleading” evidence about the company’s relationship with Active Earth Engineering Ltd, which conducted the site’s technical assessment, but also had an ownership interest in the operation. That made it clear that the entire premise for choosing the site was flawed and unreliable, said Furstenau, who wants to work with the provincial and federal governments to clear the site. “It was the federal government who sent contaminated soil from CFB Esquimalt to this site, even though they knew there were significant problems” Furstenau said. “They need to come and get their soil and take it away.” Polak, who previously suspended the permit in January after the company failed to provide the ministry with sufficient information or security bonds, said Cobble Hill Holdings still has responsibility for the site and ministry technical staff will decide what actions are necessary. “All contaminated soil is not created equal, so the appropriate treatment of that soil will be determined in conjunction with the work that our staff will do,” Polak said. And if necessary, the Province will not hesitate to take legal action, she said. However, lawyer John Alexander, who acts for Cobble Hill Holdings, warned that people should not jump to conclusions. “I have not had a chance to review and understand the minister’s decision yet, but there should not be an assumption that there is any remediation required,” he said in an email. “This comes as a shock to the company after it worked hard to answer the ministry’s concerns within the time provided,” he added Meanwhile, the long battle over the dump will inevitably be an issue in the provincial election. Furstenau’s opponents include Liberal Steve Housser, who also fought the Province’s decision to allow the dump. He’ll likely face residual anger against the Liberals in Shawnigan for the government’s lengthy reluctance to step in. But Housser is hoping his personal credibility and willingness to speak out strongly against the project, combined with Polak’s recent decision, will outweigh that anger. “The government did not know at the time that they were dealing with people who would stoop to using flawed and misleading evidence. The permit was given without full knowledge of the characters they were dealing with,” he said. If elected as part of a Liberal government, Housser wants to ensure that no other community is forced to raise money through sock hops and bottle drives to defend itself against its own government in efforts to protect the drinking water supply. “There should be an understanding that a watershed that people depend on for drinking water should be off limits for contaminated material,” he said. It’s certainly a concept supported by Furstenau, who emphasizes that water safety should be a concern for communities all over BC and a priority for government. The Liberal government has failed to adequately protect water in the province, largely because of lack of enforcement and weak compliance regulations, she said. The Cowichan Valley seat has been held for the last eight years by New Democrat Bill Routley, who is retiring, and the recently-nominated NDP candidate is Lori Iannidinardo, a Cowichan Valley Regional District director. Iannidinardo said that, through the CVRD, she has been involved in the dump battle from the early days. “Government didn’t act appropriately at all—they shouldn’t have given them a permit. I am running to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” she said. “Our communities have paid one million dollars fighting against our own government.” Judith Lavoie is an award-winning journalist specializing in the environment, First Nations, and social issues. Twitter @LavoieJudith.

The road to election success in BC is paved with pipeline pitfalls. AS THE PROVINCIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN revs into high gear, parties are attempting to cement their own positions on the Trans Mountain pipeline, while searching for cracks and signs of ambilvalence in those of their opponents. When the mix includes heavy oil, coastline protection, First Nations’ rights, jobs, firmly entrenched opinions, and provincial (and inter-provincial and federal) politics, however, getting to a clear position seems not perfectly straighforward. Just ask former NDP leader Adrian Dix about the consequences of unexpected pipeline pronouncements. Dix, who announced his opposition to the pipeline expansion mid-campaign in 2013, shouldered much of the blame for the NDP defeat and particularly the loss of seats in the interior of the province where pipeline construction was expected to generate jobs. Clark’s Liberals, on the other hand, managed to appear to keep an open mind while sowing doubt about the NDP’s ability to deliver a healthy economic future for the province. As 2017 party platforms take shape, however, some question whether the NDP lost votes because of opposition to the pipeline or because Dix was seen to have flip-flopped. The only certainties are that the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion will be an election issue and that all parties will be attempting to emphasize consistency as the campaign gets underway. “I don’t know how many people were annoyed with Adrian Dix because of Kinder Morgan in its own right and how many were annoyed that he was inconsistent,” said