Social Impacts

Work on Keystone pipeline scheduled to begin mid-May
Associated Press • February 16, 2009

YANKTON – Work on the TransCanada Keystone oil pipeline in southeast South Dakota is expected to begin in mid-May with several hundred workers using Yankton as construction headquarters for much of the year.
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Spokesman Jeff Rauh says they’ll start in Hutchinson County and work their way south about 130 miles into Nebraska.

The initial work will be locating and marking buried utilities. Other crews will remove topsoil, bury and weld the pipe, and inspect it.

Prentice 'optimistic' gas project will begin soon

Updated Sun. Feb. 15 2009 1:11 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Environment Minister Jim Prentice says he is "optimistic" that work on the controversial Mackenzie Gas Project, which proposes building a pipeline to deliver northern natural gas to Canadian and U.S. markets, will begin soon after numerous delays for environmental and community assessments.

The project was first proposed in 2001 by a consortium of oil producers that includes Imperial Oil, ExxonMobil Corp., Shell Canada and ConocoPhillips.

Global warming 'underestimated'
Sunday, 15 February 2009
BBC News
Prof Field said the IPCC was running behind forecasts

The severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse
than previously believed, a leading climate scientist has warned.

Professor Chris Field, an author of a 2007 landmark report on climate
change, said future temperatures "will be beyond anything" predicted.

Prof Field said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
report had underestimated the rate of change.

Mackenzie pipeline project faces further setback
By Bruce Nichols, Reuters
February 11, 2009

HOUSTON - Regulatory delays have worsened the odds that the $16.2 billion Mackenzie gas pipeline in Canada's far north will ever be built despite a promise of help from Ottawa, TransCanada Corp's chief executive said Wednesday.

TransCanada CEO Hal Kvisle said he is frustrated that the pipeline, which would carry gas to Canadian and U.S. markets from the Mackenzie Delta on the Beaufort Sea, still does not have clearance to go ahead after years of planning and rising costs.

TransCanada CEO downbeat about Mackenzie line
Wed Feb 11, 2009 8:48pm GMT

By Bruce Nichols

HOUSTON, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Regulatory delays have worsened the odds that the C$16.2 billion ($13 billion) Mackenzie gas pipeline in Canada's far north will ever be built despite a promise of help from Ottawa, TransCanada Corp's (TRP.TO) chief executive said on Wednesday.

Temporary foreign workers first to suffer layoffs

Updated Sun. Feb. 8 2009 11:02 AM ET
The Canadian Press
CTV.ca

CALGARY -- Since the economy began unravelling last fall, Thomas has
been getting fewer shifts at the manufacturing company where he works.

The plant was shut down all of last week, and now Thomas and some of his
co-workers are worried they may soon have no job at all.

"We used to send money back home to our families and now we don't even
have money to support ourselves here," he said in Spanish through a
translator.

Human trafficking set to increase for 2010 Games
Tue Feb. 10 2009
ctvbc.ca

One year from now, people from around the world will gather in Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

But as the final plans for Thursday's countdown celebrations are
ironed out -- some fear Vancouver will be welcoming more than just
athletes and fans. There is a concern that human trafficking is set to
increase. And one group is taking action.

Major Brian Venables of the Salvation Army opens the door to room 712 of its latest safe house.

RCMP tap local activists
posted by Jason Youmans
02/11/2009 8:00 AM

It appears the RCMP dragnet to quash 2010 Olympic opposition before it
begins has washed up on the shores of Vancouver Island.

One local business owner says he was approached two weeks ago at the
end of his work day by a man who identified himself as RCMP agent Mike
Smook and who then asked to step inside for a word.

Smook told Dark Horse Books owner Robert Garfat that he was working on
behalf of the RCMP General Investigation Services, although it has

February 9, 2009
Q&A: Energy Independence, Obama and Canada’s Oil Sands
By John Lorinc

“There are two perspectives on the oil sands,” the author Andrew
Nikiforuk says. “You have companies that want to make it the next
Saudi Arabia. The other is that it’s a transitional resource to a low-
carbon economy.”

Andrew Nikiforuk, a journalist based in Calgary, has closely followed
the development of northern Alberta’s massive deposits of bitumen — a
heavy black oil impregnating the sand and soil over hundreds of square
miles northeast of Edmonton.

NDP MP Don Davies drafts bill to ban oil tankers off B.C. coast

By Stephen Hui

*Don Davies*, the NDP MP for Vancouver Kingsway, has drafted legislation to
enshrine in law the federal moratorium that prohibits oil tankers from
plying British Columbia's coastal waters.

"Oil tankers in our coastal waters pose a grave threat to our environment
and sensitive ecosystems," Davies said in a statement e-mailed today
(February 5) to the *Straight*. "The risk of oil spills and damage to our
marine mammals is unacceptable."

In this week's *Straight* cover
story