The Council of Canadians and the GVTA Social Justice Committee are organizing a public forum against Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminals and fracking on November 26 in Victoria.
The public forum will feature Vancouver-based Council of Canadians regional organizer Leila Darwish, as well as Damien Gillis, the co-director of the documentary Fractured Land, and Jeremy Loveday, a Canadian performance poet with a global following.
The Facebook event page says, “The public has heard lots of promises about the economic benefits of a proposed LNG industry, powered by fracking in northeast BC. But are these claims credible? And what sort of environmental trade-offs would the industry bring? From the frackfields of northeastern BC to the many proposed gas pipelines and up to 18 LNG terminals vying for approval along the northwest coast, Howe Sound, Delta, and Vancouver Island, join us as we drill down on the myths and realities of this industry, through an evening of multi-media presentations and film.”
The Council of Canadians is opposing the development of LNG pipelines and export terminals. One key reason to oppose the LNG agenda is the greenhouse gas emissions that would be generated by the industry. A draft report by the consulting firm Globe Advisors estimated that five LNG facilities would release 12 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in addition to 15 million tonnes released from the extraction and shipping by pipeline process. The provincial government had also promised LNGs would generate as much as $100-billion in tax revenue over the next 30 years, but the LNG industry pressured the government for lower tax rates and now the finance minister is vague about how much revenue the industry would really draw for a so-called prosperity fund.
And provincial government figures say that British Columbia drew close to 11 billion litres of water from rivers, lakes and streams for fracking in 2012. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives researcher Ben Parfitt and shale gas expert David Hughes estimate that 582 billion litres of water would need to be removed from the hydrological cycle in order to supply just 70 per cent of the fracked gas capacity of the largest five of the seven LNG projects already approved, though the actual number would likely be much larger.
For Darwish, this upcoming forum in Victoria follows public events in Ladner (October 22), Powell River (November 2), and Courtenay (November 4).
The tour also follows our LNG Pipedreams, Fractured Futures and Community Resistance counter-summit in Vancouver in May and the LNG and Petro-State Politics forum in Squamish in September. We have also supported the Gitxsan land defenders and their Madii Lii Camp (that opposes the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline to the Pacific NorthWest LNG terminal on Lelu Island), as well as the Unis’tot’en action camp (which stands on the pathway of the Pacific Trail pipeline to the proposed Kitimat LNG terminal).
Plans are being made for public forums in Campbell River, Nanaimo and possibly Port Alberni early in the new year.
If you live in the Victoria area, please consider attending this public forum. You can find out more about it on our website here.