Jamie Lawson, University of Victoria political scientist. Today, Lawson added, there is a different economic backdrop and few full-time jobs are at stake, which could affect how people vote. The project, which will triple the amount of diluted bitumen pumped from Alberta’s oil sands to Burnaby, is expected to result in only 50 full-time jobs once construction is completed. The score is Greens and NDP opposed and Liberals almost certainly in favour, with Premier Christy Clark announcing at a news conference, the day after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced federal approval for the $6.8-billion project, that most of her five conditions have been substantially addressed. The conditions include world-leading marine and land oil spill response and prevention, First Nations participation and benefits, a fair share of economic benefits, and successful environmental reviews. Clark said her government is still working with Ottawa on spill response and more assurances on jobs and economic benefits for BC. Clark’s optimism that all conditions will be met was tempered last month by a letter to the federal government from Environment Minister Mary Polak listing 10 gaps in marine spill response. And for British Columbians on the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, that marine spill response and prevention condition is the pivotal issue as concern is centred on the prospect of a seven-fold increase in the number of tankers plying the Strait of Georgia and Juan de Fuca Strait, increasing tanker traffic from five to 34 vessels a month. That concern translates into a potential loss of Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island seats for the Liberals. As Professor Lawson explained, “For the Liberals the worry would be suburban Vancouver and Lower Mainland. The Kinder Morgan pipeline runs straight through rich Liberal territory.” For the NDP, visceral worries about a spill are likely to work in their favour and the party will be helped by leader John Horgan’s understanding of tourism and fishing interests in rural and semi-rural areas, Lawson said. “These are people who are annoyed and worried about more tanker traffic. These are real economic concerns of real people who live outside the latté zone of Vancouver and Victoria,” he said. The NDP is emphasizing that their opposition has been consistent since 2013, but the party is already under attack by the Liberals and Greens for lack of consistency, and a video tweeted on the Liberal caucus website attempts to resurrect the flip-flop accusations. The video features Horgan as a weathervane, switching from a 2013 quote that it was appropriate for Kinder Morgan to go ahead, to current statements that Kinder Morgan cannot go forward. However, the weathervane symbol might also be appropriate for Clark, suggested Lawson. “She has said here are our five conditions and frankly they are five conditions that sound good as slogans, but also work beautifully as weathervane policies. What is a world-class spill protection program? What does that actually look like and what are some of the other elements in that set of conditions? What do they really come down to?” asked Lawson. “It comes down to, it is what the cabinet says it is, which allows them to look very consistent so long as they don’t have to make a decision…The terminology in those five conditions is such that they can approve it or not approve it and say they were consistent with their policy.” George Heyman, NDP environment spokesman, scoffed at the weathervane video and pointed to Horgan’s letter to the National Energy Board listing reasons why Kinder Morgan should not proceed, and his own presentation to the Senate Transport and Communications Committee in September. The New Democrat position on Kinder Morgan has been clear since the last election, he said. “The risk to the environment and the economy is too great and we will use every means available to us, if and when we are elected, to find a way to stop this project,” he said. The Liberals are misleading people about their position by saying there are five hard- and-fast conditions when, in fact, they turned down the chance to do a made-in-BC environmental assessment and agreed to accept the results of the Harper-era assessment, Heyman said. “That was the best tool that BC had and Christy Clark gave that up,” he said. The courts have subsequently ruled that BC must do an assessment and results are expected shortly. Heyman doubts that the NDP will lose votes over its Kinder Morgan opposition, as he believes that most British Columbians understand the economic catastrophe that would follow a diluted bitumen spill on the coast, and he is confident that most party members support the position. There was discussion in caucus about the party’s decision, but there is no division, he said. However, former NDP premier and cabinet minister Dan Miller is among New Democrats who believe the party should be supporting the project. “I am 72 this month and I try to think of my country once in a while,” he said, criticizing people who “set their hair on fire” when any development is proposed. “If the oilsands were in BC, wouldn’t we be looking to export that?” he asked, pointing out that revenues are needed to address pressing issues such as child poverty. While the two