Good Sunday Morning,

Before the industrial age, almost everyone engaged in some form of activity that would contribute to the wealth of society. Farmers and farriers, miners and flour mill workers, shoemakers and fishermen, all combined their skill with a natural resource to create something that offered value to their families, neighbours and communities.

Then the industrial age made it easy to to redistribute that wealth. We pulled it out of the ground and out of the oceans with ever increasing efficiency, processed it in factories and shared it mostly through blue collar jobs. Henry Ford showed us how the economic benefits of primary production and resource extraction could ripple through society as a result of the multiplier effect. I remember an old coal miner coming into my computer store and peeling off 25 one hundred dollar bills. He could barely talk, for talking aggravated his black lungs and induced coughing fits, but he wanted to buy a better future for his daughter.

Good Sunday Morning,

As I walked into the office supply store I recognized the person intently focused on the photocopier. I was there to mail out the 2016 Tax Receipts. (Thanks to all of you who sent us your unsolicited donations last year.) Immediately a smile spread over my face. You see, Donnamae is sort of a legend around here. In her bashful, unassuming demeanor she has earned a reputation as a star canvasser, networker, volunteer, and all round fun person to be around. When Donnamae sees a street corner she recognizes an opportunity to hand out flyers. And that was precisely what she was doing on Friday.

After we shared our usual hug, her excitement about the petition that has exceeded 125,000 signatures just bubbled over. Moving from the photocopier to the paper cutter, she handed me one of the little flyers she was distributing. "There are only a few days left until the deadline," she explained. "And it's the biggest parliamentary petition ever!" Donnamae is quintessentially Canadian. Her deep modesty (she will be embarrassed when she reads this, sorry Donnamae) underlies a devotion and commitment to making our world a better place. It goes to the core of her being and inspires so many of us: "I can't just sit there. I have to do something!" 

Good Sunday Morning,

Stuart McLean has died. Like so many iconic Canadians, the legacy he leaves behind is larger than life. It's larger than Stuart himself because it spoke to so many at the deepest level. As Jess Milton shared in this As-It-Happens interview, "He never let facts get in the way of the truth... His stories connected us, to our country, to each other and to ourselves. He swam in our oceans, he rode our railways, he skated on our ice, and he told us our story over and over and over again until we could really hear it, until it felt really true." We will miss him.

Stuart McLean told us our story. Our story. Not the factual one that we all live day to day but the one we aspire to when we take the time to reach out to a neighbor, help a friend or touch a perfect stranger with our kindness. Stuart gave us permission to believe in a world of love, forgiveness and acceptance. It's a world that so many of us long for, especially in these troubling times when others use their pulpit to legitimize hate and bigotry.

Good Sunday Morning,

What does it mean to find new solutions? How committed are we to the trajectory of the past? Will our future be shaped by inertia or by innovation?

Andrew Coyne started his monologue with the insight that: "Anyone who ever proposes to change anything runs up against the unanswerable objection that this would mean, well, changing things." Real change is what Canada needs to stay ahead of the technological curve that is sweeping the globe. Yesterday thousands of Canadians from coast to coast took to the streets to express their disappointment and outrage about what history may well record as Justin's biggest miscalculation. Elizabeth spoke in Victoria.

Good Sunday Morning,

“We’re going to watch Donald Trump rip apart everything that Barack Obama has put in place,” Kelly Carmichael, the executive director of Fair Vote Canada, was quoted in the The Walrus just after the US election. “That doesn’t happen with a proportional system. We watched the same thing happen here. The Liberals came in and they’re undoing what the Conservatives had done, and the Conservatives undid what the Liberals had done. It’s just incredibly ineffective policy making, and when you look at proportional countries you see continuity. There aren’t massive swings. You can vote people in and out, but a two percent difference in the vote doesn’t mean a wholesale change in government, which is what you see under winner-take-all politics.” As the article points out, "electoral reform is no longer just about improving our democratic interactions. It’s also a way to inoculate our political institutions against the virus that Trump’s election has unleashed—a virus that’s already crossed the border to us."

This week the Liberal government has decided not to vaccinate our democracy against that virus; a reckless gamble at best and a capitulating return to old style, cynical politics at worst. "The Prime Minister and his Minister of Democratic Institutions broke their clearest election promise:" Elizabeth wrote in her weekly parliamentary review.  "To end First-Past-the-Post and install a new electoral system for 2019 that would ensure ‘every vote counts.’ I’ve written about Prime Minister’s Trudeau reckless, cynical decision here.