major parties hold their ground on opposite sides of the issue, Green Party leader Andrew Weaver is emphasizing that only the Greens have consistently said that heavy oil tankers should be banned from the BC coast because there is no way to clean up a spill of diluted bitumen. It comes down to a matter of trust, and that is what BC voters will be looking for in May, he said. “The NDP have been all over the place on this, and the Liberals have these loosey-goosey five conditions which are a wonderful political calculation, but in terms of them being met, what are the criteria? They have never been outlined,” Weaver said. “I can say unequivocally that the BC Greens are opposed to diluted bitumen in our waters, because you simply cannot clean it up,” said Weaver, who would support going a step further and doing an assessment on diluted bitumen being moved through the existing pipeline. Weaver believes that there are clear signs that the NDP is looking for a way to support the project, possibly by having Kinder Morgan move the terminus from Burnaby to Roberts Bank or to Cherry Point in the US, and pointed to an opinion piece in the Vancouver Sun by former NDP premier Mike Harcourt suggesting exactly that. “Mr Horgan has said at least three times in the past that he supports this project and I think he is seeing how to get to yes, and at the same time alleviate the concerns of the people in Vancouver,” Weaver speculated. Look carefully at words being used, said Weaver, pointing to a statement by Horgan that the terminus of the existing pipe in Burnaby may have made sense in 1950, but it does not make sense in 2017 to have a superport in the heart of Vancouver. “Where he’s going with this, is he thinks this is a big compromise that he thinks he can get a win on,” Weaver said. While the parties scramble for position, however, the final decision may eventually rest with the courts, not politicians, as seven lawsuits challenging the National Energy Board’s report have already been filed and more are expected. Chris Tollefson, University of Victoria law professor and founding executive director of UVic’s Environmental Law Centre, said it is increasingly clear that the process was so flawed that Cabinet did not have the best available science in front of them when they made the decision. “I can predict that we will still be talking about this in two years,” he said. “This is the kind of case that ultimately could well be heard in the Supreme Court of Canada.” Judith Lavoie is an award-winning journalist specializing in the environment, First Nations, and social issues.

While most citizens oppose the bear trophy hunt, BC’s politicians seem reluctant to offend hunters. IT'S AN INCREASINGLY POPULAR CAUSE that, in BC’s politically sensitive, pre-election months, should have the two major political parties tripping over each other in an effort to adopt it as their own. Instead, provincial Liberals are literally sticking to their guns in support of the controversial grizzly bear trophy hunt while the NDP has not yet settled on a position. Polls have consistently shown that British Columbians dislike trophy hunting, a blood sport that sees foreign hunters paying upwards of $16,000 for the chance to shoot a grizzly bear for the sake of a head on the wall or a furry rug on the floor. An October 2015 Insights West poll found that 91 percent of British Columbians and 84 percent of Albertans oppose hunting animals for sport. The margin of error for BC is plus or minus 3.1 percent. But, so far, with the exception of the BC Green Party, those numbers are not enough to spark political support. Instead, a proliferation of diverse non-profit groups are taking up the challenge to protect the grizzly, which has been listed as a species of special concern by the federal Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. Organizations such as Raincoast Conservation Foundation and Pacific Wild have approached the hunt from a scientific perspective for decades, while the newly-formed Justice for BC Grizzlies is appealing to would-be politicians to look at the ethics of killing for sport. Nine area First Nations, who comprise the Coastal First Nations, want to end the commercial grizzly hunt in their traditional territories and, together with Raincoast, have been buying up hunting tenures in the Great Bear Rainforest to reduce the threat to the bears. Another unusual approach is being taken by the fledgling Grizzly Bear Foundation, headed by philanthropist Michael Audain. The Foundation has launched a board of inquiry, holding meetings around the province, looking at threats such as habitat loss, food supply and climate change as well as hunting. The panel will submit a report to government by February. For those who are uncertain how to get involved, the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre, on behalf of the David Suzuki Foundation, has prepared a legal toolkit “Facilitating Public Participation in Grizzly Bear Hunt Management in BC.” The toolkit first addresses the question: Why are grizzly bears important? Grizzly bears, it asserts, “are a vital ecological, cultural and economic resource in BC. They are apex predators that interact with other plant and animal species in their habitats and their population health is therefore a key indicator of the overall ecosystem’s health.” Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics is the latest business organization to become involved and will be launching a campaign this November at its 240 stores around North America. Lush is also producing a 30-minute documentary on the hunt. “I think people will be appalled that, in BC, trophy hunting of grizzly bears is still happening,” said Carleen Pickard, Lush ethical campaigns specialist. Meanwhile, Auditor General Carol Bellringer is looking at whether the government is “meeting its objective of ensuring healthy grizzly bear populations throughout BC.” Bellringer’s report is due this spring, but it is not known whether it will be released before the May election. While the Liberal government is showing no sign of changing course, the NDP is having internal discussions. “A couple of caucus meetings are coming up. Stay tuned…We know this is important and it’s on our radar,” said NDP Environment spokesman George Heyman. Back in the dying days of the last NDP government, in 2001, a three-year moratorium was imposed on the grizzly bear hunt. Immediately after the election, however, it was almost immediately rescinded by Gordon Campbell’s Liberals when they swept to power. Martyn Brown, Campbell’s chief of staff in 2001, said he believes the moratorium was probably lifted by ministerial order, rather than after any in-depth discussion or cabinet debate, and was likely the result of pressure from rural MLAs, many of whom were ardent pro-hunters. “It certainly wasn’t something that was a broad discussion that I can recall,” said Brown, who suspects the issue got lost in the many policy decisions and budget cuts made immediately after the Liberals came to power. Brown believes the grizzly hunt should no longer be ignored and he wants to see trophy hunting banned throughout the province, for grizzly bears and all other species. “It’s [because of] uncertainty about the management of the population and principally the ethical concerns,” he said. “Precious animals and wildlife are being taken for nothing but a trophy. They are not being taken for food or ceremonial purposes, they are simply for people’s self-aggrandizement and whatever twisted, distorted satisfaction they get from killing an animal,” he said. Brown is surprised the NDP are silent as he believes they have little to lose by coming out against the hunt. “If they really thought about it I think they would realize there’s a very small percentage of seats that might be at risk, if any,” he said. “The risks are so minimal and the rewards would be so much greater if they would just stand up and say and do the right thing and say this is a barbaric, out-dated hunt that needs to be stopped,” Brown said. Premier Christy Clark would also have little to lose by restoring the moratorium, Brown said. “But I don’t think the BC Liberals are even slightly interested in revisiting their position because of the likes of [Energy and Mines Minister] Bill Bennett particularly and others from rural BC who are defenders of the trophy hunt ostensibly for its economic value and its importance to rural lifestyle,” he said. Another factor is that the Guide Outfitters Association of BC (GOABC) is a generous contributor to the Liberals, with records showing that between 2011 and May 2015 GOABC contributed almost $37,000 to the Liberals compared to $6,000 to the NDP. The government position is that there is no need to halt the hunt as the grizzly population is healthy, with an estimated 15,000 bears, and the hunt puts money into the economy. “A Scientific Review of Grizzly Bear Harvest Management System,” commissioned by the Province and written by three biologists, concluded that, despite difficulties in monitoring and a lack of sufficient funds, BC’s procedures “have attained a high level of rigor, with a solid scientific underpinning.” The review, released October 18, recommended that there should be more opportunities for public consultation, increased cooperation with adjacent jurisdictions, and that BC should investigate whether conflicts exist between bear hunting and viewing. The Province should regularly be looking at elements such as habitat conditions and food availability and should provide additional funding, according to the review. “The future of grizzly bears in the coming decades will be challenged as the human population in the province increases. Rigorous planning, habitat monitoring, conservative harvest levels and a predictable level of research, monitoring and data research is essential for the continued conservation of this species,” says the report. Steve Thomson, Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Minister, said the recommendations “will further improve grizzly bear management decisions in BC.” The notion that the province makes its decisions based on the best available science is challenged by critics who question both the Province’s population estimates and the economics of the hunt. Estimates of the number of bears in BC’s 57 individual grizzly bear population units usually rely on models, using known population densities from other areas, or the number of bears expected to survive in that particular habitat. The methods inevitably lead to uncertainty and some researchers believe numbers could be as low as 6,000, with kills much higher than