Good Sunday Morning

It's hard to believe that it's only been one week since Elizabeth gave her amazing speech at the Women's march in Victoria. You can hear Elizabeth describe her experience in this C-FAX interview. Every day the new president has signed executive orders that stunned people around the globe. How many of them will stand the test of time is up in the air but he's making his intentions clear. We have also already been introduced to Alternative Facts and the relationship between the press and the White House is already strained while the science community is feeling the heat. A second clip from this week's CBC science show tells us how Carl Sagan shared our concerns as his words went viral this week: "Science is more than a body of knowledge. It's a way of thinking."

On Tuesday evening many of us attended a presentation and discussion about the Malahat LNG plant proposed for the Saanich Inlet which was kicked off by this documentary called 'Troubled Waters'. This was followed by a compelling presentation by Eoin Finn on the numbers and players behind this Fracked Gas facility. One of the new pieces of information I picked up was that Steelhead is planning to connect with a second fracked gas export facility near Port Alberni that is reported to be three times as large as any existing LNG facility. And we are asked to believe that turning our Salish Sea into a global hub for carbon fuel exports will not prevent us from meeting our Paris targets.

Good Sunday Morning,

This week a piece in the Globe and Mail reported that numbers don't lie.  China is investing $324 Billion in wind and solar over the next five years. That's more than the total capital investment of the entire oil and natural gas sector in Canada. So who is going to buy the expensive dilbit Kinder Morgan is hoping to build pipelines for? Here is the conclusion to the Globe and Mail piece:

"The rising global demand for renewables represents an opportunity for Canada to become a leading provider of clean technology. Our clean-technology sector is already generating exports and creating well-paid jobs while cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. Investments now being made in clean technology innovation, coupled with a road map for pricing carbon, position us to take a greater slice of this rapidly growing global market.

It is vital that we continue to support creation and adoption of new clean technologies in Canada, or we risk losing our competitive edge to countries that are fully committed to a low-carbon economy.  The rush for renewables is happening – and it will continue with or without us. In the long term, failure to embrace this transition really would be economic suicide."

So is it really about shipping low grade petroleum to China or is it all about trying to build confidence in a dying industry? The numbers don't lie. If oil prices go up, solar and wind will become even more attractive for investors. If oil prices go down, the oil sands simply can't compete.

Good Sunday Morning

Kinder Morgan and the Carbon Bubble

The Kinder Morgan expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline can't be built. It makes no sense. Unless you need to keep the old story alive. Unless you need to keep inflating the carbon bubble.

“That’s what is so frustrating — nobody’s interests in this have been served,” Adam told CHEK news. “Not the environment, not people, not industry and the economic interests have not been served.” Adam stands strong in his opposition to this five fold expansion of tanker traffic and explains why the Salish Sea is particularly vulnerable.

Both Adam and Elizabeth were intervenors in the failed NEB process and with your support, they continue their fight to expose the misinformation surrounding this issue.

Economist Robyn Allan wrote last October that Governments are being dangerously mislead: "There is no market for Alberta’s heavy oil in Asia. If markets in Asia ever develop it will take many years and Asian purchasers are not going to pay a higher price for Alberta’s crude than it commands in North America."

And that price is now being undercut by solar. Protests and court cases are great tools to show opposition and slow down the process. But we should also remember to spread the news that this just doesn't make economic sense nor is it in the best interest of Canadians.

Good Sunday Morning,

As we explored last Sunday, we are facing a tidal wave of change. Fueled by the growing recognition that it is critical to the survival of our civilization, this change threatens to undermine the dominance of political and corporate dynasties alike.

About a dozen years ago our very own Ronald Wright warned us about the increasing resistance to change that is the hallmark of a faltering civilization. Easter Island is small enough that the person who cut down the last tree must almost certainly have been able to view his surroundings and know that it was the last one and that there would be no other. He cut it down anyway. Wright documents how in their desperate attempts to cling to the myth of growth and power, even in the face of environmental consequences that spell the end of their dominance, civilizations have migrated towards autocratic rule. He also reminds us that every time history repeats itself, the price goes up. Unlike the civilizations of Sumer, Rome, Maya or Easter Island, our current civilization is global in scope and the stakes are higher than ever.

Good Sunday Morning,

Today is the day when many take the time to contemplate what the future might hold and maybe speculate on some of the opportunities and challenges the new year might bring. Some will take the time to reflect on the past and how much the world has changed. As these thoughts collide it's hard to escape the increasing rate of change that has gripped our world.

The tools I used to run my business in the early 1980s were much the same as the tools my mother used to run my father's business in the 1950s. Change was gradual and established practices ruled the day. For thousands of years we built a civilization on the notion that what we learned from our parents was intrinsically valuable and should be taught to our children. Now Exponential Change Agents have upended that paradigm and the future is much less certain. As Elizabeth reminded us before Christmas when she pointed us to this video by Tony Seba, we are facing a Clean Disruption that is about to hit us like a tidal wave.