the approximately 300 grizzlies killed by licenced trophy hunters each year that the Province reports. In addition to such hunting, a toll is taken by poaching, road kills, destruction of “nuisance” bears, and loss of habitat. A study by Raincoast, Simon Fraser University, the University of Victoria and Hakai Institute found kill limits are regularly exceeded and several sub-populations of grizzlies are on the verge of disappearing. On the financial front, research shows that bear viewing is far more profitable than bear hunting. A study by the Center for Responsible Travel, in conjunction with Stanford University, found that, in 2012, bear viewing groups in the Great Bear Rainforest generated “more than 12 times more in visitor spending than bear hunting.” The same researchers found that bear watching sent $7.3-million to government coffers, compared to $660,500 from hunters, and created 510 jobs, compared to 11 jobs created by guide outfitters. Retired university professor Craig Smith said such facts make the government’s stance completely inexplicable; bear viewing and hunting industries cannot co-exist. Smith recently threw his support behind Justice for BC Grizzlies. “Every bear you shoot is one you can’t view, so they’re killing the viewing industry,” he said. The Province maintains that BC has 100,000 resident hunters—and that hunters and guide outfitters combined put $350 million into the economy each year, a figure involving multipliers questioned by critics—and likely far lower than any comparable number for wildlife viewing. (Minister Thomson admitted in a 2014 legislative committee examining budget estimates that direct revenues from the grizzly trophy hunt amounted to $414,000.) Most hunters are not trophy hunters, of course. “I am a hunter, but I have never shot a bear,” said David Lawrie, a retired Provincial forests engineer and member of Justice for BC Grizzlies. Even the pro-hunting BC Wildlife Federation, with 50,000 members, is against trophy hunting. The Federation supported a bill, introduced last year by Green Party of BC leader Andrew Weaver, requiring all hunters to pack out edible meat from grizzlies and all other animals—which, in a round-about way, would ensure few grizzlies were hunted. “I suspect many a trophy hunter would find it difficult, if not impossible, to pack out several hundred pounds of trichinosis-laden grizzly bear meat across international borders,” he has written. Weaver’s bill died when the session ended and he has since clarified that he is against trophy hunting—making him one of the few MLAs clearly opposing the hunt. Trophy hunting is a “cruel, selfish and barbaric practice that is packaged and sold as sport,” he wrote, explaining that his bill—which was not supported by the guide outfitting industry—aimed to protect the rights of First Nations and resident hunters. Alan Martin, BC Wildlife Federation director of strategic initiatives, would like to see a similar bill reintroduced. “The BCWF only supports hunts that are sustainable and, when the animals are harvested, that the edible parts are taken out. If they don’t do that then it’s not appropriate to hunt grizzly bears or any other animal,” Martin said. “If you are going to utilize fish or wildlife then it should be consumed appropriately and not done just for sport,” he said. Martin also feels there needs to be more work in areas where there is uncertainty about populations and a close look at the effect of non-hunting mortality and changes in habitat, such as in the aftermath of the mountain pine beetle infestation. “If you don’t vary the harvest rates and manage accordingly, it will catch up to you as it has done in the south-east part of our province,” he said. Although grizzly bear meat is often thought to be inedible, as it sometimes carries the parasite that causes trichinosis, BCWF spokesman Jesse Zeman finds it tasty and healthy. The meat has to be cooked to a high temperature, which is why it is best in sausage, pepperoni or burgers, said Zeman, who lives almost entirely off wild fish and game. However, Zeman admitted, there are questions that need to be answered about the sustainability of the grizzly bear population. “That’s the big concern. That’s what keeps people up at night now,” he said. Chris Genovali, Raincoast executive director, however, is not in favour of Weaver’s type of pack-the-meat-out bill, calling it “daft.” “It is simply an endorsement of killing grizzly bears as long as we turn them into sausage or soufflé,” he said. “That’s nothing but a way to hoodwink the public into believing the trophy hunt is a food hunt…That would be worse than doing nothing,” he said. Genovali feels that the growing proliferation of organizations opposing the hunt, including business and tourism groups, shows that it is an issue that resonates with the public and crosses political lines. He finds it disheartening that, towards May 2017’s provincial election, neither the Liberals nor NDP are opposing the hunt. Unless political parties, or individual candidates, come out strongly and loudly against the hunt, there will be limited opportunities for voters to get their views on the subject across on election day. Judith Lavoie is an award-winning journalist specializing in the environment, First Nations, and social issues. Twitter @LavoieJudith.